CTRL + Thought: The Unfiltered Feed

Session 9: Lollapalooza, Viral Water Guy, and the Black Community Conversation

Lollapalooza

Aye chat, the Lollapalooza lineup for this summer just dropped! Tyler, Doechii, and A$AP are all headlining. Hey, if you can do all four days and still function afterward, I want to shake your hand. I wanna go so bad.

If you’re going, here are some artists you might not have noticed made the list:

• LAILA!

• Alemeda

• Tanner Adell

• Remi Wolf

• Amaarae

Personally, Lollapalooza has surpassed Coachella when it comes to major festivals I want to attend. I hate that—Coachella was the teenage and college dream, but the entire festival has been down bad for like five years now. Until then, I’ll just be daydreaming about chilling at Lollapalooza.

Viral Water Guy: A Day in the Life

There’s a new “Day in the Life” guy going viral—aka Target Guy 2.0. Remember that god-awful trend of people showing their fake aesthetic lives in 15-second clips? Well, it’s back, but this time it’s for Saratoga water.

Dude is doing outlandish things—sticking his face in water with a suit on, having random phone calls about money, and always carrying a glass bottle of water like it's a personality trait.

This type of content is dangerous for young Black men—it’s a gateway into the alt-right pipeline. The video had undertones of sexism, with a woman always waiting on him, hyper-materialism, and zero sense of community—no friends, no family, just grind culture. All red flags.

And let’s not get it twisted—this isn’t just some random water company going viral. Saratoga is owned by Nestlé, a mega-corporation that’s part of the global clean water crisis while also trying to sell us overpriced bottled water. And guess what? It’s working. Clones of this guy are making similar videos, and people are buying up Saratoga water in bulk.

SubwayTakes: No, We Don’t Want Segregation

The popular TikTok channel SubwayTakes had a Black woman on there, and her hot take was “Bring segregation back.”

She was joking—talking about why would I eat at a white restaurant anyway? The food is bad. Black things are just more fun. The internet ran with it and started think pieces on how dare someone suggest segregation was a good thing.

If you actually listen closely, she’s not saying we need segregation—she’s saying we need to bring back what we lost when it ended: Black community.

We do need our own spaces, our own businesses, our own culture hubs. That’s the real conversation.

Obsidian: Note-Taking for Writers

A friend of mine (Jvon—check his Substack out) put me onto Obsidian—a note-taking platform that might change how I organize my writing.

It lets you store thoughts, notes, and ideas, and connect them so you start seeing patterns over time. Think of it like a neural network for your brain. Best part? No data collection. Everything is saved locally on your computer.

I’ll report back once I’ve used it for a while, but this might be a game-changer for organizing ideas and content.

Stay woke,

Loc