"New Rules?" New Sletter

Truly Seltzer spokeswoman Dua Lipa is joining the ranks of the newsletterati, and I’m sure Glenn Greenwald will be welcoming her with open arms.

The English-Albanian pop star announced on Tuesday that she would be launching a weekly newsletter called Service95 In her video announcement, she explained that Service95 — so named because she she was “born in 1995” and has always seen herself as someone who is “of service” to her fans and followers — would be “a weekly newsletter where we’ll be sharing words, stories, cultural recommendations and more from a plethora of voices that I love, that I trust in fashion, in beauty, in the arts, in politics, in global issues.”

That sounds like a lot of things for a newsletter to be about. Does Dua know that most newsletters are about, like, the racial politics of tuna fish or minute-by-minute recaps of Michael Mann’s Miami Vice? Dua, you dua not have to work so hard!

Dua went on to say that Service95 will have “some incredibly talented writers and editors that are both established and emerging from all over the world.” (Freelancers, take note.) In follow up tweets, she listed some of the kinds of content Service95 readers can expect in their inbox. “Powerful articles from the world’s most compelling voices will live alongside savvy social commentary, laugh-out-loud feature-writing, & left-of-center recommendations for anything from late-night snacks to the best in-flight music for long-haul trips. We'll also be sharing the important work of activists bringing to light causes and complex world issues we should all be talking about.”

I’m reminded of the 30 Rock scene where they’re trying to think of cool features to add to a microwave and end up designing a Pontiac Aztek. Except instead of a microwave it’s a new idea for a publication and instead of a Pontiac Aztek it’s BuzzFeed.

I signed up for Service95 in hopes that there would be a welcome email, a little taste of what’s to come. So far, there’s nothing, but I’m refreshing Gmail with bated breath. In the meantime, I did scoop up dualipa.substack.com just in case the “Electricity” singer ever decides she wants to go for a more personal, intimate newsletter. She can either pry the URL from my cold, dead hands or buy it from me for the low, low cost of $1 million. She better start now!