In an austere warehouse, a very online political pundit sits at a small desk. Sometimes it’s a conservative — Candace Owens, say — and sometimes it’s a progressive, like Mehdi Hasan. No matter who it is, the format is the same: The star is surrounded by a mob of 20 people who rush the desk, vying for the chance to argue against the professional rhetoricians over inflammatory proposals like “the sexual revolution has devalued women and made them infinitely less happy” or “Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza is ethnic cleansing.” Over the course of about 90 minutes, everyone in the circle gets a go.
Officially, there are no winners in “Surrounded,” the YouTube debate series. But millions of viewers delight in watching people just like them confront famous ideological foes. The videos aren’t really about changing anyone’s mind. They’re about the electrical charge that emerges between one star of the digital commentariat and a crowd of normies.
The staged intermingling of stars and their audiences is a staple of modern celebrity culture. But a new type of interaction is rising — the one-versus-all stunt. It promises fans more than just autographs or selfies. The fan who wonders if the masculinist influencer Andrew Tate would consider him a “Top G” now has the chance to fight Tate, literally. The subscriber to Bonnie Blue’s OnlyFans videos can now pay her to, well, live out what he has seen: One day this year, she had sex with more than 1,000 fans in a London apartment.
The one-against-many stunts physically embody interactions once confined to bytes and screens. They dramatize interplay between creators and the nameless masses to whom they owe their success. Today’s newsletter is about those interactions and what they mean.
A new connection
For decades, the star-fan relationship went in one direction. The average person developed a parasocial connection with stars, imagining one-sided friendships. Fan clubs organized around exclusive knowledge. Gossip magazines purported to show celebrities who dined and shopped “just like us.” Reality TV churned out an inexhaustible supply of everyday personas for audiences to obsess over, laugh about, compare themselves with.
The internet — and in particular the advent of social media — blazed new pathways, giving audiences a way to kick over the rope cordoning off celebrities from everyone else. You could talk to anyone who had a Twitter account. Celebrities responded to Instagram comments. Today, content creators are in a relationship with their fans, and their work is designed to feel that way. That’s why talk shows that mimic the intimacy of close friendship dominate podcast charts.
Joining the show
In an era in which public health authorities have declared loneliness an epidemic, it stands to reason that many Americans have invested these one-way relationships with meaning.
In turn, these creators promise more of themselves the deeper the audience is willing to go. Substackers and podcasters offer bonus content and chat rooms for paying fans. Tate drew the participants for his rumble from the War Room, an online network with an $8,000 annual membership.
Many find that audience interaction strengthens the parasocial bond. Twitch streamers like Hasan Piker spend hours responding live to fans; Kai Cenat, another popular streamer, once let fans watch him sleeping. The new formats are a way for passive fans to take active roles in a world they have only imagined. But because the one-on-many stunts are themselves intended for wider consumption, they produce an amplifying effect: The participation of “normal” people only intensifies the sense of intimacy.
What all of these stunts provide, too, is the chance for a member of the crowd to best an internet celebrity, to prove that he is just as good as the object of his obsession — and to complicate that bothersome one-way relationship, at least temporarily.
Because the fans are part of the content, but only for a moment. As soon as his turn ends, each participant recedes back into the crowd.
Read more about the collapsing boundaries between celebrities and their fans.
RETURNING TO THE SCENE
Joao Silva, a Times photographer, doesn’t recall hearing the explosion that took his legs in Afghanistan nearly 15 years ago. His images and essay explain what happened next.
The land mine made a metallic click of sorts, followed by an immeasurable electric shock that ripped through my lower body, overpowering all my senses. I collapsed into a rising cloud of smoke and dust.
It was October 2010, and I was working in Afghanistan as a photographer for The Times. In May, I went back to the place where it happened, a small farming village called Deh-e Kuchay.
The compound where the mine was planted was gone. In its place stood a pomegranate orchard in flower, the petals glowing blood red in the afternoon sunlight. It gave me some comfort to see that life now grew from what had been a place of destruction.
From the moment I picked up a camera again, eight months after the explosion, I had wanted to return to this village. Now I was back, seeing the country as I had never seen it before: at peace.
THE LATEST NEWS
Immigration
The judge who ruled that the Florida detention site be shut down for now said that state and federal governments had failed to consider environmental harms before building it.
For the first time in decades, more immigrants are leaving the U.S. than arriving, a new study found.
Another judge ruled that the Trump administration unlawfully withheld visas under the president’s travel ban.
The administration rescinded federal guidance requiring schools to provide services to students who don’t speak English well.
Federal Agencies
To crack down on waste, Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, said she must personally approve expenses over $100,000. That has created a backlog of critical contracts.
The Office of Management and Budget is ignoring a directive from Congress and refusing to fully fund the H.I.V. program PEPFAR.
This year will end with 300,000 fewer federal workers than there were in January, a Trump official said. That’s the largest single-year reduction since World War II.
The F.B.I. plans to lower its recruitment standards. It will no longer require a college degree and will give less training. Many agents are alarmed.
War in Ukraine
Vice President JD Vance said he warned Volodymyr Zelensky to “behave” as they headed into this week’s Oval Office meeting.
Trump fired the foreign policy experts that presidents usually rely on during tricky negotiations. Now, he is trying to broker an end to the war in Ukraine without them.
More on the Trump Administration
The White House published a list of Smithsonian exhibits that it finds objectionable, including material on topics like sexuality, slavery and immigration.
What are federal agents up to in Washington, D.C. as part of Trump’s crackdown? The Times reviewed hundreds of images and videos.
Trump’s attacks on the Fed and the Bureau of Labor Statistics could undermine America’s reputation as a reliable place to do business, Ben Casselman and Colby Smith write.
Some in Trump’s base, wary of I.V.F., are pushing what they call a “natural” approach to infertility, one long confined to the medical fringe.
New York City
A New York appeals court threw out a half-billion-dollar fine against Trump while preserving the fraud case against him.
Manhattan prosecutors announced sweeping corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams’s former chief adviser and several associates.
A lawyer for the Adams aide who handed cash to a journalist this week said it was a Chinese custom. Times reporters witnessed similar payments at other events this year.
Other Big Stories
Sexual violence is widespread in Democratic Republic of Congo. The conflict there has left victims without legal recourse and dismantled the clinics that offered care.
A parole panel kept Erik Menendez in prison, 36 years after he and his older brother, Lyle, killed their parents in their Beverly Hills mansion. Here’s what to know.
Donations to Gavin Newsom have been pouring in since he began his campaign last week to redraw California’s congressional maps.
TRUMP’S EMERGENCIES
Before he sent National Guard troops to patrol Washington this month, Trump declared a “crime emergency” in the capital. So far in his second term, he has made nine other emergency declarations that have been used to justify hundreds of actions that would typically require approval from Congress or lengthy regulatory reviews.
All presidents declare national emergencies. They allow the government to respond quickly in a crisis. But experts say Trump has used this power for situations that do not qualify as true emergencies. Read our full analysis here.
OPINIONS
Children whose lives depend on Medicaid coverage don’t have a voice or a vote when states cut funding. You do, Rachel Roth Aldhizer writes.
Write a note of gratitude. Here are examples, to teachers, veterans and mayors, to get you started, Glenn Kramon writes.
Here’s a column by David Brooks on right-wing nihilism.
MORNING READS
New York City: Thanks to Hurricane Erin, conditions have been ideal for the urban surfer.
Athlete brain: What sports psychologists want you to know about mental toughness.
Health: Covid is spreading again this summer. Here’s why.
“Queen of quilts”: Shelly Zegart, who died at 84, was a colossus in the world of quilting, instrumental in elevating what was long considered a mere utilitarian craft into the canon of art and material culture.
SPORTS
M.L.B.: The broadcast and streaming shake-ups continue: ESPN and the M.L.B. have an agreement that would, if signed, give the network exclusive rights to sell all out-of-market games digitally, as well as some in-market games, sources told The Athletic.
W.N.B.A.: New York police arrested a man on suspicion of throwing a sex toy that hit other fans during a game earlier this month. He is at least the third person arrested over similar accusations this month.
NSFW “HARRY POTTER”?
Millions of people online have read “Manacled,” a “Harry Potter” fan-fiction that — keep an open mind here — centers on a morally ambiguous romance between adult versions of Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy. A revamped and retitled version of the story is expected to be one of the biggest romantic fantasy debuts of the year.
It’s a full-circle moment. The current explosion of the romantic fantasy genre, or “romantasy,” stems from the legacy of popular young adult series like “Twilight” and “Harry Potter.” Those books molded generations of readers who still crave big fantasy novels — now with a dose of erotica.
More on culture
Aubrey Plaza and Margaret Qualley, stars of the new movie “Honey Don’t,” visited the Times studio kitchen to make pizzas and talk about the film. Watch here.
Trending: The “Stranger Things” actress Millie Bobby Brown announced that she and her husband, Jake Bongiovi, have adopted a baby daughter, NBC News reports.
THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …
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GAMES
Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was dimpling.
And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Sports Connections and Strands.
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