Happy Monday! 

There’s been a lot of drama online over the past week, which I’ve brought to you below. To counter the bleak vibes, I have an optimistic playlist for you today <3

If there’s anything this year has taught us, it’s that there is virtually no limit to what people will bet on, even when there are lives at stake. 

The latest unseemly prediction market scheme involves betting on clinical cancer trials, the successes (and failures) of which Kalshi and Polymarket users are putting money on. As patients endure one of the most stressful experiences, there are people gamifying their experiences from afar, quite literally gambling with their lives. 

Joshua Peterson, a humanities professor at Boston University and father to a 12-year-old cancer patient undergoing a clinical trial, recently told NPR that “a clinical trial failing is a more sanitized euphemism for ‘people are going to suffer.’”

“People are going to die, people are going to have one fewer clinical option available to them in one of the most difficult medical situations of their entire life,” he continued.

While it comes as no surprise that people are doing this—after all, folks were profiting off of the US military invasions in Venezuela and Iran earlier this year—the proliferation of prediction markets is increasingly compromising the integrity of our systems. This is why silly little bets on Love Island USA or award shows are so sinister in the culture. They help normalize prediction markets, opening the door for darker wagers.

Prediction market companies insist that the work they do is providing a valuable service across industries. A Kalshi spokesperson Jack Such told NPR: "If you want to ban profiting from the failure of clinical trials, you would start with the stock market, where the financial incentive for this type of profit is orders of magnitude larger. While Kalshi and the stock market are the same in this regard, they do differ in one important way: the stock market doesn't give any valuable information to researchers.”

Yet, I have struggled with understanding how, as spokespeople from prediction market companies have posited, these bets are helping provide valuable information. If people are enticed to influence outcomes for profit, it’s hard to feel like the information being presented is totally reliable—even if, like Kalshi says, there are strict safeguards against insider trading. When we incentivize the failure of medical research or the bombing of a foreign country, we contribute to the degradation of our social contract, ensuring that we owe each other nothing. That is a bleak world to live in. 

Historically, I’ve seen pretty positive feedback about Pickle, the clothing rental app that lets users lend items to each other. Although, I’ve always felt it would take a lot of trust to lend out clothes with sentimental value. Now, there are a couple cautionary tales circulating on TikTok that will definitely make you think twice about sharing your clothes with a stranger. 

In the first instance, a woman named Aud (@audbooz on TikTok) lent her blue Hervé Léger bandage dress to a girl who held onto it and ghosted for a month and a half. This led Aud to post a now-deleted TikTok urging the renter to return the item, which she did after the video went viral. As is typical with callout videos like this, things got a bit out of hand when viewers went after the girl who borrowed the dress, but it appears that the situation was resolved without much of an issue—so perhaps it isn’t always a bad idea to bring your drama to the internet? Pickle also paid for Aud’s dry cleaning for the dress.

The second case was even worse, as creator Sara Leeds, who is best known for doing the Doorman Stories series on TikTok, shared that her wedding reception dress was stolen after she lent it out on Pickle. After several attempts to get the dress back from the renter, the platform eventually paid Leeds for the dress and marked it as stolen. As of four days ago, Leeds took down her video and it doesn’t appear that she got the dress back, which is an unfortunate conclusion of events. 

Ultimately, many have taken this as a lesson to be careful about who they lend to and what they lend out. Weirdly, I think that this has been net-good PR for Pickle, which appears to have resolved each issue fairly well. It’s always gonna be a gamble to let someone borrow your clothes, but at least there’s some sort of assurance of a resolution when things go wrong.

TikTok creator Jools Lebron, who started the “Very Demure, Very Mindful” trend, went on the platform to ask her followers to help her pay for expensive and extensive dental surgery, which is a result of her experience with addiction. She set up a GoFundMe to help cover the costs. 

Her video has since been deleted and she shared that everyone who donated has been refunded. Why? Because she got major backlash from viewers for asking for help as a “big influencer.” Specifically, Lebron uttered a line that hit on a pain point that many online spectators often bemoan: “I would love to get a regular job—girl, don’t get me wrong—but even then, I don’t think that’s going to help my situation.” 

While I understand that there has been major fatigue toward influencers and content creators—with their fans seemingly becoming resentful about being their source of income—I think that people often forget how little follower count has to do with funds. Even the most successful and lucrative influencers can struggle against the American healthcare system, which can make it impossible to get the care one needs. The procedure that Lebron was talking about can cost tens of thousands of dollars, which is not an insignificant amount when you work in a profession that is financially unpredictable. 

And many people responded by telling Lebron to get a real job, ignoring the fact that the current job market is making it seemingly impossible to find well-paying gigs with benefits that will cover a procedure like this. For many, including Lebron, influencing and social media is a better pathway to financial stability and it’s still not enough. I think it’s unfair and presumptive to shame big influencers, especially marginalized creators, for asking for help when they are ultimately not the cause of the issue everyone is upset about. I hope Lebron gets the healthcare she needs!

Every Monday letter gets a playlist. I was recently reminded of “Miracles Happen” by Myra, which was featured in The Princess Diaries, and I really wanted to capture that “girl who’s gonna be okay” energy that comes with 2000s teen movies. And when I tell you I need this vibe rn…

In this week’s playlist:

Other things I want to share with you.