R.F. Kuang, bestselling author of Yellowface, joins Offline to discuss cultural appropriation, the flatness of social media friendships and feedback, and the tortured relationship between literature and technology. Kuang recounts how pandemic doomscrolling destroyed her attention span, the book she wrote as a result, and how she’s reclaimed her focus and social life since. But first! Jon is FINALLY back from his two weeks of paternity leave—he and Max break down how Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy ran their campaigns like a 2016 meme war. Then, they compare the unsettling voice of AI Dean Phillips to the unsettling voice of human Dean Phillips, and unpack why no one is happy with Substack these days.

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