Notes from the edge of civilization: September 21, 2025
Burglar chic, or the sci-fi haut couture; pay-per-flush or paper flush?; all that glitters...
The Economist recently shared a tiny item that makes for a perfect little case study in how fashion, fear, and commerce can fuse into something truly bizarre and strangely profitable.
In China, “designer sun-protection face coverings known as ‘facekinis’ are popularising a look previously favoured by bank robbers.”
COVID normalized the feeling of having half your face covered in public, and now an entire industry is cashing in — $11 billion in sales of accessories to protect against ultraviolet (UV) rays in China last year alone. That’s billion with a ‘B!’
So what is this, really? Sun protection, fashion fad, or a symptom of a society where even natural skin tone has been turned into a consumer battleground? Maybe all of the above.
But look closer: facekinis aren’t just about protection from UV rays. They’re about normalizing the alien. Once you get used to office workers and beachgoers looking like they stepped out of a sci-fi storyboard, the ground is already prepared for transhumanism and the leap from soft goods to hardware — from alien-like fashion to actual tech grafted onto our skin. Truth is now truly stranger than dystopian sci-fi fiction.
Before we leave China, chalk this one up to: what will they think of next?
You now have to watch an ad before getting toilet paper in a Beijing public bathroom.
Mama always told me there was no such thing as a free lunch — now extend that to the other end of the equation. In this day and age, it’s ‘no free wipe.’
If you aren’t in the mood to scan the QR code, you can opt out and pay around 10 cents for your paper. Or just bring your own and maybe sell it in front of the toilets, you know, all entremanureal-like!
(Ah, the jokes just write themselves.)
Seriously, it’s hard to tell satire from reality anymore when even your bowels have to play along with the ‘freemium’ economy. Oddly enough, the World Economic Forum never mentioned pay-per-flush in the brochure for “you’ll own nothing and be happy.”
Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery, posed the question: “Who does Number Two work for?” We’ll all soon find out.
And speaking of things we wish were satire but definitely aren’t: a 12-foot golden statue of Donald Trump holding a Bitcoin was unveiled outside the US Capitol, hours before the Federal Reserve’s interest rate announcement last week.
You’d think someone was having a laugh — but no, this is America’s own brand of toilet humor. We’d fully expect to see a piece of TP stuck to the statue’s shoe.
We don’t know who made the statue, but we laugh at the irony of it being faux gold. There’s only one sound money that’s been around for thousands of years and that’s ACTUAL gold.
Prepare wisely, friends.
