From Tim Marshall/Resident
On Friday, July 11th, 2025, around 6:40pm, I was about to cross a marked crosswalk on East Olive Way, heading home after a workout at a local gym. This is a notoriously busy crosswalk, and several cars blazed through the intersection before it was safe to cross. A dark-colored sedan approached as I stepped out and the sedan continued without pause, so I stepped back. I was annoyed, so I flipped off the driver. For reference, I am a 35-year old cisgender white man who is visibly queer. I would describe myself as an assertive pedestrian, one who routinely sees drivers ignore crosswalks, and feels empowered to communicate my urge for drivers to be cautious in my neighborhood. The driver returned the finger after driving for half a block. I was amused at the driver’s reaction, a man in his early 20s, and I performatively blew him a kiss. This is a rarer reaction of mine, and is intended to de-escalated a tense situation. I crossed the street alongside a queer couple in their 40s, assuming the event had passed. I passed CC Attle’s, a longstanding queer establishment on Boylston Ave, and continued walking south towards home. I passed a handful of bar goers and fellow pedestrians, fiddling with my phone.

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I made it three quarters down the block before I noticed the same dark colored sedan parked in front of me. The driver approached me sternly, eyes narrowed, asking me a question I could not hear over the music roaring through my headphones. I popped out one earbud, offering a placid ‘what?’ before he squared up in front of me and punched me between the eyes. I fell to the sidewalk, landing roughly on my right arm, and he continued to punch me and kick me in the front and back of my head, yelling “don’t you ever blow me another kiss, faggot”. After maybe 30 seconds of blows, he turned around and taunted “are you going to blow me another kiss, faggot?” I was stunned, shouted an expletive, and after threatening me again with clenched fists, I retreated, shouting “I’m sorry!” I quickly pulled myself to my feet. An Amazon driver cautiously approached, asking “are you okay?” Panicked, I blurted out “yeah!” and kept walking. I passed another woman who met my eyes and then sheepishly looked back to her phone.

My head hurt. I had previously ordered food delivery and wanted to hurry home to catch it. I’ve never been in a fight before, let alone sucker punched, aside from a brief mugging years ago. It dawned on me while I was texting a friend that this was not a random attack, but a hate crime motivated by anti-queer bias. On Capitol Hill, easily the queerest space in Washington. In broad daylight. In front of my neighbors.

I called 911 around 7:40, getting transferred to the non-emergency line. The operator seemed sympathetic and told me there would be a responding officer to take a statement as soon as possible. Around midnight, I called back for progress, and the operator told me they should be there soon. I called again on Saturday morning, and again on Sunday afternoon, asking how I could report the crime, mentioning carefully that I wanted to report a hate crime, and repeatedly stating that no, I did not catch the license plate number because I was wearing non-prescription sunglasses and had a head injury.

On Sunday evening, two full days after I initially called 911, an officer arrived at my home. He was also sympathetic, took pictures of my head wounds, asked the location of possible surveillance cameras (there were several) and gave me a card with this name written on it. He told me a detective would reach out once they were assigned.

A week passed. I attempted to get back into the groove of a typical day. I did not feel confident that SPD would identify the driver, but felt resolute that several surveillance cameras in the area could have captured it. I felt that this deserved investigation. I also felt motivated to report the attack to inform hate crime statistics, ideally so that responding policymakers and community programs could respond in ways that keep queer people safe. I don’t have extensive experience interacting with police, aside from a grad school capstone project with LEAD and a role in negotiating police presence at the Seattle Pride Parade. I did everything I could think of to cooperate with the process and respond politely to the delays. I called the number on the officer’s business card, which rang and rang until the line disconnected. I called the SPD LGBTQ+ Liaison and left a message. I called the hate drive detective and left another message.

On Wednesday, July 25, I called the precinct again and spoke to a desk officer who gave me the number of a department who handled case follow-ups. I called that number and spoke to a cheery voice who relayed that, unfortunately, a detective would not investigate my case due to lack of evidence.

It seems that the process with SPD has ended, without an attempt to gather surveillance footage from the condo building directly in front of the spot I was attacked in, or from Amazon, whose delivery vans are equipped with surveillance. I didn’t begin this process with the belief that SPD is equipped to prevent or respond to hate crimes, which echoes the experiences of many of my neighbors over the years who are queer, BIPOC, or otherwise marginalized. Truthfully, I believe the Capitol Hill community has the responsibility and expertise to protect ourselves in many cases. The Q-Patrol was a force that existed in Capitol Hill in the early 1990s to protect and respond to queer and other marginalized community members. As a climate of hate grows during another Trump presidency, we need a Q-Patrol again. While I am personally taking self defense classes, and can contact surveillance camera owners myself, there are many who simply don’t have capacity or ability. I want to share my story with the intent to inform, inspire, and mobilize my community to create a radically inclusive model to respond to attacks and support survivors of crimes like mine, as well as to support those who need resources such as housing and health care (which SPD is also not well equipped for). The intent of this reflection is not to invoke fear of lawlessness, or to propose we ratchet up resources for SPD, but to propose an alternative. Because this will happen again, to other queer people on the Hill, in broad daylight, due to emboldened hate in an unprecedented time. A community-led force could show up and seek justice in ways SPD simply can not.

Tim Marshall is a lifelong Seattle resident, Capitol Hill renter, and queer rights advocate. You can reach Tim via email.

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'It’s a product to sell to people who prioritise their nostalgia for children’s fantasy over the culture their trans friends and family live in'

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While Spotify users worm their way through a maze of AI-generated slop, the streaming giant's executives are dealing with an exodus of musicians after CEO Daniel Ek was working on a massive investment into an AI military weapons firm.

Through his tech investment company, Prima Materia, Ek lead a $690 million funding round into Helsing, a German drone and AI weapons tech company, as reported by the Financial Times. Four years earlier, Ek — who also holds a position as Chairman of Helsing — led the German company's initial funding round, worth just under $114 million.

Thanks to Ek's substantial backing, Helsing has grown into a firm valued at over $13.5 billion. In just a few short years, the weapons company has produced such freedom enhancers as loitering munitions, weaponized quadcopters, underwater surveillance drones, and autonomous fighter jets.

The investment might be welcome news to the rapidly growing European weapons industry, but it went over like a lead balloon with musicians on Spotify, who began leaving the music platform in droves. Many of them took to social media to explain their decision to fans.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, a prolific Australian rock band with over 1.4 million monthly listeners on Spotify, announced the release of a demo collection alongside their departure.

"New demos collection out everywhere except Spotify (f**k Spotify)," the band wrote. "You can bootleg if you wanna."

They took further aim at the company in an Instagram story. "A PSA to those unaware: Spotify CEO Daniel Ek invests millions in AI military drone technology," the group posted on July 25. "We just removed our music from the platform. Can we put pressure on these Dr. Evil tech bros to do better? Join us on another platform.”

After King Gizzard's bombshell decision, many fellow artists followed suit.

"We are currently working to take all of our music off of garbage hole armageddon portal Spotify," wrote Xiu Xiu, an American experimental rock band. "For all the reasons you already know — PLEASE CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION WITH SPOTIFY."

San Francisco-based indie-rock group Deerhoof posted an extensive explanation on Instagram, calling on fellow culture workers to "take a stand on the important issues facing humanity." The band took aim at Spotify's extractive business model, the weaponization of Europe, Ek's massive wealth, as well as the billionaire CEO's union-busting efforts.

"The current trend of Big Tech oligarchs taking increasing control over human affairs and attention, in which Ek has played a major role, is profoundly anti-democratic," Deerhoof wrote. "We don’t want our music killing people. We don’t want our success being tied to AI battle tech."

Other artists boycotting the platform include folk singer Leah Senior, indie band Dr Sure's Unusual Practice, songwriter Nicholas Allbrook, and the Belgium record company Kalahari Oyster Cult label.

More on Spotify: Spotify Caught Doing Something Unbelievably Ghoulish With AI

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The latest episode of Game Changer, Dropout’s comedy game show where the game changes every episode, begins with comedians Jacob Wysocki, Kimia Behoornia, Kurt Maloney, and Jeremy Culhane playing a seemingly straightforward version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. This is not unusual: Dropout has produced its own versions of popular game shows and reality competition franchises, such as The Bachelor, Survivor, and The Circle. But what is unusual is what happens after Wysocki wins the opening challenge — drawing a “cool cat” — and steps center stage to begin answering trivia questions tailor-made to his interests and personal history. As his winnings pile up, Wysocki tells host and Dropout CEO Sam Reich, “I feel absolutely insane!”

Contestants claiming to freak out during a Game Changer challenge is familiar enough — Wysocki previously expressed this sentiment while playing a demented version of Simon Says — considering the show’s producers and crew make a game out of psyching out players as they try to figure out the rules and parameters of the game they’re playing. It’s hard to fault the comedians for having an additional level of paranoia when the show has produced episodes that conspire to set up a single person. Previous examples include “Yes or No,” in which the only rule was that Brennan Lee Mulligan couldn’t win, or “Don’t Cry,” an episode designed to celebrate Jess Ross during a personally challenging year. Before long, it becomes clear that this is one of those Game Changers.

Wysocki has indeed been set up by his colleagues and friends: The game he’s playing is designed to recognize his popularity among the Dropout audience and acknowledge the personal losses he’s recently experienced. He gets every question correct, regardless of his answer; his longtime friends and collaborators are introduced into the game, and by the episode’s emotional conclusion, he’s won a prize total of $100,000. But even as he was winning “an astonishing amount of money,” Wysocki couldn’t lose sight of the fact that “you’re also making a television show as a comedian, so you have to balance those two things.” Speaking over Zoom before he performed at the Just for Laughs comedy festival in Montreal, Wysocki broke down how he processed it all in the moment: “You’re just letting the comedy training come and see what happens.”

Can you walk me through the process of getting cast in an episode of Game Changer? I know Sam and the team go to great pains to make sure the cast members don’t get tipped off about what’s going on.
It’s hard to speak about it holistically because each episode is so specific, and I think depending on the level of secrecy or mischief, probably requires different levels of communication. The very, very beginning is, you get an email from Sam: “I would like you to be on this season of Game Changer. Here are some vague sentiments — how spicy are you willing to get?” And so you’re sort of giving soft consent on this email. Then a bunch of time goes by, you forget about it, and you show up to Dropout doing other jobs, wondering if it’s secretly going to be a Game Changer.

When did you realize this wasn’t a typical Game Changer episode but an episode designed around you?
Sam said this thing to all of us before, where he was being vague, and he was like, “Remember, it’s got to be funny and everybody gets a turn.” So when I was picked first to start answering these trivia questions that were lightly about my life, I was like, “Cool, I’ll do two or three of these, I’ll make a hundred bucks, I’ll go sit down.” I thought that was the game. We’re going to take rotating turns, answering interpersonal questions about ourselves and maybe our friendship.

I had no information other than that it was going to be me, Kurt, Kimia, and Jeremy. Kurt and I have been friends for nearly two decades. Kimia and I have known each other since we were both 18. So I thought it was like they were playing with the fact that we were a historical group of friends, and it would be answering questions about our friendship. Then when we got to 15, 20,000 bucks, I was like, This is getting kind of crazy. When are we going to have somebody else go? Then it kept going, and it got to a point where I realized, Oh, nobody else is going, and it’s just going to be me.

It was like watching Jim Carrey realize what’s going on in The Truman Show.
I think it took me longer because there were two levels of acceptance. There’s the level of acceptance that’s, Oh, this episode is just about me. I’m the driving force of the momentum and the comedy. I have to humbly accept one of the most righteous things that could ever happen to a person, which is a windfall. That’s a lot of money for how I came up and the world that I grew up in.

Besides the large amount of prize money, what element of the episode was the most meaningful to you?
Being there with my buddies. I think my friend group is one of the best things about me. To have friends that you’ve known for so long and that you’ve grown up with, I think that’s so special. The strongest bonds I have are all in one room celebrating this moment.

I watched a lot of groups get big — Broken Lizard, the State, Good Neighbor, the Whitest Kids You Know — and that was sort of maybe a blueprint for how you could get into Hollywood. They were all just buddies doing comedy, and they made their stuff, and eventually people paid them to make stuff. We came up thinking, All right, if we just keep making videos like all these other big influences, maybe we can do that too. At a certain point, life gets in the way, you grow up, and you realize, Oh, it’s really hard being a group of dudes trying to make it in this town. For whatever reason, it didn’t work out for us as a group, but it worked out for a lot of us as individuals. So it was particularly special making something together, being funny, and doing bits. For some of us, we haven’t done that together in a long time and it felt really good.

The speech you gave about what the money would mean to you was disarmingly sincere. What was going through your mind at that moment?
That was probably the hardest part of it. You have this crazy experience, and then the ringleader goes, “Land the backflip.” That’s the time when you want to be perfect because something perfect just happened to me. It was just a lot of pressure. How much do you want to share with an audience? There are things that happened in my life that are technically public, but I don’t really share as my onscreen persona. Do I talk about my active grief and that there are people missing? You have to create a separation of church and state. So, you’re threading so many different lines: Be funny, be gracious, be celebratory, be eloquent, be concise, and also self-edit so that I’m not being too personal and I’m not letting a bunch of great fans, but ultimately strangers, into the true intricacies of my life and my heart.

Sam does mention that it was a difficult year for you. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?
I was actively grieving the loss of my mother and a member of our sketch group, Roger Garcia III. And yeah — they’re there, but they’re not.

You’ve become popular online through Dropout. That helps Dropout, but it also helps you. However, you mention the need to have these boundaries, as you say, with strangers whose affection for you is intense and well-meaning, but they don’t know you, and you don’t know them. How has that been for you?
The infancy of the popularity is very novel. I don’t think the human brain and body are designed to have unearned affection, which, I think parasocial relationships can sometimes feel that way. I came up in a world where I do a live show, I hear the live audience laugh — that’s our contractual exchange. To get it after the fact is just something that you’re not used to. It’s sort of this compliment that exists in a vacuum. It’s a process that I’m still learning, and the people who are watching us are also learning.

How have you been since the filming of that episode?
Awesome. My go-to joke is it’s all gone. I spent it, I burned it. No, but I feel great. I think the craziest thing about it all is that the same evening, the Dodgers won the World Series. I’m an L.A. boy. So we finished filming and then me and my friends go get a case of beer and we drove down to Echo Park and we’re just partying in the streets and we’re celebrating our city, but we’re also celebrating what just happened. We got to go out and be like, “Yeah!” and we didn’t look crazy because everybody else was doing it. That makes it even more special and even more memorable. And the night ended with us watching a Los Angeles Metro bus explode.

I still feel pretty insane about it when I really sit down and think about how I won a huge amount of money because of the work I’ve put in and the relationships I’ve built with the people who watch the place where I work. It’s a celebration of that. And it’s also a recognition that I had a pretty shit year and had to keep working. I got to keep working for the company. There were times when stuff with my mother got really intense, and I had to be like, “I can’t work today. I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to call Jeremy Culhane. You’re going to have to bring in Jeremy.” They were extremely kind and generous throughout that process.

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