新新人类 Pixel Perfect

【聊了什么 The What】

我们决定集体戒手机一周，借此机会来聊聊我们和手机之间越来越拧巴的关系。

安蕤自曝日均屏幕时间一度高达11–13小时，马修的手机使用时长会随身边有没有人而剧烈波动，一闻则发现自己在物理隔离时反而最轻松。到底怎么才能戒手机啊？？

在亲自尝试之后，我们总结了戒手机的三大流派：物理隔离法、以毒攻毒法、一了百了法，体验了从Brick这类硬件到各类自律软件的种种工具，给出了真实反馈。

我们也回溯了手机是怎么一步步从IBM Simon、诺基亚、黑莓这样的生产力工具，演变成今天这块让人欲罢不能的everything产品的？iPhone的诞生、App Store、推送通知、无限滚动、点赞按钮、广告经济和推荐算法——这些拼图是怎么拼在一起，把手机变成了一台口袋里的老虎机的？同时，我们也聊了Kevin Roose和Catherine Price的戒手机实验、Luddite运动的历史，以及中美在"戒手机"这件事上因为微信/社交媒体渗透程度不同而产生的巨大差异。

We decided to spend a week cutting back on our phone use. Then we use the experience to unpack our increasingly complicated relationship with our phones.

Anrui confesses that her daily screen time once hit 11-13 hours. Matthew’s phone use swings wildly depending on whether he’s alone or with other people. Yiwen discovers that she feels most at ease when her phone is physically out of reach. Seriously, how do you quit your phone??

After trying it ourselves, we identified three methods: keep your phone physically out of reach, fight tech with tech, or go cold turkey. We tested everything from hardware like Brick to apps designed to keep us in check and shared our honest verdicts.

We also trace how phones evolved from productivity tools like the IBM Simon, Nokia, and BlackBerry into today’s irresistible “everything” devices. The iPhone, the App Store, push notifications, infinite scroll, the Like button, the advertising economy, and recommendation algorithms—how did these pieces come together to turn our phones into pocket-sized slot machines?

Along the way, we discuss Kevin Roose’s and Catherine Price’s phone detox experiments, the history of the Luddite movement, and the striking differences between quitting your phone in China and the U.S., where WeChat and social media are woven into everyday life in very different ways.

【时间轴 The When】

【拓展链接 The Links】

【我们是谁 Who We Are】

新新人类是一档由几个与互联网一起长大的新生代科技记者主持的播客，致力于站在中美交汇点上，解读全球科技潮流与人文的交织。

【支持我们 Please Support Us】

如果喜欢这期节目并愿意支持我们：

If you like our show and want to support us, please consider the following:

【一起来读书吧 Bookclub】

7月24日，我们想和大家一起线上共读Patrick McGee 的热销作品 Apple in China。

这本书细致讲述了苹果如何在中国建立起现代史上最复杂、最高效的制造与供应链体系之一，也讲述了中国如何成为世界上最有价值公司的关键支柱。

作者 Patrick McGee 将在活动最后 30 分钟加入我们，回答大家的问题；问答部分使用英文。

On July 24, we’ll be reading Patrick McGee’s bestselling book Apple in China together online.

The book offers a detailed account of how Apple built one of the most complex and efficient manufacturing and supply chain systems in modern history in China. It also tells the story of how China became a crucial pillar of the world’s most valuable company.

Author Patrick McGee will join us for the final 30 minutes of the event to answer questions. The Q&A session will be conducted in English.

更多活动，请订阅百花新闻信 For more events, subscribe to Baihua newsletter

https://baihua.substack.com/

【聊了什么 The What】

在AI浪潮席卷全球的当下，内容创造者的边界正在模糊。本期《新新人类》主播一闻带你走进纽约Same Room华语播客节现场，听四位背景迥异的嘉宾共话：AI时代，创造者的“护城河”究竟在哪里？从硅谷大厂的AI从业者到在特教领域手搓视频的电影导演，从文字记者的身份认同困境到物理学博士的科普实验，我们不只谈论技术效率，更深挖技术背后的审美规训与语言不平等。AI能模仿哈姆雷特，但它懂那背后的历史与痛苦吗？本期节目将打破“AI杀死创作者”的二元对立，探讨如何在这个“万物皆可替代”的时代，守住人类最核心的决策力与注意力。

As the AI wave sweeps the globe, the boundaries of content creation are blurring. In this episode of Pixel Perfect, host Yiwen takes you inside the "Same Room Podcast Festival" in New York, where four guests from different backgrounds sit down to discuss a pressing question: in the age of AI, where exactly is a creator's "moat"? From an AI professional at a Silicon Valley tech giant to a film director hand-crafting videos in special education, from a print journalist wrestling with questions of identity to a physics PhD running science-outreach experiments — we don't just talk about technical efficiency. We dig deeper, into the aesthetic conditioning and linguistic inequality lurking behind the technology. AI can imitate Hamlet, but does it understand the history and pain behind it? This episode pushes back against the simplistic "AI will kill creators" binary, exploring instead how to hold onto humanity's most essential faculties — judgment and attention — in an era where "everything can be replaced."

【时间轴 The When】

【支持我们 Please Support Us】

如果喜欢这期节目并愿意支持我们：

If you like our show and want to support us, please consider the following:

【一起来读书吧 Bookclub】

7月24日，我们想和大家一起线上共读Patrick McGee 的热销作品 Apple in China。

这本书细致讲述了苹果如何在中国建立起现代史上最复杂、最高效的制造与供应链体系之一，也讲述了中国如何成为世界上最有价值公司的关键支柱。

作者 Patrick McGee 将在活动最后 30 分钟加入我们，回答大家的问题；问答部分使用英文。

On July 24, we’ll be reading Patrick McGee’s bestselling book Apple in China together online.

The book offers a detailed account of how Apple built one of the most complex and efficient manufacturing and supply chain systems in modern history in China. It also tells the story of how China became a crucial pillar of the world’s most valuable company.

Author Patrick McGee will join us for the final 30 minutes of the event to answer questions. The Q&A session will be conducted in English.

【聊了什么 The What】

先婚后爱、霸道总裁、带球跑、半人半兽但只对女主温柔的狼人。是这些土得掉渣、狗血又cheap的关键词，让短剧走进了美国中西部家庭主妇的内心。短剧，可能是中国最成功的文化出海产品之一。

Contract marriage-to-love, domineering CEOs, secret babies, and half-human, half-beast werewolves who are gentle only to the female lead. These cheesy, melodramatic, low-budget tropes are what brought short dramas into the hearts of housewives across the American Midwest. Short dramas may be one of China’s most successful cultural exports.

【时间轴 The When】

【拓展链接 The Links】

【我们是谁 Who We Are】

新新人类是一档由几个与互联网一起长大的新生代科技记者主持的播客，致力于站在中美交汇点上，解读全球科技潮流与人文的交织。

【支持我们 Please Support Us】

如果喜欢这期节目并愿意支持我们：

If you like our show and want to support us, please consider the following:

【聊了什么 The What】

Cluely是一家靠帮人面试作弊起家的AI公司，创始人Roy Lee从哥大退学，拿到a16z领投的千万美元融资，但它在各大平台发布的搞笑短视频系列，比产品本身更出名。这期节目，我们请来传播从业者Ivy，聊聊Cluely这家公司和不走寻常路的创始人Roy Lee。

病毒式营销能否真正转化为商业价值？通过模仿中国国际学生出圈的网红Remy Zee加入Cluely，这为什么是Roy Lee做过最正确的商业决策？Lookmaxxing、蛋白质崇拜、公款报销约会费用背后，这家公司的兄弟会文化折射出什么？短剧里女性角色的凝视位置，以及ABG CMO作为硅谷新趋势，又意味着什么？

Cluely is an AI company that got its start helping people cheat in job interviews. Its founder Roy Lee dropped out of Columbia, raised millions in funding led by a16z — yet the company's viral comedy video series is far more famous than the product itself. This episode, we sit down with communications professional Ivy to unpack Cluely, and the unconventional founder behind it.

Can viral marketing actually convert into business value? Why was hiring Remy Zee — the creator who blew up impersonating Chinese international students — arguably the best business decision Roy Lee ever made? What does Cluely's frat-house culture of lookmaxxing, protein obsession, and expensing employee dates really say about the company? And what does the male gaze baked into their short-form dramas, and the rise of the "ABG CMO" as a Silicon Valley trend, actually mean?

Is Roy Lee's rise a story of individual genius — or has the AI era simply opened a door for Asian men that was never there before? As AI reshapes the Silicon Valley ecosystem, Asian men who once played by every rule are now competing for influence, capital, and attention in entirely new ways. The cost of that reinvention, and its limits, are worth examining carefully.

【时间轴 The When】

【我们是谁 Who We Are】

新新人类是一档由几个与互联网一起长大的新生代科技记者主持的播客，致力于站在中美交汇点上，解读全球科技潮流与人文的交织。

嘉宾：

【拓展链接 The Links】

Child’s Play, by Sam Kriss

【支持我们 Please Support Us】

如果喜欢这期节目并愿意支持我们：

If you like our show and want to support us, please consider the following:

【聊了什么 The What】

当AI从工具变成武器，人类该如何自处？

2026年初，Claude被白宫封杀。这成了AI的公共形象的转折点。这件事让我们意识到，AI可能已经悄悄完成了它的成年礼：它不再只是一个技术话题，而是变成了一个政治问题、一个选边站的时刻。

在这期串台节目里，主播一闻和《美轮美换》的主播小华、硅谷投资人磊一起聊了：AI是如何从一个技术问题，变成最烫手的政治问题的。红线到底该由谁来画？当 Super PAC 开始用 AI 的钱打中期选举、当数据中心让红州蓝州的电价一起上涨、当美国公众对 AI 的反感度已经跌穿地板——AI 的“核弹时刻“到底是技术奇点，还是政治奇点？我们也顺便聊了聊中美在这件事上正在经历的两种截然不同的现实。

本期播客录制于4月初。

When AI Goes from Tool to Weapon, how do we find our footing?

In early 2026, Claude was blacklisted by the White House. It became a turning point for AI's public image — and a moment that made us realize AI may have quietly come of age. It's no longer just a tech topic; it's a political issue, a moment that demands you pick a side.

In this crossover episode, host Yiwen sits down with Xiaohua, host of The American Roulette, and Lei, a Silicon Valley investor, to unpack how AI went from a technical question to the most politically charged issue of the moment. Who gets to draw the red lines? When Super PACs start spending AI money to swing the midterms, when data centers push up electricity bills across red and blue states alike, when American public sentiment toward AI has fallen through the floor — is AI's "nuclear moment" a technological singularity, or a political one? We also get into the two starkly different realities the U.S. and China are living through on this front.

Recorded in early April.

【时间轴 The When】

03:06 Anthropic与五角大楼撕破脸：AI政治化的转折点

04:48 两条红线：大规模监控与全自主武器

07:41 立法真空下，商业公司被迫当仲裁者

10:33 硅谷政治转向与员工抗议的复活

14:33 Anthropic的商业账本：合同不如公众形象值钱

17:08 Dario vs Sam Altman：同一天两种结局

24:05 Super PAC对AI监管的冲突

30:30 AI好感度比ICE还低

32:35 中美两种现实：小龙虾与"温水煮青蛙"

38:19 数据中心、电价与NIMBY：AI恐惧的具象化

43:21 如果AI创造所有GDP，普通人还有筹码吗？

50:30 Bernie Sanders的Claude视频与左派的AI叙事

53:43 Token出海：中美AI的两种工业体系

03:06 Anthropic vs. the Pentagon: The Turning Point of AI's Politicization

04:48 Two Red Lines: Mass Surveillance and Fully Autonomous Weapons

07:41 In a Legislative Vacuum, Companies Are Forced to Arbitrate

10:33 Silicon Valley's Political Shift and the Return of Employee Protest

14:33 Anthropic's Business Math: Public Image Beats Government Contracts

17:08 Dario vs. Sam Altman: Two Outcomes on the Same Day

24:05 Super PACs Go to War Over AI Regulation

30:30 AI Polls Worse Than ICE

32:35 Two Realities: OpenClaw and the Slow-Boiling Frog

38:19 Data Centers, Electric Bills, and NIMBY: Where AI Fear Gets Real

43:21 If AI Creates All the GDP, What Leverage Do Ordinary People Have?

50:30 Bernie Sanders' Claude Video and the Left's AI Narrative

53:43 Tokens Go Global: Two Industrial Systems for AI

【我们是谁 Who We Are】

新新人类是一档由几个与互联网一起长大的新生代科技记者主持的播客，致力于站在中美交汇点上，解读全球科技潮流与人文的交织。

【支持我们 Please Support Us】

如果喜欢这期节目并愿意支持我们：

If you like our show and want to support us, please consider the following:

【聊了什么 The What】

在这期节目中，我们邀请到了新生代作家 Yi-Ling Liu（刘亦灵），深入聊聊她刚刚出版的英文新书 The Wall Dancers: Searching for Freedom and Connection on the Chinese Internet。

亦灵是我们的老朋友，也是一位长期关注中国网络、文化及科技领域的自由撰稿人，曾为《纽约客》等媒体撰写相关文章。这本书对我们来说尤为特别——它是近年来为数不多以“人”为核心，而非聚焦于商业或地缘政治的、关于中国的英文非虚构作品。

书名中的核心隐喻是“戴着镣铐跳舞“，这是一个任何在中国互联网上有过亲身体验的人都不陌生的意象。西方媒体对中国互联网的叙事，往往侧重于其封闭性与禁锢感，而刘亦灵则选择透过个体的选择，去呈现中国光怪陆离互联网社群独特的韧性，戏剧张力，和无处不在的隐秘抵抗。

在中国特有的网络与科技环境中，她的观察跟随着几位极具代表性的角色：从曾经的微博审查员刘力朋、女权活动家吕频，到成都的说唱歌手Kafe.Hu、科幻作家陈楸帆，以及从警察转型为同志社交软件 CEO 的马保力。通过这些人的故事，串联起过去三十年中国互联网的激荡与变迁。

在香港出生长大，美国接受教育的亦灵在观察中国时有一种疏离而又颗粒度极高的写作风格。她到底怎么选中了这些主人公，又怎样完成了这部历时数年的大部头？在这本独特的大部头发布之际，中外互联网的变迁又让她有了哪些最新的反思？本期节目因为种种原因我们将只在墙外发布。这也是亦灵首次用中文接受采访——主播安蕤和马修将作为读者，同行和朋友进行发问。

In this episode, we are joined writer Yi-Ling Liu to talk in depth about her newly published English-language book, The Wall Dancers: Searching for Freedom and Connection on the Chinese Internet.

Yi-Ling is an old friend of the show and a longtime freelance writer focused on China’s internet, culture, and technology, with work published in outlets including The New Yorker. This book feels especially important to us because it is one of the few recent English-language nonfiction books about China that places people, rather than business or geopolitics, at its center.

The book’s central metaphor is “dancing in shackles,” an image that is immediately familiar to anyone with lived experience of the Chinese internet. Western media narratives about China’s online world often emphasize its closedness and sense of constraint. Yi-Ling, by contrast, chooses to focus on individual choices, revealing the resilience, dramatic tension, and ever-present undercurrents of quiet resistance within China’s strange and dazzling online communities.

Within China’s highly specific internet and technological environment, her reporting follows several deeply representative figures: former Weibo censor Liu Lipeng, feminist activist Lü Pin, Chengdu rapper Kafe.Hu, science fiction writer Chen Qiufan, and Ma Baoli, a former police officer who later became the CEO of a gay social networking app. Through their stories, she traces the turbulence and transformation of China’s internet over the past three decades.

Born and raised in Hong Kong and educated in the United States, Yi-Ling brings to her observations on China a writing style that is both detached and richly textured. How did she choose these protagonists, and how did she complete this sweeping work over the course of several years? Now that this distinctive book has been published, how have recent changes in both Chinese and global internet culture shaped her latest reflections? For various reasons, this episode will only be released outside the Great Firewall. It is also Yi-Ling’s first time being interviewed in Chinese. Hosts Anrui and Matthew join the conversation as readers, peers, and friends.

【时间轴 The When】

【我们是谁 Who We Are】

新新人类是一档由几个与互联网一起长大的新生代科技记者主持的播客，致力于站在中美交汇点上，解读全球科技潮流与人文的交织。

【支持我们 Please Support Us】

如果喜欢这期节目并愿意支持我们：

If you like our show and want to support us, please consider the following:

【聊了什么 The What】

洋抖难民入住小红书一年之后，美国年轻人又整上新活，想直接变成中国人了？从喝热水、学中文，到穿唐装、追中国短剧，越来越多美国年轻人开始说自己正处在 “a very Chinese time of my life”。这个被称作Chinamaxxing的网络趋势，是文化认同的转变，还是一场抽象时代的玩梗狂欢？在这期播客里，我们拆解了这个趋势的来源和传播，以及它背后的反叛情绪。

当中国从被高度符号化的他者，变成好玩、无厘头、被重新想象的文化标签，这种变化意味着什么？作为中国人，看着大家突然想成为我们，又是一种怎样复杂的感受？和我们一起，聊聊互联网时代的中国高光时刻。

A year after the so-called “TikTok refugees” moved into Xiaohongshu, American internet culture has found a new twist — this time, young Americans want to “become Chinese.” From drinking hot water and learning Mandarin on Duolingo to wearing the Adidas Tang jackets and binge-watching Chinese dramas, more and more are saying they are living through “a very Chinese time of my life.” This online trend, known as Chinamaxxing, raises a question: is this a genuine shift in cultural identity, or just another wave of absurdist internet play? In this episode, we unpack where the trend came from, how it spread, and the rebellious energy behind it.

As China shifts from a highly politicized “other” to something playful, ironic, and newly reimagined online, what does that change really mean? And as Chinese people, how do we feel watching others suddenly want to “become us”? Proud, annoyed, amused — or something more complicated? Join us as we explore this internet-age Chinese high-glow moment.

【时间轴 The When】

【我们是谁 Who We Are】

新新人类是一档由几个与互联网一起长大的新生代科技记者主持的播客，致力于站在中美交汇点上，解读全球科技潮流与人文的交织。

【拓展链接 The Links】

WIRED: Why Everyone Is Suddenly in a ‘Very Chinese Time’ in Their Lives

【支持我们 Please Support Us】

如果喜欢这期节目并愿意支持我们：

If you like our show and want to support us, please consider the following:

【重要的事放在前面说】

2026 年，「新新人类」希望能和大家展开更多深度交流。除了播客，我们也在筹备一些线上或者线下的活动。

如果你感兴趣参与我们的活动，请填写这份问卷留下您的邮箱，方便我们活动组织起来之后联系到您！

【聊了什么 The What】

下滑，下滑，咦，这个视频有点意思，但好像又有点不对头，难道是AI？？

随着人工智能生成视频技术的日新月异，新新人类的主播们每天都浪费了大量刷手机的时间用于分辨某个视频是不是AI生成的。不得不承认，从几年前生成的六根指头的手和鬼画符一般的文字，到现在以假乱真的后院蹦床兔兔和偷快递监控，AI视频的质量在不断提升，我们对它的认识也不得不更新换代。

这一期节目我们请来了Coco来做嘉宾，曾经在谷歌工作的她现在是AI视频生成平台和社区OpenArt的CEO。我们既聊了AI技术本身的飞速发展，也聊了作为社交媒体用户的我们如何看待当下遍布全网的AI视频。Coco说，她觉得AI视频生成的技术会成为让任何人都可以当网红的平权工具，那如果拍视频和剪视频的技术不再是刚需，什么才会是下一代的头部网红的核心竞争力？

Scroll, scroll…huh, this video is kind of interesting, but something feels off…Is it AI??

【时间轴 The When】

【我们是谁 Who We Are】

新新人类是一档由几个与互联网一起长大的新生代科技记者主持的播客，致力于站在中美交汇点上，解读全球科技潮流与人文的交织。

【拓展链接 The Links】

【支持我们 Please Support Us】

如果喜欢这期节目并愿意支持我们：

【聊了什么 The What】

从扫腿舞到“宝宝上车啦”，从《万物生》到《溯》，最近只要刷过短视频，基本都被这几首团播神曲洗脑过。和传统的单人直播不一样，团播把帅哥美女放在同一个画面里，一起跳舞、互动、PK，更像一档随时在直播的偶像综艺。

从这期节目开始，我们想要和大家多聊聊我们三个共同关注到的互联网现象。第一次尝试，就从团播为什么这么火聊起。主播怎么被训练和安排，观众为什么愿意持续打赏，平台规则又在其中起到了什么作用？我们也会聊到团播和日韩偶像选秀之间的相似之处，以及“养成系”粉丝关系在直播间里是怎么被放大的。通过团播，或许我们能看到的是，在经济下行、注意力经济当道的大背景下，亲密感和陪伴感是否被赋予了新的意义。

From leg-sweep dances to catchphrases like “Baby, hop on,” and from All Things Grow to Backflow (N.B. all of these are too Chinese to translate), anyone who’s scrolled through short-video apps lately has likely had these group-streaming hits stuck in their head. Unlike traditional solo livestreams, group streaming features multiple attractive hosts in the same frame—dancing together, interacting, and competing in real-time—feeling more like an idol variety show that never goes off air.

【时间轴 The When】

【我们是谁 Who We Are】

新新人类是一档由几个与互联网一起长大的新生代科技记者主持的播客，致力于站在中美交汇点上，解读全球科技潮流与人文的交织。

【拓展链接 The Links】

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【聊了什么 The What】

大家好，我是从火人节回来的一闻，我已经蜕变了（不是。

从黑石城回来的那一天，我在新新人类群聊里说：“朋友们，不幸的消息：这大概是我这辈子过的最棒的一周。”

在诸多主流叙事中，每年八月底在美国内华达州举办的火人节（Burning Man），就是一场放任自由主义（Libertarianism）的精英狂欢。我过去也因为它和硅谷之间的精神与文化纽带，对它有过先入为主的成见。而如果你告诉去年的我，我会在沙漠里坚持八天不洗澡，我一定不会相信。但事实上，在这一周里，我放声痛哭过，也开怀大笑过。我在燃烧的熊熊烈火中，看到了让灵魂为之颤栗的景象。在狂风暴雨之间，我也感受到了人与人之间最简单、真诚和美好的联系。这一切，都彻底改变了我对火人节的印象。

但在我们聊黑石城的魔幻与灵性的同时，我们也不可避免的要提到这场起源于嬉皮士精神的活动在逐渐主流化、现代化的过程中所经历的变化。在这期播客中，我们探讨了资本主义逻辑之下“假期”的概念，与建立乌托邦所需要的经济成本。安蕤也分享了她所经历的一次位于黑山的生活实验，引发了我们对于社群建构的探讨。为什么这些精神实验总有一个截止日期？在控制变量环境下，人与人之间的善意，又是否能被带回现实世界？

Hi everyone, this is Yiwen reporting back from Burning Man.

The day I returned from Black Rock City, I wrote in our Pixel Perfect group chat: “Friends, I regret to report that this may actually be the best week of my life.” In mainstream narratives, Burning Man — held every late August in Nevada’s desert — is often seen as an elitist playground for libertarianists. I used to think the same, especially because of its deep cultural and spiritual ties with Silicon Valley. And if you had told me last year that I’d spend eight days in the desert without showering, I would never have believed you. Yet over that week, I cried my eyes out, laughed until my stomach hurt, and stood before burning flames that made my soul tremble. In the middle of storms and rain, I also felt the most simple, genuine, and beautiful forms of human connection. All of this completely changed my view of Burning Man.

But alongside the magic and spirituality of Black Rock City, we can’t avoid talking about how this countercultural gathering — rooted in hippie ideals — has evolved as it’s become more mainstream and modernized. In this episode, we explore the idea of “vacation” under capitalism and the economic cost of creating utopias. Anrui also shares her experience living in a temporary community during Zuzalu, which sparked our discussion on intentional community building. Why do these social experiments always have an expiration date? And in a controlled environment, can the kindness people show each other actually be carried back into the real world?

【时间轴 The When】

【我们是谁 Who We Are】

新新人类是一档由几个与互联网一起长大的新生代科技记者主持的播客，致力于站在中美交汇点上，解读全球科技潮流与人文的交织。

【支持我们 Please Support Us】

如果喜欢这期节目并愿意支持我们：

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