The Juice is Loose 💉
How social media has increasingly normalized taboo
In August, I highlighted Tyler, the Creator’s thoughts on marketing creative work:
“You went through something. You wrote words down. You figured it out in a structural format. And you mean to tell me that you’re going to be passive with your own sh*t and just put it on your story once?
Are you f**king crazy bro? I’m still promoting my album that came out [last] June! It’s a year out and I’m still out here!”
With this spirit in my mind, I’d like to present you once again with the short film I spent the last couple years working on, Buildin’. If you haven’t had a chance to watch it yet, the film documents a behind-the-scenes look at my time making Creator Mag.
You can check it out here 👇🏻
If you enjoyed the film, consider sharing it with a friend or family member. It really goes a long way in supporting my work!
Alright, with that self-promo out of the way, onto today’s essays—and a rather big life update.
— NGL
P.S. Last blog, I wrote about creating your own mythology, the “library in your head,” and The Truman Show (1998). If you missed it, check it out here.
I think social media (and the internet as a whole) has exponentially increased the normalization of things previously considered taboo—in part due to the pandemic. You don’t need me to tell you that things have gotten weirder over the last several years. But many belief systems and talking points have changed—if not upright upended—since COVID entered our lives, and everyone went inside for an extended period of time.
I'll focus on three things here: steroids, weed, and sports betting. Note, too, that I'm approaching these trends not as either an endorsement or critique; rather, it's an exploration simply spawned from curiosity.
Regarding steroids, I recently read a great piece by Rosecrans Baldwin* in GQ called “Why is Everyone on Steroids Now?” which starts with this banger of a hook:
“Someone in your life is using performance-enhancing drugs. I feel comfortable making that bet because I recently discovered how many people in my life are using performance-enhancing drugs.”
Baldwin spent several months speaking with experts and novices alike, finding that the exponential increase in steroid use (like everything) comes with nuance. On the one hand, yes, people have been abusing the drug in pursuit of getting huge for decades—often with knowledge of its glaring consequences.
On the other hand, conversations around steroids’ benefits have created an entire sub-niche of fitness creators, podcasters, and online forums. For example, one user Baldwin spoke with, a trans man who works as a trainer, said that many bodybuilders—who carry the stereotype of being “meatheads”—actually have a lot of sympathy for the trans community. “After all, one way to support trans people is to defend an individual’s right to alter their body with hormones,” Baldwin writes.
Now, don’t mistake the journalist’s reporting as advocacy. He also recounts a harrowing story from another user who found a “golf-ball-sized lump” in his quad, headed to the hospital after fainting, and still returned to injecting the next day.
But it all begs the question: why now? Well, there's a reason that TikTok had over 20,000 videos posted with the hashtag “natty or not”—where creators ask other fitness personalities if they use steroids—in May alone.
It's because there's money to be made in looking fit, and a cottage industry of feeding the growing intrigue in “performance-and-image enhancing” drugs. As one lawyer dryly told Baldwin, “social media put steroids on steroids” as people began returning to the gym in earnest and pulling out their phones.
Regarding weed, a widely-cited study published in 2020 found that adolescents who post on social media (or “check in”) multiple times a day were nearly twice as likely to smoke or vape within the next six months as those who minimized their screentime—or stayed away altogether. The researchers found that exposure to content like “vape tricks” and marijuana product advertising contributed to this rise.
Things were already trending in this direction before screentime spiked during the pandemic, and forty-eight percent of studies have found that weed consumption increased from 2020-2022 (with many citing declining mental health as an impetus). Additionally, fifty-four perfect of Americans live in states that have legalized recreational marijuana use as of February 2024.
Why does this matter? Well, American culture’s general adoption of (if not indifference towards) weed has led politicians—including Kamala Harris and Donald Trump—to indicate their support for federal legalization, which is largely popular.
Last month, Trump said “it is time to end needless arrests and incarcerations of adults for small amounts of marijuana for personal use.” This is a stark reversal from his 2016 campaign (when he said that legalization “is bad and I feel strongly about that”) and the actions his administration took (mainly upholding federal prohibitions, a traditionally conservative stance).
Finally, regarding sports betting, the entire sports media landscape has shifted due to mainstream acceptance. Nothing signals this more than the launch of ESPN Bet in 2023. When the Worldwide Leader in Sports (which is owned by the notoriously family-brand-conscious Disney) condoned betting, an explosion of decentralized partnerships with podcast hosts and social-first creators finally felt legitimized.
Speaking of which, a growing number of creators justifying sports betting as an alternative form of “investing”—instead of what it is, which is gambling—has emerged. While incredibly irresponsible, I do find it hard to blame the individual kids trying to make a quick buck on shortform platforms when the people and personalities they look up to are signing lucrative deals with the DraftKings and FanDuels of the world.
Look no further than the All the Smoke podcast, hosted by ex-NBA players Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson—and part of the “DraftKings Network.” The duo welcomed on Kamala Harris last week, an interview that made its way up the information ecosystem to my mom, who sent it to me.
I texted her this back:
A vice president and presidential nominee goes on a podcast hosted by ex-NBA players and distributed by a gambling company's podcast network. I wonder how people in 2014 would react to that sentence.
Again, none of these observations on normalization were intended as endorsements or critiques. I'm just genuinely fascinated by how the year 2020 and the coinciding creator revolution will shape culture for the next decade—and beyond.
I think I haven’t completely lost it (yet). Over the summer, a basketball creator named Devin Williams released the third version of his “Silent Basketball.”
The product’s been a runaway success, as the pitch is simple. It’s a full-size ball that you can dribble quietly indoors at home (so kids don’t piss off their parents) or at your workplace (to get those reps in between meetings).
I’ve chatted with Dev’s cofounder Navin a couple times, and he promised he’d send me their latest ball once it was out. And, well, it arrived this week, so I naturally decided to give it a whirl:
My handles certainly aren’t what they used to be, but I surprised myself with some Figure 8s nonetheless.**
The small victory was short-lived, though. As soon as Vicky saw the video above, she made sure to let me know it gave “major Peaked in High School energy.”
I think sidewalk tacos are the only way to eat tacos. One of the first times I visited my friend Andrew in Los Angeles, we were getting some toiletries at a Target when we noticed a taco stand on the sidewalk in front of the store.
They looked delicious, and as two lanky boys always down to grub, the decision was an easy one.
The Target Taco Night became a legendary one steeped in lore. But as it turns out, anyone from Los Angeles can tell you that these stands are a staple of the city, and popular joints typically have lines up and down the sidewalk on a daily basis.
The rule of thumb is clear-cut for what makes a Sidewalk Taco Stand rise above its peers:
It needs to be on a sidewalk in front of a major chain store. How else are people going to know what stand you’re referring to? I’m biased, but my favorite is the Venice Whole Foods Parking Lot Tacos.
Tacos can’t cost more than $3 each. My general rule of thumb: The cheaper the taco, the better the taco.
They need to have a huge chunk of Al Pastor pork spinning in front of an open flame—and a giant knife-wielding chef to cut it up. Bonus points if the chef shaves the pork with one hand, catches it with the tortilla in the other, and flicks a chunk of pineapple in to top it off.
The chef needs to have staged at another stand. A new spot opened up on my street over the summer, and they mentioned I was their first customer when I stopped by on the way back from the studio one day. Seeds of doubt turned to instant trust—as well as an order of three tacos and one horchata—when the chef told me he’d trained at the Venice Whole Foods Parking Lot stand.
I’ve had “fancy” tacos in restaurants before, yet after living in L.A. these last nine months and regularly heading to our local spots, I think nothing will ever top a sidewalk taco.
I think this is a better form of transportation than airplanes. Vicky and I were packing up our apartment in Los Angeles yesterday when I turned around and noticed she’d disappeared.
I subsequently received unsolicited feedback from my family group chat regarding the best way to ship a human, as flights have been looking expensive of late and I could afford to save a dollar or two. My brother gave the best feedback:
Poke some holes in the box first so she can breathe
I like to leave also something nutritious like oats or something when I’m shipping people
Wise words, Jake.
I think I'll keep writing this. I promised myself two things when I started this blog up in August.
The first was that I wouldn't repeat an essay topic, which would register as a sign that there's only so many original ideas to think about and I should probably call it quits. I have officially broken this promise, as I wrote about this exact same topic in Week 2.
The second was that I would keep writing this until my film came out, and after that, I'd check in sporadically without much of a regular cadence.
There's a chance I gravitate towards the latter route, as life has gotten a little crazy of late and I'm going to be on the road for the next several weeks. But who knows—I like the little weekly space I've created, and all the conversations and catch-up calls it's led to with family and friends.
So yeah, I left L.A. today after living there for the last nine months. It was pretty abrupt—and not exactly how I pictured things would end.
But life moves on, and I've learned to embrace change and keep moving forward. I enjoyed my time out west a great deal, and now, I'm turning my attention to the next slate of challenges (and adventures) ahead of me.
The first of which: another cross-country road trip. If you're reading this on Sunday, Vicky and I are probably en route to the Grand Canyon before heading up to Zion and Moab over the next couple of days.
Any and all hiking recs are appreciated :)
Thanks for reading! And shoot me a reply or DM if anything resonated with you in particular—I respond to them all.
* Baldwin is an incredibly talented journalist, and I highly recommend his book Everything Now (2022)—it's one of my favorites reads from this year.
** I promise I didn’t ask anyone to record me doing this. I just get excited by shiny new objects, and when I looked up, my co-worker Jesse just so happened to be filming me for the nature documentary he’s been working on.