Dude, relax!
Reading the Internet, someone recently said, is rather like eating a bag of chips: greasy, fattening (one presumes?) and ultimately ... delicious. "You look up and think, 'What am I doing?'" Joshua Topolsky griped to the Times. What are you doing? Dude, relax! Just read what you like!
Mmmmmmmmm Doritos.
(ALSO: Apologies for my absence last week, and thank you to everyone who inquired about my untimely end. You can't get rid of me QUITE that easily, my friends. ;)
1. Who really runs #BlackLivesMatters? First it was a hashtag, then it was the defining protest movement of our generation, and now it's a "radical" political organization that disrupts campaign events. Much like Occupy, Anonymous and other Internet-born movements, the fact that anyone can rally under BLM's banner is both its biggest problem and its greatest asset.
2. On the Internet, videos and cats. "When I am drinking at their homes, my friends insist on queuing up cat videos on their screens. I can’t take it. They know I can’t. I have to turn away ... It’s like the doldrums of the after-dinner conversation in which we find ourselves recounting the antics of our pets: We’re exhausted; we’re not connecting; we’re talking to ourselves about ourselves. We might as well go home alone, our buzzes gone."
3. The color of disruption is a loud, noxious green. Chartreuse has become trendy in Silicon Valley: It's on the walls at Zendesk, Google, Microsoft and Airbnb. Maybe that's because start-ups are trying to look more grown up/design-y ... or maybe it's because, as this URL suggests, it's "almost the same color as money."
Thank you Emily Yahr for introducing me to what may be the best GIF ever
(#bettermetaphorsfortheInternet)
Pocketable: You have surely read the Times' dark, dark look inside Jeff Bezos' Amazon. BUT have you read this dispatch from the company's bathroom stalls? (7698 words for the two, which you should def buy together/31 minutes in all)
Postscripts: #BatTrump. Bar Roulette. Blobs. Your artisanal kale's just a sign you're a snob. This is how you crowdsource a criminal investigation and THIS is how you troll. Real talk: Phone calls ARE super awkward. (Or phones are? I don't know.) In praise of missing out. In censure of @FatJew. These folks got religion via Skype, and now you can do it, too! Dangerous geeks. Highbrow pets. The scourge of Vine cover bands. Last but not least, things that have recently and wrongly been pronounced dead: computer mice, dating -- and hey! -- writing on the Web.
Until tomorrow!
@caitlindewey
Do you like this newsletter? Please send it to a friend! If you don't like this newsletter, please send it to an enemy. Have questions or feedback? Just hit "reply" to talk to me.