emily horne on why edge-lording and outrage-maxxing can only distract for so long
ALSO: people don't want to track everything anymore, telling IG what you want, the annual Uber lost and found index, and more
Happy Friday, June 12th!
FYSA, every Tuesday and Friday, I’ll be in your inbox with the latest in politics, tech & social media, culture, and other relevant topics – and I’ll share some notes and tips on what I’m keeping my eye on.
I’M ALSO LOOKING FOR MORE PEOPLE TO DO MINI INTERVIEWS like the one below :) Tips, thoughts, concerns, good jokes, bad jokes, tea, etc?
And finally, if you enjoy this newsletter and want to share it with your network (and/or your chronically online friends), or buy me a matcha, that would be so appreciated 🙏
Today, we have some texts from the wonderful Emily Horne, who is, among many things, a comms extraordinaire and author of Spin Class here on Substack. Enjoy!
LR: Now that we’re getting deep into primary season… what are the key narratives that you think will define the 2026 cycle? And how should Dem candidates be speaking about them?
EH: The conventional political wisdom says cost of living and AI are the main issues on voters’ minds. But issue-based political surveying doesn’t capture vibes, and the vibes right now across the political spectrum are increasingly “eat the rich/fuck the elites.” I’m more interested in the sentiment underneath policy discussions: the sense of elites at the top forcing change on the rest of us. Unelected tech CEOs changing our futures without our buy-in or consent. The impunity of everything from Jeffrey Epstein to Iran war insider trading to blatantly partisan gerrymandering– all of it feeds this sense of “the people at the top are getting away with it” that is animating so much of this moment.
That means midterm Dems 1) can’t run on a return to the way things were, 2) have to harness legitimate grievances without turning them even more sour, and 3) meet local audiences where they are (even as they’re all clearly road-testing possible 2028 national messages). Jon Ossoff’s “Epstein Class” messaging is, so far, one of the better examples of meeting these objectives.
LR: As an expert communicator in the national security space and in general, how is messaging about conflict, especially when it’s international, different than addressing other issues?
EH: First: when the stakes are literally life and death, that trumps everything else. But even when you’re not dealing with troop movements, hostages, or civilian casualties, you’re keenly aware of the power your words have– not because of who you personally are, but because speaking on behalf of the U.S. government is a massive responsibility.
Like many national security comms pros, I’m a Boucher Rules devotee: former State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher’s one-pager that has sat atop press officer desks for decades. My favorites:
Good guidance can explain the issue to your mother
Know the difference between what you think you know and what you know you know
It’s better to be right than to be fast. You can’t be both.
LR: I know you led global policy comms for Twitter back when it was still the place we knew and loved. These days, in this insane and splintered social media landscape, it seems pretty clear that people on the left and center are losing the social media wars. Can anything – and if so, what – be done to change that?
EH: It’s an interesting question: what are the social media wars for? Does dominance on social media necessarily translate into real-world political power? Like most things, the answer is, “it depends.” Look at the LA mayoral election, where Spencer Pratt failed to turn online dominance into real-world results: because, it turns out, only 15% of Los Angeles voters are even registered Republicans!
Social media dominance is a microcosm of PR generally: if you have a shitty product (or candidate), attention can only get you so far. At some point, you either deliver on your promises or you don’t. Edge-lording and outrage-maxxing can only distract your audiences for so long. Good product, authentic and consistent messengers, and a willingness to engage with your audiences where they are (not where you think they should be) all matter way more than a single viral video or social media campaign.
LR: What is your favorite piece of media that you’ve consumed in 2026 thus far?
EH: Longform: Kerry Howley’s devastating New York article “Could the Girls of Camp Mystic Have Been Saved?”. Podcast: I’m a relatively new “Diabolical Lies” listener, and especially loved their re-examination of #Girlboss narrative and backlash cycles. And Good People is my best book of 2026 so far.
LR: If Spin Class were a coffee order, what would it be?
EH: A large dirty chai latte with this foam art:
ICE has detained over 500 babies and toddlers under Trump
ICE has dramatically increased detentions of children aged 3 and under, holding 25 of them in custody on an average day between January 2025 and March of this year, according to a new analysis by The Marshall Project and MS NOW of records obtained by the Deportation Data Project, a group of academics and lawyers who collect and share federal immigration data. That number is 10 times higher than it was in the previous 12 months under former President Joe Biden. (MS Now, 6/9)
Party over purity: US voters unlikely to turn backs on troubled candidates, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds
The poll gathered responses from 4,531 U.S. adults nationwide, including 546 Democrats familiar with Platner and 712 Republicans familiar with Paxton. It had a margin of error of 2 percentage points for respondents overall and 4 points for Republicans and Democrats familiar with the two candidates. Some 76% of poll respondents, including similar shares of Democrats and Republicans, said they often had to vote for the lesser of two evils in U.S. elections. (Reuters, 6/9)
The rise of the ‘botsitters’
A new report from Glean’s Work AI Institute, produced with researchers from universities including Notre Dame, Stanford, and UC Berkeley, found that white-collar workers spend an average of 6.4 hours a week “botsitting” AI — feeding it context, checking outputs, debugging mistakes, and cleaning up errors. (Business Insider, 6/11 – free version)
Momfluencers Are Pitching AI as a Better ‘Coparent’ Than Men
While most momfluencers concede that the risks to the environment or the human workforce are real, those worries tend to take a backseat to framing AI literacy as a tool of liberation from household drudgery, similar to the invention of the vacuum cleaner or the washing machine in the mid-20th century. “Women already have so many reservations about using this tool,” says Schmidt. “And we just don’t need another one.” (WIRED, 6/8 – free version)
You can just tell the Instagram algorithm what you want now
The company has been slowly giving users more agency over some algorithms on Instagram, having already launched the Your Algorithm feature for your Reels feed and the Explore page. With Wednesday’s announcement, Mosseri is taking the opportunity to get a little philosophical. (The Verge, 6/10 – free version)
Lucy’s note: which now begs the questions… how well do you know yourself?
Gen Zers are arriving at college unable to even read a sentence—professors warn it could lead to a generation of anxious and lonely graduates
The confidence issue is something that Brooke Vuckovic, a professor at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, has seen among business school students. Each term, about 40% to 50% of her students describe themselves as novice or reluctant readers, but once they are encouraged to begin reading, she said, the shift can be immediate. (Fortune, 6/7)
The World Cup will likely be the biggest gambling event in history
The U.S. sports-betting market has matured rapidly since the last men’s World Cup in 2022. About 65% of the U.S. population now has legal access to sports betting, compared with about 40% during the 2022 tournament, according to the American Gaming Association. Sportsbooks have also improved same-game parlays, live betting and soccer-specific products, which could make the tournament more commercially valuable than past World Cups. (CNBC, 6/10)
They Tracked Fitness, Food and Sleep Obsessively. Now They’re Tuning Out.
The gamification of health metrics is more complicated for those experiencing anxiety or related disorders — which the C.D.C. said in 2024 was about one in five people. Adam C. Frank, a professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of Southern California, has studied how wearable devices affect those with obsessive-compulsive disorder. For people with O.C.D., it “can kind of trigger obsessions, and then compulsions,” he said. (NYT gift link, 6/11)
Refinery29 alum Paula James-Martinez launches a new teen magazine
Paula James-Martinez felt that void acutely — as a fashion media veteran and as a mother of a tween she didn’t want on TikTok. So last year she made a half-joking Threads post asking who wanted to make a teen magazine with her. The post ended up getting more than 12,000 likes and 3,000 people emailed her within two days. Cuqui, pronounced like cookie and means cute in Spanish, was practically willed into existence. (La Fronde, 6/4)
The 10th Annual Uber Lost & Found Index
From AirPods becoming an everyday essential, to vaccine cards and face masks taking over in 2021, Ozempic making its way into backseats in 2025, and viral Labubu plushies riding shotgun this year, the Lost & Found Index has become an unexpected time capsule of the past decade. (Uber, 6/2)
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Extra Credit 🤓
Some newsletters I thought were interesting recently:
“How Phia Is Using Its Celebrity-Stacked Series A...On Tik Tok” from Ali Kriegsman of New Motives
If you’ve been here a minute, you know we are Phia stans in this house!
“Boardroom Kids and Optimization Fatigue” from Casey Lewis
The subtitle took me out
That’s all for now – I’ll see you next week!