longreads.com

Forget the A.I. Apocalypse. Memes Have Already Nuked Our Culture.

The "6-7" meme was revelatory because of the immense gap between its symbolic payload — essentially nonexistent — and its cultural penetration. It worked like tracer dye running through our information ecosystem, revealing its functions and dysfunctions.

noahpinion.blog

How Japan has changed in the last 20 years

The quirky art culture, vibrant street scenes, and mosaic of small independent businesses that defined 2000s Japan are vanishing under the relentless assault of aging, economic stagnation, and social media.

3quarksdaily.com

Chuck Norris once beat the sun in a staring contest

There was a time — in the days when the internet was still a force for fun — when Chuck Norris jokes flooded our screens. It was the mid-2000s. Twitter and Facebook were not yet ascendant. We weren't yet glued to our phones.

noahpinion.blog

Save us, Digital Cronkite!

Basically, spreading hate and divisiveness on social media is a form of entrepreneurship. As Eugene Wei has written, social media is all about getting social status. 10,000 followers on X may not sound like a media empire to rival CBS News, but for most people it's more attention than they would otherwise get in their entire life.

whyisthisinteresting

The Monday Media Diet with Tom Junod

one of the ironies of writing a book is that your publisher asks to you sharpen your Instagram skills so that you can sell it on a platform that is wildly post-literate and is the same time the home of many writers dancing as fast as they can to create attention for the product of all that sweat and toil.

longreads.com

A Complimentary Profile Of Jason Lee That Was Surprisingly Difficult To Publish

The paradox of Jason Lee—to me, The Enemy, at least—is that he is a celebrity who openly invites fans to come hang out with him on a regular basis, but who also has historically remained a notably private person.