I was in a conference room at Melbourne zoo for a team off-site in 2016, when the unthinkable happened. This year it SHOULD be inconceivable in every regard, and yet isn't. It's a collective psychosis, or surrender. I tense up just thinking about the collective American mind.
That's the only definition, notwithstanding the contemporary propensity, especially in America, to claim there's no collective agreement as to the meaning of ordinary words.
So who keeps buying Hanania crayons to write all that mess with? Bob Mercer?
Far as clowns like Benjamin and Wu and him are concerned, they're grifters in that they shill any weird radical pose their "brand" allows, in order to glean attention; which is to them the sole fount of currency.
All are in a permanent pose of grievance that they're not more "important" and influential in any real fashion beyond their online reindeer games; and are both addicted to and acutely resentful of the attention they must constantly court. And the Xitter app loves them all; can't stop throwing them up in all our faces, for its own purposes.
An interesting essay. From the title I was expecting something a little snarkier and more predictable, but I really appreciate where your train of thought lead.
It's funny; I didn't follow gamergate closely enough to know the names of the people involved but it nevertheless made a big impression on my. I think of that as the event that more or less killed whatever my belief in Clay Shirky's vision of the internet (I was never completely sold, but it had been a significant part of my sense of the web).
It's weird to have it fade into the background a bit (as you describe), but maybe it's because the idea that the internet can be violent and capricious no longer seems shocking.
But the closing image seemed exciting rather than ominous at the time:
****
I was having dinner with a group of friends about a month ago, and one of them was talking about sitting with his four-year-old daughter watching a DVD. And in the middle of the movie, apropos nothing, she jumps up off the couch and runs around behind the screen. That seems like a cute moment. Maybe she's going back there to see if Dora is really back there or whatever. But that wasn't what she was doing. She started rooting around in the cables. And her dad said, "What you doing?" And she stuck her head out from behind the screen and said, "Looking for the mouse."
I thought it was going to be snarkier too! I often go into these projects with a really critical mindset and then wind up feeling more sympathetic to people through the course of research than I expected.
That's a great article, thanks for showing me, very thought provoking, I hadn't read that before.
I'm glad you found it interesting. That article (and his book "Here Comes Everybody" -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_Comes_Everybody_(book) ) is something I keep mulling over because he is right about a number of things; he's just working in an overly optimistic framework.
I'm glad you found it interesting. That article (and his book "Here Comes Everybody" -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_Comes_Everybody_(book) ) is something I keep mulling over because he is right about a number of things; he's just working in an overly optimistic framework.
Hate-mongering for money was common on the right so it was an exceptional moment when leftie Glenn Greenwald made a new market for himself by 'hosting' Alex Jones' comeback. Sure, it may well have been about financial survival, but I still feel betrayed, and that he became a grifter.
Man. Taibbi collaborating with Elon Musk was bad enough, but Greenwald collaborating with the Illuminati chemtrails guy had me screaming at the computer screen. Just the validation that comes with a Pulitzer winner sharing space with Jones feels not just disappointing but downright irresponsible.
It was a profound moment for me. I was past the stage of having heroes, but their was part of me that wanted to live in a world of heroes. That 99% died in that moment, falling as fast as Greenwald's legacy. Julian Assange isn't a grifter and remains symbolic, but if he's given to America, it'll be my last dark day involving figures of light. Internet human beings have exhausted me.
Yep. Just a bottomless grift. Trump mastered it and his fans have learned well๐คทโโ๏ธ
This is a long way from the meaning of grifter, which is a specific insult or career path, unrelated to ideology or politics.
Trump is a grifter, for example, it's his life purpose.
No argument about Trump - the grift to end them all, the dog catching the car. God help us all in November.
I was in a conference room at Melbourne zoo for a team off-site in 2016, when the unthinkable happened. This year it SHOULD be inconceivable in every regard, and yet isn't. It's a collective psychosis, or surrender. I tense up just thinking about the collective American mind.
There are a bunch of definitions e.g. "someone who gets money dishonestly by tricking people".
That's the only definition, notwithstanding the contemporary propensity, especially in America, to claim there's no collective agreement as to the meaning of ordinary words.
So who keeps buying Hanania crayons to write all that mess with? Bob Mercer?
Far as clowns like Benjamin and Wu and him are concerned, they're grifters in that they shill any weird radical pose their "brand" allows, in order to glean attention; which is to them the sole fount of currency.
All are in a permanent pose of grievance that they're not more "important" and influential in any real fashion beyond their online reindeer games; and are both addicted to and acutely resentful of the attention they must constantly court. And the Xitter app loves them all; can't stop throwing them up in all our faces, for its own purposes.
An interesting essay. From the title I was expecting something a little snarkier and more predictable, but I really appreciate where your train of thought lead.
It's funny; I didn't follow gamergate closely enough to know the names of the people involved but it nevertheless made a big impression on my. I think of that as the event that more or less killed whatever my belief in Clay Shirky's vision of the internet (I was never completely sold, but it had been a significant part of my sense of the web).
It's weird to have it fade into the background a bit (as you describe), but maybe it's because the idea that the internet can be violent and capricious no longer seems shocking.
I don't know if you remember this "Gin, Television, and Social Surplus" -- https://gist.github.com/jm3/6724931
But the closing image seemed exciting rather than ominous at the time:
****
I was having dinner with a group of friends about a month ago, and one of them was talking about sitting with his four-year-old daughter watching a DVD. And in the middle of the movie, apropos nothing, she jumps up off the couch and runs around behind the screen. That seems like a cute moment. Maybe she's going back there to see if Dora is really back there or whatever. But that wasn't what she was doing. She started rooting around in the cables. And her dad said, "What you doing?" And she stuck her head out from behind the screen and said, "Looking for the mouse."
****
I thought it was going to be snarkier too! I often go into these projects with a really critical mindset and then wind up feeling more sympathetic to people through the course of research than I expected.
That's a great article, thanks for showing me, very thought provoking, I hadn't read that before.
I'm glad you found it interesting. That article (and his book "Here Comes Everybody" -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_Comes_Everybody_(book) ) is something I keep mulling over because he is right about a number of things; he's just working in an overly optimistic framework.
Terrific share, and thus I shall share it too. It's 2008 flashfowarding into 2024.
I'm glad you found it interesting. That article (and his book "Here Comes Everybody" -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_Comes_Everybody_(book) ) is something I keep mulling over because he is right about a number of things; he's just working in an overly optimistic framework.
I've no time for his book, my list is already too long, but I read the Wiki page and have bookmarked him.
Hate-mongering for money was common on the right so it was an exceptional moment when leftie Glenn Greenwald made a new market for himself by 'hosting' Alex Jones' comeback. Sure, it may well have been about financial survival, but I still feel betrayed, and that he became a grifter.
Man. Taibbi collaborating with Elon Musk was bad enough, but Greenwald collaborating with the Illuminati chemtrails guy had me screaming at the computer screen. Just the validation that comes with a Pulitzer winner sharing space with Jones feels not just disappointing but downright irresponsible.
It was a profound moment for me. I was past the stage of having heroes, but their was part of me that wanted to live in a world of heroes. That 99% died in that moment, falling as fast as Greenwald's legacy. Julian Assange isn't a grifter and remains symbolic, but if he's given to America, it'll be my last dark day involving figures of light. Internet human beings have exhausted me.