Episode 11: A Jolly Close to 2023

Happy Holidays Friends! What a year! We hope you’re already horizontal on your couch shoveling holiday treats and binging your favorite seasonal content. In our final episode of the year, we reflect on 2023 and present our very best, unhinged predictions for 2024 (ie. Will Taylor Swift release a video game? Will the “bump” come back into hairstyle trends? *cue internal screams*).

We have a sweeping talk about Ozempic and the obesity crisis more broadly, following Oprah’s announcement that she uses weight loss drugs, and chat on the role of purpose in feeling happier, according to science. Plus! We present a potpourri of topics: An Aussie woman stealing a truckload of donuts, George Santos’s bizarre and questionable transition to Cameo, finding your perfect brow shape, and a prankster of a seal, aptly named Neil.

Bits:

Neil the seal goes viral on TikTok after disturbing residents in Tasmanian town of Dunalley by Taylor Renouf for Perth Now

Neil the Seal, TikTok

Pop Culture:

Australian woman charged with stealing van carrying 10,000 doughnuts by Kelly Ng for BBC News, Singapore

A Guide to George Santos’s Pivot From Politics to Celebrity by Matt Stieb for Intelligencer

Google Year in Search, 2023

News:

How Ozempic could affect the health of the global economy in more ways than one by Ian Verrender for ABC AU

Ozempic Can’t Fix America’s Obesity Crisis by Fatima Cody Stanford and Simar Bajaj for Time

Gen Z and millennials powered a massive live-events comeback that will carry into more concerts and travel next year by Juliana Kaplan and Noah Sheidlower for Business Insider

Content:

Perfect Brows Filter, TikTok

Ozark, Series on Netflix

American Symphony, Documentary on Netflix

The Happiness Lab, Podcast by Dr. Laurie Santos for Pushkin Industries

Stories by Arthur C. Brooks, The Atlantic

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