FOREVER ALONE

Well, here's a good, world-weary lol on which to end the day: an "Uber for friends" exists. Srsly. If you're out and about on a Friday night, with no pals to call your own, you can just shop for a new friend group. Or be FOREVER ALONE.

1. There's a battle for the Internet, and we're losing. In some of her first candid remarks since leaving Reddit, Ellen Pao's taking on trolls: They've perverted free speech online, she argues, and undermined the Web's earliest goals. She isn't sure how to prevent these abuses or reverse the trend ... but it doesn't sound, alas, like we should expect the worst trolling to end.

2. You think Millennials define Internet culture, but it's actually their moms. Increasingly, women aged 40 and older are the so-called "tastemakers" that viral sites rely on.

3. How an old poem becomes a new meme. OR: Williams Carlos Williams, Twitter visionary.

This is like when you tell a group of people you're taking their picture ...
but actually your phone's on video.

Pocketable: ISIS vs. social media companies. (4617 words/18 minutes)

Postscripts: Cat pianos. Comments, but without the commenting. The tragedy of the commons, (a) on Reddit and (b) in one tweet. The United States of Swearing. The chemistry of ice cream. The pink ghetto of social media, which I ESCAPED thankfully. Algorithms will never replace taste and Internet will one day span the globe. If you thought Reddit was all bad, hey wait -- there's hope!

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.