Believe it or not
A new Internet hoax is born every day; it's rare for one to conclusively end. That's what makes this particular day so very fantastic. Since 2010 (and maybe earlier!), people have claimed that "Back to the Future Day" fell in their year. But they can't say that anymore, HURRAY, because Back to the Future Day is finally, definitively, unambiguously here.
1. From WATS to tweets, and everything in between. While we tend to hype the tech angle of #BlackLivesMatter, the civil rights movement's always been shaped by its technology. Social media has powered new concepts and conversations around race -- just like phones and televisions did in the 1960s.
2. Inside the Internet's hottest -- and shadiest! -- get-rich-quick scheme. It's a three-part process that basically amounts to commercial catfishing. People make up fake "experts" and publish books on Amazon under their names. If readers call them out on it, they buy good reviews until the bad ones go away.
3. A deeper look at the subversive politics of YouTuber Tyler Oakley. To us, he's a goofy kid with purple hair. To many, he's a new model of gay millennial identity.
all day erryday (link)
Pocketable: A (fictional) dispatch from a world where brains can be uploaded and shared as easily as MP3s. Pretty weird, pretty fascinating! (2170 words/9 minutes)
Postscripts: Emoji room service. Invisible porn. The unlikely story of how Mountain Dew was born. How hipsters have revived old words and how the Internet has changed bullying. How many friends you can ACTUALLY have, irrespective of FB. Twitter bots for the Web's oldest pages; Twitter bots to fight ISIS. Where's the line between radical trolls and straight-up fascists? Believe it or not, Silicon Valley occasionally unplugs. In doing so, they're missing out on lotsa A+ pugs.
See ya tomorrow!
@caitlindewey
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