#710: Viral exorcists and taxidermied bats
It's way too early in the year for this shit!
Hi, hello!, and happy weekend. You’re reading the Saturday edition of Links I Would Gchat You If We Were Friends: a lovingly curated collection of brand-new writing on internet culture and technology, culled from the hundreds of RSS feeds and newsletters I read for this exclusive purpose. Last week, I screened <4,324 links. (I just figured out how to quantify this!) Next week, who knows: Technology so often defies all our best-laid plans and predictions. 🫠
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If you read anything this weekend
“The Demon Slayers,” by Sam Kestenbaum for Harper’s. In the summer of 2023, Kestenbaum went undercover with Locke Media — the slick, algorithmically savvy production company run by right-wing minister Greg Locke and his motley band of spiritual warriors. The things Kestenbaum sees there are … absolutely bonkers. Like, writhing-bodies-in-an-old-school-tent-revival shit. (Except Locke always has cameras and drones on hand to capture his exorcistic exploits, which the fire-and-brimstone preachers of yore obviously never did!) Locke, moreover, purportedly belongs to a wider Christian revival movement that began exploiting Americans’ spiritual anxieties — and capitalizing on well-trod social engagement hacks — during the pandemic. I can think of no better metaphor for where we, as a country, are at right now … and I can’t say I feel great about it!
Three reads on the empty online afterlife of the Trump assassination. Several of my favorite digital culture writers considered the Trump assassination this week, and essentially concluded that we’ve entered the lol nothing matters era of online information/maybe, democracy. In The Atlantic, Charlie Warzel argues that social media has officially and definitively elevated speed and emotive pull over rigor and accuracy. At Garbage Day, Ryan Broderick chronicles an atomized online discourse that is at once meaningless and shrieking. And in The Washington Post, Links fave
observes that Gen Z is just posting through it: “The prevailing feeling is like … ‘I’ve given up taking things seriously so I’m just making tweets until the asteroid hits.’”“Could Social Media Support Healthy Online Conversations? New_ Public is Working on It,” by Neel Dhanesha for Nieman Lab. Optimistic counterpoint!! (Lol, sure.) Since 2019, New_ Public has studied best practices for local online community forums and worked to shore up capacity among overtaxed moderators. If you live in a community where Facebook groups or Nextdoor forums have supplanted the civic role of local media — and survey suggests you probably do!! — then these efforts to build a new “information infrastructure” for local democracy might intrigue you.
“The New Pornographers,” by Roxane Gay for The Bitter Southerner. A witty, vibrant, keenly observed meditation on TikTok — its enviable influencers, its viral dancers, its attractive farriers, its masked chefs — and the rapacious existential tedium at the dark scrolly heart of it.
(Sorry, not a LOT of levity in this edition!!)
In case you missed it
The most-clicked link from the last edition was this piece on TikTok’s favorite camera.
On Thursday, I wrote about the ragtag band of anonymous influencers and aggregators who broker/broke breaking news on X. A fun additional beat on that: The European Commission warned X last week that it’s practice of selling blue checks “negatively affects users' ability to make free and informed decisions about the authenticity of the accounts and the content they interact with.”
Postscripts
“A Dickensian tradition finds a new audience on TikTok.” A handy trick for spotting deepfakes, inspired by astronomy. An appreciation of Biden’s Truth Social account. A guide to sustainable online shopping. Happy 25th birthday, MetaFilter! What happens when you change your race on Hinge from Black to white. Are microtrends a means of feeling less alone? Is the future of socialization actually offline?
Women seek “fruity” men. Men seek sexy bots. Bots (metaphorical) seek rubber stamp. Amidst the unwitting finance bros. Inside an unintentional tech time capsule. Meet Yelp’s second-most prolific reviewer. (Was John M. from Orlando not available???) British people love free weather apps; dumb-dumb Americans want to kill them. Last … and also, absolutely least: “Taxidermied bats [are] commonly sold online in frames, jars, coffins [and] jewelry.” (Y’all need to COOL IT with Halloween!!!)
BELOW the paywall you’ll also find:
Unlocked links from the The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Atlantic
Three new and old books I’m reading
A lovely, lyrical game recommendation, for fans of the NYT Spelling Bee
That’s it for this week! Until the next one. Warmest virtual regards,
Caitlin
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