New Models

Preview | NM Greenroom: VICE magazine’s Ben Ditto & Kevin Lee Kharas (2026)

This is preview (full ep released to subscribers 04/17/2026) — to access all our content & to join the NM Discord, subscribe: patreon.com/newmodels & newmodels.substack.com "Anyone that claims they understand the world — this immediately marks them out as a fraud." — Kevin Lee Kharas After the imperial collapse (40 global offices, thousands of employees, bankruptcy), VICE magazine is now run by a lean, London-based team — and it is making one of the best culture publications currently in circulation. Ben Ditto (Vice global editorial director; founder of Ditto Nation; creative dir. Yaya Labs; founding creative dir. Dazed Beauty) and Kevin Lee Kharas (Vice editor-in-chief and co-founder of the electronic duo @real_lies ) come on New Models to discuss their current “Not The Photo Issue” (feat. Dean Kissick x Adam Curtis, Bertie Brandes, Mat Dryhurst, Günseli Yalcinkaya, Duncan Wilson, and others) and their media philosophy at large. Subscribe to VICE: https://www.vice.com/en/article/introducing-the-not-the-photo-issue-of-vice-magazine-pre-order-now/ For more: NM49 | GPT Ditto w/ Ben Ditto: https://soundcloud.com/newmodels/gpt-ditto-w-ben-ditto-nm49

Preview | Theorists Daniël de Zeeuw & Sal Hagen on the post-discursive web (NM 93) 2026

This is preview — to access full episode and all New Models' content, subscribe: https://patreon.com/newmodels & https://newmodels.substack.com We’re joined by media scholars Daniël de Zeeuw & Sal Hagen, who have been closely tracking the weirder end of the internet for over a decade—their research and analysis of 4chan has made them low-key legends within internet studies. As 4chan’s logic is now pervasive across the social web, Daniël and Sal, together with their colleagues at the Amsterdam-based OILab, have been modeling novel ways of thinking about our current communication space that travel well beyond the network media / public sphere template to something far stranger — and more accurate. For more: https://oilab.eu/ https://salhagen.nl/ https://www.uva.nl/en/profile/z/e/d.dezeeuw/d.dezeeuw.html Hagen, S., de Zeeuw, D., & Venturini, T. (2025). Digital Rhythmanalysis: Studying Memetic and Affective Rhythms on the Post-Viral Web. Platforms & Society, 2. de Zeeuw, D., Birchall, C., & Knight, P. (2025). On Psyop Realism. Cultural Politics, 21(2), 240-257 Hagen, S. (2024) Reactionary Rhythm: Quali-quantitative studies of 4chan/pol/. PhD thesis, University of Amsterdam Hagen, S., & de Zeeuw, D. (2023). Based and confused: Tracing the political connotations of a memetic phrase across the web. Big Data & Society, 10(1) Nepost

Unlocked | NM Reads: Gideon Jacobs, "MAGA as Fan Fiction," LA Review of Books (2026)

This is an unlocked episode of New Models (originally released 01/31/2026) — to access all our content & to join the NM Discordd, subscribe: https://patreon.com/newmodels https://newmodels.substack.com -- Gideon Jacobs returns to NM with his third essay in a trilogy for the LA Review of Books that tracks, in real-time, the American Political machine’s delamination from everyday life through runaway story-drive. In “MAGA as Fan Fiction,” Gideon shows US politics both left and right as having become a read-write medium for collective creative expression more than material governance—a kind of kayfabe where ‘democracy’ takes the form of citizens co-creating storyline with their elected officials and everyone in office has an IMDB profile. Carly & Lil Internet intro this ep with a short conversation drawing out themes across this trilogy that feel particularly NM Canon. “Of course, long before any advanced communication technologies, humans had been drawn not just to stories but also to the possibility of living as characters within them. Story’s appeal had always been precisely that it’s not like reality. […] a dream of existing free from the pesky flaws intrinsic to reality: uncontrollability, unpredictability, vulnerability, mundanity, complexity, incoherence, confusion, pain.” Audio production: Lil Internet For more: https://gideon.works/ Gideon Jacobs, “MAGA as Fan Fiction,” (Jan 2026) https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/trump-elon-musk-image-patel-maga-reality/ Gideon Jacobs, “Player One and Main Character,” (Apr 2025) https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/player-one-and-main-character/ Gideon Jacobs, “Trump l’Oeil,” (Nov 2024) https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/trump-loeil/

Unlocked | Scholar Peli Grietzer updates his 2017 "Theory of a Vibe" (NM92) 2026

This is an unlocked epdisode first released to subscribers 03/02/2026 — to access all our content & to join the NM Discord, subscribe: patreon.com/newmodels & newmodels.substack.com _ We speak often in the New Model sphere about scanning and sensing rather than reading—communication through vibes. Peli Grietzer is a comparative literature PhD (Harvard) who has spent over a decade developing a rigorous theory of what a “vibe" actually is, how we increasingly follow ineffable cues to navigate our world and these, taken together, in fact exist as empirical objects in mathematical space. On this episode, Peli joins NM to talk about his work for a more general audience. For more: @peligrietzer (X & IG) Substack: Second Balcony (https://peligrietzer.substack.com/) Theory of a Vibe (https://www.glass-bead.org/wp-content/uploads/GB_Site-1_Peli-Grietzer_Eng.pdf) Theory of a Vibe ’25 (https://peligrietzer.substack.com/p/theory-of-vibe-25)

Preview | NM Greenroom: Calla Henkel & Max Pitegoff on New Theater Hollywood (2026)

This is preview (full ep released to subscribers 02/15/2026) — to access all our content & to join the NM Discord, subscribe: https://patreon.com/newmodels & https://newmodels.substack.com -- Back in Berlin to show their new film work “The End of Theater” at Isabella Bortolozzi Gallery, artists Calla Henkel & Max Pitegoff drop by New Models to chat about that film’s primary set: New Theater Hollywood, the DIY theater they opened on Santa Monica Boulevard after decamping to LA in 2023. We discuss their layered process — creating a space that generates a scene, which produces its own art and dedicated star-system while also serving as source material, location, and cast for all that Max and Calla make in parallel — as a distinctly contemporary protocol for artmaking today. We also talk about the return of theater itself at a time when every physical place now feels like a potential set, whether for a vlog or an ICE raid, and performance online is constant? Does theater hit different in our neo-oral era? Does LA? For more: www.newtheaterhollywood.com & @newtheaterhollywood See also: Mike Davis, "City of Quartz" (Verso, 1990) Thom Anderson, "LA Plays Itself" (2003) NM Podcast | Mise-en-TV w/ Calla Henkel (2022) NM 77 | Calla Henkel on Art, Industry, and “Scrap” (2024)