Sunday Desk | When We Stopped Watching Together
On paywalled Olympics, free outrage, and the disappearing spaces where strangers became neighbors
On Thursday, I saw photos of the second family in Milan for the Winter Olympics. My first thought was, “Oh, the Olympics start this weekend.”
On Friday morning at the gym, my coach—armed with his incredible talent for small talk—asked the 6:30 AM class, “Who are you rooting for in the Super Bowl?” I thought, "Oh, the Super Bowl is this Sunday."
I had no idea the Super Bowl was happening. No idea who was playing. And judging by the lukewarm response in a class of 10, I wasn’t alone. Sure, a few die-hard sports fans discussed their predictions. But most people? Meh. The Super Bowl.
Someone asked about party plans. Silence. Special recipes? Nothing. The classic conversation about commercials came up, but even that was dismissed—yeah, but you can watch them online anyway. Nobody seemed excited. Nobody seemed to care.
It kind of made me sad.
The Feed vs. The Game
I went about my day, did some work, and late that morning opened X. As most feeds do, the algorithm immediately pushed whatever was trending, account after account—this time mostly left-leaning—all sharing the same screenshot, all saying some version of: “The President just posted this. This is disgusting and racist.”
The image showed what appeared to be an AI animation of Barack and Michelle Obama depicted as apes. Without question, if that’s all there was to it, the post would be objectively racist and offensive in any context.
But my immediate reaction wasn’t “oh no, I was duped for all these years. Trump is, in fact, a racist.”
My immediate reaction was, “This is weird. This is offensive. Something is missing. I need to investigate.”
So I did.
Following the trail
I have a Truth Social account purely out of necessity—I never spend time there. But I scrolled through the President’s feed. Scroll, scroll, scroll. I couldn’t find the image of the Obamas as apes.
Then I saw a very short clip on X that appeared to be a screen recording. For a split second, you see Michelle and Barack Obama depicted as dancing monkeys, then a quick jump to what looked like a completely separate video, as if the recording had bounced back.
Curious, I went back to Truth Social and found a video that resembled the clip that followed that monkey image. (The post has since been removed.) I watched it, a minute-long video about elections and voting machines being hacked or something. Honestly, I can’t even remember the content because I wasn’t paying attention to the actual video.
At the very, very end, for a split second, another video auto-scrolled into frame, and the recording captured it: Barack and Michelle Obama dancing as apes, which was spreading across social media as a still shot.
I immediately suspected what had happened. The President posted a video without watching it all the way through, not realizing that it was a screen recording that, when it auto-scrolled to the next video, captured that auto-scroll. It’s a common mistake that many of us who create content online make. It’s an even less surprising mistake for a boomer to make while posting without discipline, which is exactly what the President is.
My questions were answered. It was exactly what I suspected. I sighed in frustration, closed the app, and moved on, because when you're in this business, you cannot let yourself be enraged by everything.
The story everyone wants to tell
By the time you’re reading this, you’ve probably seen multiple think pieces about this particular incident. Evidence of Trump being racist. Evidence of the problem with politicians on social media. The degradation of our political discourse. Media literacy. There are so many angles to take, and everybody was talking about the President's post.
Some dismissed it as frustration with his lack of discipline on social media. Others were frustrated that the initial White House response from Karoline Leavitt was dismissive instead of just admitting the mistake.
But there was also a clear motive from accounts on the left to remove all context from that video. Suddenly, none of these people—who live essentially on social media, who create content exclusively for social media to communicate, push narratives, share opinions—seemed to have any understanding of how auto-scroll and screen recordings work?
I can tell you that’s bogus. As someone who spends every single day on social media downloading clips (my preference, because you can avoid accidentally recording something inappropriate), I’ve made this exact mistake. I’ve forgotten to trim the end. I hate it when I forget to trim the end, even if it just shows my interface buttons, because it doesn’t look clean.
As a social media content creator, I immediately knew what happened. I also immediately knew what the left was doing. And I was equally disappointed in the White House’s initial response.
But then I had a different thought.
What we’re fed vs. What we have to find
You might be wondering why I mentioned the Olympics and the Super Bowl at the beginning. Here’s why:
It made me sad that I didn’t know the Super Bowl was this Sunday. That I was unaware the Winter Olympics started this weekend. But everyone seemed immediately aware of this social media post.
I thought back to my youth, when the Super Bowl was an event people gathered for, with friends, with family, just to hang out. Even if they weren’t interested in the game, even if they weren’t sports-focused like I’m not, they’d get together. It was time to be in community, to razz the opposing team, celebrate for your team, share recipes, and laugh at the ads.
Now? The excuse, “I go just to watch the ads,” isn’t a reason to go to Super Bowl parties anymore, because “Oh, I’ll just watch the ads online.” The halftime show has become politicized, turning people off from watching. Sports itself has become politicized, turning people away. What used to be an event that unified people—an American pastime where you’d have community and a good time—now gets a collective meh.
We’ve become balkanized. Compartmentalized. Separated from each other.
The same thing struck me about the Winter Olympics. As a kid, you had three channels. Whichever one was carrying the Olympics would advertise them well ahead of time. You’d see the buildup, the ads, the anticipation. We all felt it together because we were all consuming the same media, seeing the same commercials, watching the same channels.
To double-check it wasn't just me—someone who's chronically online and should theoretically know everything—I texted my "normie" friends in my normal group chats. Only two knew before Thursday that the Olympics were opening this weekend, much less that they were being held in Milan. But the Trump post? They'd all seen it. They all had opinions about it. And not one of them knew the full context until I explained what actually happened.
But why didn’t everyone know about the Olympics? Because we consume our media online, on streaming platforms, through algorithms that only feed us what we want to see, we can go about our lives without feeling that buildup of American pride. Without coming together as a nation to celebrate our athletes, engage in friendly competition—America versus Russia, Canada versus Australia, China, whoever. We just don’t have that anymore.
Friday night, I tried to figure out how to watch the Winter Olympics. I opened my Peacock app—NBC’s streaming service—and found it behind a paywall. Granted, I can probably watch it for free during specific broadcast windows, but nobody watches television that way anymore. Frankly, I’m not even 100% sure how to watch my local NBC affiliate live anymore.
The Olympics feel like something that should be freely accessible—at least the live events, even if replays cost money. I’m sure you can find it on YouTube if you dig, but you have to look for it. You have to work for it. You’re not automatically fed how we can come together to watch the Winter Olympics and root for our country.
But you’re immediately fed, for free, that picture from Trump. How racist he is. How horrible the United States is. That’s easy to find. All you have to do is open your phone. It’s one of the first things that shows up on your Facebook feed, your Instagram, your X feed—wherever your social media is, it’s the first thing you see.
You have to be purposefully and consciously offline to not see it.
But to see the Super Bowl? To see the Winter Olympics—positive, inspiring events that could unify people? I have to pay for it or dig for it.
What used to be free
It used to be different. You could just flip on the television and find the Olympics playing constantly in the background. As a child, we’d celebrate together watching people ice skate, do pair skating, speed skating, bobsledding, ski jumping. It would just play in the background for free all day long.
Now, for free, we sit on our phones doom-scrolling, getting fed something that immediately makes you either roll your eyes in frustration or get angry and feel justified in how horrible and racist this administration is.
Both reactions leave you thinking: We’re not meant for this.
The hard work of being informed
Look, I get it. This is the business I’m in. I participate in it too. But I try to be conscious that what I put out isn’t just to rage or upset people. My goal is to provide legitimate information, even though I’ll admit it sometimes filters through my biases. I do my best to inform, not enrage. And I try to teach people how to be informed without me, because you don’t need me telling you how to do this all the time. I want you to be able to do it on your own, at any moment.
Whether it’s from the left or the right, if something immediately raises your blood pressure, I’m telling you: go find the source. Get the full context. Get the story. Or at least follow someone like me who can do it for you periodically.
I’m a one-woman show. I can’t jump through every hoop, answer every question, fact-check every situation. I get many requests, and some I just can’t get to. Which is why I encourage anyone who follows me to learn to do it themselves—one of the reasons I’ve started writing my “Between the Lines” pieces. I want you to understand what’s being done to you so you have more control over being informed rather than just being enraged.
What we’ve lost
We’re no longer in the times of three television stations with rabbit ears that could play the Winter Games or Summer Olympics for free to the public all day long. Those neutral sporting events that were considered patriotic are now either hard to access or politicized. Even recently, Olympians have been asked to express whether they’re ashamed to wear the flag or represent the United States because of the current administration.
Can’t we just play a game? Look, everyone has the right to their opinion and to share it on the public stage. That’s fine. But it would be nice if what was being fed to us for free was bobsledding, football, figure skating, the United States winning a medal—instead of a boomer who isn’t disciplined enough to watch a video all the way through in the late hours of the night before reposting it, as if he doesn’t have more responsibility as the President than the average boomer poster.
That’s the world we’re living in now. And I think it’s worth asking: what are we losing when the things that divide us are effortless to find, but the things that could unite us require a paywall and a search bar?
Weekend reads
Who Watches the ‘ICE Watchers’? (WSJ), An opinion piece examines a City Journal probe of Minneapolis “ICE watchers”—activists tracking agents via encrypted Signal chats, license plate databases, and deadly confrontations. Framed as community safety, these tactics blur the line between civil disobedience and interference.
Inside Minneapolis’s ICE Watch Network (City Journal), Christina Buttons investigated “Defend the 612,” a Minneapolis group of ICE watchers, via their Signal chats. Her reporting uncovers encrypted networks tracking agents with license plates, interference trainings, and organizers framing two civilian deaths as recruitment chances. It questions where community organizing becomes dangerous obstruction—especially when untrained people face armed agents.
Pizza Supreme (Slate) This piece recounts a visit to one of the last classic Pizza Hut diners, featuring Tiffany lamps, salad bars, and waitstaff. Beyond nostalgia, it reveals the loss of true third spaces for community, like first dates or kids’ birthdays. Today, everything prioritizes delivery and takeout efficiency. It ponders what we’ve sacrificed: division comes free, while connection demands a paywall and search.
The Shrinking Space Between Home and Work (Washington Monthly) The disappearance of “third places”—coffee shops, parks, libraries, and bowling alleys where communities form. Surveys show 21% of Americans live in “civic deserts” without gathering spots, and those with less education are twice as likely to lack them. The result? In areas without third places, people are three times more likely to have no close friends. This shows what we lose when we prioritize efficiency over connection.
I love to ruin my books!
I don’t have a library card, and I RARELY lend out my books. Because I love to write in my books. There are some books that I will write in more than others. I will make significantly more notes on a non-fiction or philosophical book than on a fun, easy-to-read fiction book. But even if it is a “fun book” and there is a moment that I really enjoy or a quote that really stands out to me, I wipe out my pen or highlighter and mark it.
Later, I will then revisit the notes and highlights and copy them into my common book. Sometimes they will trigger me to reread the section and I end up adding more notes if it opens up more ideas. Think of it as a conversation with your book.
Anyway, earlier this week I posted a few stories in my IG sharing my favorite tools that I use to annotate my book. No worries if you missed it. Here you go👇
My favorite annotation tools
This list includes affiliate links
Kanmido Fusen Clip Cocofsen - Sticky flags
The fabulous Mr. Burchett
In honor of the Super Bowl, Tennessee Congressman Burchett has some words about Bad Bunny's coming halftime performance.
That’s a wrap
So there you have it: paywalled Olympics, doom-scrolling instead of Super Bowl parties, shrinking third spaces, and activists who’ve confused surveillance with community safety. Just another week in 2026.
Look, I know this one leaned heavier than usual. But here’s the thing—I don’t write about this stuff to make you feel hopeless. I write about it because I think we can do better. We should do better. And that starts with being aware of what’s being done to us, what we’re losing, and what’s still worth fighting for.
The good news? You don’t need an algorithm to find a community. You don’t need a streaming service to connect with people. Sometimes it’s as simple as showing up—to a game watch party, to breakfast with a friend, to your church on Sunday. The third spaces are still out there if we make the effort to find them. Or better yet, create them.
Whatever your week holds, I hope you find a moment to put your phone down and be present. Mark up a book. Make plans with real people. Maybe even watch the Super Bowl—not for the ads, but for the excuse to gather.
And if you need a laugh, watch Congressman Burchett’s take on Bad Bunny. Sometimes the best response to cultural chaos is just to shake your head and smile.
See you next Sunday!
If you enjoy this slower, reflective corner of the newsletter, that’s what Sunday Desk is for.
My husband and I were just talking this week about how there seemed to be little or no hype about the Olympics or the Super Bowl (and we are both big sports fans in general). We also bemoaned the "good old days" of the 70s and 80s when everyone watched the same thing at the same time and you rooted for the USA no matter who the current president was (because really, what does THAT have to do with it?). I too miss that sense of community (and parties) for events and feel like there are some of us, especially on the conservative side of things, that are trying to be offline more and not react to EVERY LITTLE THING the media tells us to. Thanks for all you do to help us get to the bottom of the truth (and encouraging each of us to do it too).
There are lots of distractions now a days and I think there are lots of folks who also forgot the Olympics began this week and the Super Bowl is today. :-)
The Olympics are being broadcasted on NBC; you’d have to look up the programming schedule to catch it (sometimes it’s being shown in the evening, during the work week, the afternoon and in the morning on the weekends). I have one TV with an antenna to catch the free local channels and love it; you can also attach an antenna to most TVs and switch from cable/streaming to the antenna channels by tapping the “source button “ on your remote.
I too LOVE to write in my books (fist bump!) and appreciated your book tools video!
I have learned to “turn off the noise” when I need to because no matter what politics you believe what’s real is; we are all human beings, and if you are nice to me and respectful, I am going to be nice and respectful to you (and look for what we have in common than what our differences are).
My father was a mail carrier and dealt with people from all walks of life, religions and colors and I feel so lucky to have been able to witness his compassion and empathy for others.
In today’s email I discovered a couple of things we have in common and chose to highlight them; they brought a smile to my face thank you.
Have a good Sunday and I hope you get to enjoy the football game through another “lens” and maybe even the halftime show (let’s dance). :-)