📚 Whatcha Reading?
Work updates, reading recommendations, and a spotlight on our very own Joe Trickey!
🤠 Rapid Round Up
🥟 Melissa makes it her full time job to eat dumplings all day. Watch her latest video here!
👻 Sabrina wrote a spooky story and now it’s a podcast! She wrote and directed season 2 episode 5 of iHeartRadio’s anthology series You Feeling This — available here or wherever you get your podcasts.
🎤 YouTube celebrated 20 years and Sabrina talked about it on TV alongside a panel of Canadian creators for Etalk. Watch a cutdown here!
📊 Stand-up Maths tested us, did we pass? Matt Parker tested the ad read progress bars of various creators (including us) to see who is honest and who is manipulating time.
✨ We have new bonus content! Melissa’s dumpling recipes from the video are now yours to try! Perfect for anyone ready to fold, steam, and maybe mildly panic at home. You can check on our website using this month’s password: DUMPLINGS.
🎧 Mixtape
Suburban Girlhood
This month’s playlist is for the folks who grew up in a cul-de-sac and journaled about feelings that were too big for a small town. Whether you’re reliving the drama of high school hallways or just need a soundtrack for staring out the window like it’s raining (even if it’s not), I hope these songs can fuel your main-character moments.
📢 Audience Participation
📱Taha Needs your Screen Time (For Science!)
Taha’s working on a video exploring procrastination, happiness, screen time, and all the weird little ways our phones shape how we feel.
We’re gathering data (like screen time and a few short questions) to help bring it to life. Everything stays anonymous, but it might end up in the video 👀
📚 Book Recommendations
On Our Shelf
Folks have always asked us where we find inspiration and the answer is almost always books. Here’s what is on our shelves that is helping us navigate the world — from economic crises to cultural identities to privacy in a digital age.
Taha recommends The Trading Game: A Confession by Gary Stevenson
This is the best autobiography I have ever read. It feels like a thriller, a political drama, and a true crime novel all at once. It vividly puts you in Stevenson’s shoes as he navigates the insanity, aggression, and hedonism of the Citibank trading floor. While this might be a real-life rags-to-riches story, it’s also a reflection on wealth inequality and an unceremonious depiction of the people gambling with the lives of everyday people.
- Taha
Melissa recommends Third Culture Cooking by Zaynab Issa
If you're looking for a beautiful, cookbook to add to your shelf - Zaynab Issa's inventive recipes will inspire the host within, as well as the ambitious home cook looking for comforting everyday food.
- Melissa
Sabrina recommends The Right to Oblivion by Lowry Pressly
I'm gonna be honest... The writing is a bit wordy BUT if you're willing to stick through it, the concepts can give you a deeper appreciation for the ineffable potential of humanity and personhood in our digital age. Even the first chapter. It'll remind you that you're far more than whatever patterns an algorithm finds in your actions
- Sabrina
Consider pairing one or all of these books with our Reading in Progress bookmark — available in our shop! We still think it is one of the coolest things we’ve ever designed and we just released a new variant!
The original 2 Note edition helps you record your thoughts when you revisit a book, while the new 1 Note edition is perfect for those who want to write one longer review.
Purchasing merch is one of the biggest ways you can support our work financially so consider hitting the button below and buying a bookmark!
NOTE: The bookmarks now come in packs of 10 for $11.50 — not packs of 5 for $6.50. By increasing the amount that comes in a pack, we accommodate rising printing and shipping costs without making each individual bookmark more expensive. We hope you understand and maybe even use this as motivation to hit your reading goal!
🔓 Patreon Unlocked
British Power Hour
As you probably know, we have a podcast exclusively on Patreon where Taha, Melissa, and Sabrina talk about everything from life to production update. Unfortunately, on the usual recording day, Melissa and Sabrina were making dumplings. They thought the podcast recording would be cancelled but the British members of the team had other plans.
We just unlocked this special episode where Taha and Joe (our editor extraordinaire) take over and get nostalgic about storytelling, the creative process, and life before a million tabs. Check out this delightful listen!
If you want to support our work and get access to even more bonus content and aftershows, consider subscribing to our Patreon :)
🔦 Creator Spotlight
Joe Trickey
You got to know Joe in the podast episode, but you should also take a look at his videos! When he’s not working his magic and making sense of Taha, Sabrina, and Melissa’s ramblings, he’s crafting his own hilarious and thought-provoking video essays on his channel.
His latest video, a series of unfortunate events nearly made me a criminal, starts with a simple question about a movie soundtrack, and spirals into a full-blown rabbit hole.
🙏 Thank You
Thank you for subscribing and following our chaotic little journey - see ya next month!
from ur neighbourhood nerds,
Sabrina, Melissa, and Taha <3