Sick moves brah

Last Sunday I played flip cup for the first time since college and it was pretty fun. 🍺🍺 LITTLE DID I KNOW, had I recorded the game, I may have at last achieved viral stardom. After all, flip cup is basically what water-bottle-flip kid did, and he's being called the teen meme of the year. Raise your standards, Internet sheeple! There's nothing meme-worthy here!

1. Does Siri believe in God? Not currently, but she could one day! In fact, as AI advances we get closer to grappling with the subject of their faith. Could software convert to Christianity or Islam? Will anyone throw "bot mitzvahs" for their programs? It is actually, when you think about it, a pretty *mimes brain exploding* question...

2. Jessica Carbino works at Tinder. She's a sociologist. Her job is to guess what modern daters want from their online trysts. For starters, she's found, they don't just want hook-ups: 80 percent of users are in it for the long haul. So maybe this whole online dating thing hasn't changed us that much at all!

3. The way the Internet sees you is likely not how you see yourself. Every website you view collects data on you, but it makes for an eerie portrait. Case in point: tech critic Sara Watson compiled her data from Facebook, Google and a series of others brokers; the woman who emerged was contradictory/bizarre/obviously not her.

4. We all know digital ad-targeting is creepy -- see link #3. But the crap going down at Copley Advertising is straight-up terrifying. The agency, which geo-targets mobile ads, has recently begun working with the pro-life movement. Their goal is to blitz pregnant women with propaganda while they're at waiting health clinics.

5. Inside the race to figure out wtf is up with teens. They're always on their phones, they're obsessed with Vine, and marketers *need* to know What It All Means.

>> You can download these links (and several others!) as a free ebook here.

sick moves brah
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Postscripts: Dat Boi. #DemThrones. The Donald divide. The rise of everything (!!) and the fall (?) of Vine. How the Internet works. What makes a good meme. The search for the colors we can't see on our screens. "Influencers" are legit the worst. Humans on Twitter are about the same. I am indeed beginning to fret about how technology "hijacks the brain." The creepiest threads on 4chan and Reddit; the right to disconnect. A potential cure for the dreaded, much-ballyhooed Text Neck.

There's a darker side to fandom, livestreaming and Pepe memes. There's a contingent of people using copyright to chill legitimate speech. Six algorithms that can improve your life; 24 Autocorrect fails that could ruin it. The one thing you can become merely by explaining it. Treat your algorithm like you'd treat your children: with love and *constant* fear that your eff-ups will be remembered. Last and kinda least: the weird Web forums with only one member.

Until next week!
@caitlindewey

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