An Olympic-sized pool full o'lies
Smh. I am over this. I have written this intro FIVE separate times.
First it was some joke about memes. Then a long joke on Reddit and AI. Then a semi-tortured attempt to untangle Ryan Lochte's Olympic-sized pool full o'lies. That one was decent and SURELY, I thought, the week's big Internet news. But no, Twitter finally addressed harassment ... and then Gawker closed, too.
This is a lot for one Thursday, and will likely fuel my small talk for months. But real talk, guys: Gawker closing is *truly* very glum. No matter what you think of Gawker, one dude's grudge should NOT have shut it down. Also, to where will we turn for Illuminati news and low-key trolling now...?
nice try sucker (link)
1. An appreciation of Gawker, from a writer who grew up there. Adrien Chen, now a staff writer at the New Yorker, wrote this essay when Gawker lost its battle with Hulk Hogan. "One of Gawker’s key innovations was to ... [put] writers in front of a mass audience while still encouraging them to express themselves however they wanted."
2. "This is how a movement spreads in the 21st century — not just with picket signs and bullhorns, but with 'likes' and retweets." Twitter and Facebook didn't start Black Lives Matter, but the dynamics of those networks did send it mainstream.
3. The trifecta that makes gay hook-up apps so "addictive" to users. They promise access to sex and personal validation -- on top of the rewards of the standard social network. In other words, if you think Facebook's "addictive," you're not ready for Grindr.
4. An appreciation of Weird Facebook, the only good Facebook left. It's a bizarre, shared performance piece that exists solely for itself. Weird Facebookers don't want to go viral; they don't want to get book deals from their memes. For them, it's all about in-jokes and a sense of community.
5. This is your life in Silicon Valley (and increasingly, everywhere else): mediated by apps, distracted by trends and obsessed with status. :-/
wasn't me (link)
Postscripts: @UnchartedAtlas. @Spmmerson. @StayWokeBot. Can you tell which of these Trump tweets are by Trump, and which, in fact, are not? Silicon Valley's real UX problem. Instagram's secret teen brain trust. Apple wants to kill the headphone jack, and here's what that means for us. Today, in Pokemon's never-ending long tail: baby names, app design, and the sheer length of play. Hanging out with online trolls sounds like the absolute worst day. Singlets are the new creepshots and propagandists the new influencers. Beware the viral Facebook scam of the summer.
If you got a dollar each time you touched your phone, you'd be a multi-millionaire. These guys once ruled the Internet, but now nobody cares. The hell of never signing off. The rise of the fan bully. Today, in surprisingly problematic: #First7jobs and gun emoji.
Until next week!
@caitlindewey
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