I started by following a bunch of liberal-to-left media people/bloggers etc. and so far my feed is kind of depressing, it's just this frenzy of people shitting themselves about trump's fallon appearance, trump's hotel thing, trump's hair, how the media should stop giving trump so much coverage, etc. I feel like there's a lot of denial going on about what the media is/are and about how good Trump is for it, even as its members express how upset they are over the phenomenon they are part of.
― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Friday, September 16, 2016 3:24 PM (twenty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
aw /sigh/
― lag∞n, Friday, 16 September 2016 19:50 (seven years ago) link
twitter is definitely better when you follow real people and not brands or companies, though prob 80% of my twitter use is to stay connected in my field so i do follow a lot of libraries, academic departments, universities, and orgs. i've been involved in a lot of diversity/inclusion/social justice work in my field so a good chunk of my feed is black lives matter and social justice stuff in higher ed. i think i need more weirdness though. using it for work too makes me hesitant and sometimes guarded to post certain stuff so i haven't really gone in 100%
― marcos, Friday, 16 September 2016 19:59 (seven years ago) link
i can't follow too many social justice accounts, a lot of them are just so high-frequency they instantly dominate yr feed. you get enough of it just by following normal people and seeing the RTs imo
― flopson, Friday, 16 September 2016 20:01 (seven years ago) link
idk if I'd call weird twitter "real people" but they're familiar to me
― dr. mercurio arboria (mh 😏), Friday, 16 September 2016 20:06 (seven years ago) link
a lot of them are just so high-frequency they instantly dominate yr feed.
yes!
― marcos, Friday, 16 September 2016 20:14 (seven years ago) link
Idk, I'd much rather read Adolph Reed than FDB (not that I necessarily agree with either) but the critique of soft-liberal identity politics from the left seems like a useful provocation at times. Whether cranky Marxists are correct is less important than ensuring progressive politics doesn't end up as the endless repetition of woke dogma.
― On a Raqqa tip (ShariVari), Friday, September 16, 2016 2:50 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Yeah I think there is something to this. It's sort of a fine line because some of the stuff fueling the "woke dogma" is very legit, but it can also lead into this terrible maze of individualistic/atomized non-analysis. Also because in this election all that "woke" stuff was pretty quickly coopted by the Clinton campaign and used against Bernie Sanders supporters.
― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Friday, 16 September 2016 20:16 (seven years ago) link
I would follow you marcos! I keep twitter totally separate from my professional life thoI am @joshuabizabcock
I basically just follow friends, ILx0rs, and the occasional entertaining celebrity account (Ralph Bakshi, Daniel Pinkwater, Sarah Silverman, Julia Wertz etc.) I can handle people that post a million things a day though gtfo with that shit
― Οὖτις, Friday, 16 September 2016 20:20 (seven years ago) link
tweeting constantly is what twitters for actually
― lag∞n, Friday, 16 September 2016 20:33 (seven years ago) link
― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Friday, 16 September 2016 20:37 (seven years ago) link
lol
― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Friday, 16 September 2016 20:37 (seven years ago) link
heh
― Οὖτις, Friday, 16 September 2016 20:38 (seven years ago) link
good one very timely
― lag∞n, Friday, 16 September 2016 20:38 (seven years ago) link
also fwiw imo the discussion the media is having amongst itself rn re how to cover trump is extremely important and may save human civilization from violet collapse, even tho its "the media" criticizing "the media" which i know is hard to understand
it's very important and will not amount to anything because they aren't going to suddenly stop needing ratings/views/clicks
― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Friday, 16 September 2016 20:40 (seven years ago) link
It's also a "discussion" that has been going on for like 9 months now to no avail.
― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Friday, 16 September 2016 20:41 (seven years ago) link
ah yes clickbait lol
― lag∞n, Friday, 16 September 2016 20:41 (seven years ago) link
yup
― Οὖτις, Friday, 16 September 2016 20:42 (seven years ago) link
my twitter is good content
― ( ^_^) (Lamp), Friday, 16 September 2016 20:42 (seven years ago) link
still - I look forward to the tweet that saves human civilization from violent collapse, what a glorious tweet that will be, enshrined forever in the annals of human history
clickbait actually --http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/files/2012/03/twitter-egg-icon.jpg
― lag∞n, Friday, 16 September 2016 20:43 (seven years ago) link
*cracks knuckles* guess it's time for me to return to twitter
― who is extremely unqualified to review this pop album (BradNelson), Friday, 16 September 2016 20:44 (seven years ago) link
finally techbros will rest contentedly, secure in the knowledge that they have indeed made the world a better place rather than a non-navigable cesspool of misinformation, lies, and racism-filled comment boxes
― Οὖτις, Friday, 16 September 2016 20:45 (seven years ago) link
if you think the medias important you might want to also consider the fact that where they talk amongst themselves cld also be important, or maybe all the ppl itt who are all i dont really use twitter but these are my expert opinion on cld be right
― lag∞n, Friday, 16 September 2016 20:45 (seven years ago) link
the boilerplate sighing and sarcasm i guess vaguely resembles insight if u squint or close yr eyes altogether
― lag∞n, Friday, 16 September 2016 20:47 (seven years ago) link
kinda like your mangled sentences
― Οὖτις, Friday, 16 September 2016 20:48 (seven years ago) link
wow so rude
― lag∞n, Friday, 16 September 2016 20:49 (seven years ago) link
if you think the medias important
― lag∞n, Friday, September 16, 2016 1:45 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
no
― F♯ A♯ (∞), Friday, 16 September 2016 20:50 (seven years ago) link
ok welp lol
― lag∞n, Friday, 16 September 2016 20:51 (seven years ago) link
me, wise ilxor: posts political opinions on a plain txt msg board that are good you, stupid tweeter: my grotesque self-regard prevents me from seeing how good msg board threads about mark kozelek b-sides are. also im racist
― ( ^_^) (Lamp), Friday, 16 September 2016 20:51 (seven years ago) link
not sure who I am in that scenario, since I just said I use both platforms...? I just find lagoon's estimation of the importance of media folks' twitter usage overblown.
― Οὖτις, Friday, 16 September 2016 20:53 (seven years ago) link
lets walk through ill do some numbered points for you, feel free to just respond techbro clickbait for extremely good media/tech criticism
1. the president of the usa is allowed to launch nuclear weapons2. donald trump is very close to becoming the president of the usa3. donald trump is a very unstable aggressive unwell person who is more likely than prob any other president to start ww34. we have a very perfect situation in the middle east for starting ww3 which is likely to provoke him5. a big part of his rise is the media are unequipped to deal with such a dishonest weird candidate like him, their usual way of covering candidates is giving his craziness cover, he to a certain extent has broken the system6. while theyve been discussing this problem amongst themselves for a while recently as trump has closed in the polls the discussion has increased greatly in intensity and is showing some signs of bearing fruit7. twitter is one of the places where that discussion is happening, another place wld be the new york times website, they are both websites and publishing platforms, twitter of course is a lot bigger8. twitter is not the only publishing platform that has changed the dynamics of the media/race, facebook upended the way nonmedia ppl consume news too
― lag∞n, Friday, 16 September 2016 21:07 (seven years ago) link
the media is not "unequipped to deal with" Trump it fucking loves him
― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Friday, 16 September 2016 21:10 (seven years ago) link
well thats part of it but not nearly the whole story
― lag∞n, Friday, 16 September 2016 21:12 (seven years ago) link
i mean u can just be all clickbait abt the whole media and to a certain extent it is a service industry that covers what ppl want to see, but that doesnt nearly explain the entirety of their behavior, as painful as it might be its worth considering that their motivations could be complicated and multifaceted
― lag∞n, Friday, 16 September 2016 21:15 (seven years ago) link
the interaction of Trump with what were previously irritating but ultimately limited-in-their-harmfulness lapses of judgment by the media (both-sides-ism, toothless fact-checking, allowing media narrative to be sculpted by campaigns and innueno) may bring about the nuclear apocalypse
― flopson, Friday, 16 September 2016 21:18 (seven years ago) link
that is m/l my thesis tho obvs there are nearly infinite other forces at play too
― lag∞n, Friday, 16 September 2016 21:20 (seven years ago) link
my media change strategy is i've been trying to goad local weather service bureaus into *growing* by making fun of their jpgs.
― savvinesslessness (map), Friday, 16 September 2016 21:22 (seven years ago) link
I don't think covering Trump saying awful stuff is what turns the polls, as people were saying during R primary (look at the enormous drop he took in his post-convention run), so much as a lot of the puff going out in the last week that really normalizes & humanizes him (Fallon, Oz)
― flopson, Friday, 16 September 2016 21:23 (seven years ago) link
i suspect that were going to see generally tougher coverage from here on out because enough of the media is sensible enough to be afraid of a trump presidency and were already approaching never seen before panicked rhetoric from agitators within media landscape
― lag∞n, Friday, 16 September 2016 21:25 (seven years ago) link
What actually needs to happen is more positive coverage of Hillary and less coverage of Trump period. IDK if it's more the Clinton campaign's or media's fault that this is not happening.
― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Friday, 16 September 2016 21:27 (seven years ago) link
considering that trump represents a specific existential risk to a free press and is explicitly campaigning against them it's pretty silly that they haven't waged outright war on him. they were willing to sell all their principles to make some money off page views, but when it comes to threats to change libel laws, restrict access to press enemies, etc, that's when "both sides of the story" ideologies must be preserved?
― Mordy, Friday, 16 September 2016 21:29 (seven years ago) link
and by press i really am mostly thinking of the nyt. wapost hasn't been terrible. nyt has been just the worst. ap, too. npr - not great. all these voices of /neutral/ america.
― Mordy, Friday, 16 September 2016 21:30 (seven years ago) link
also have to say ppl scoffing at the power of social media is kinda odd, like yeah it might be often frivolous and bizarre, but these are the largest media companies in the history of the world by far, hundreds of millions of ppl use them (over a billion for facebook), of course theyre extremely influential
― lag∞n, Friday, 16 September 2016 21:31 (seven years ago) link
I think there's probably something in all of this about the collision of a potentially disastrous election with an "old media" anxious about its continued relevancy and viability and a "new media" still feeling things out.
― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Friday, 16 September 2016 21:34 (seven years ago) link
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CsfPOAfVMAAf-V6.jpg
― lag∞n, Friday, 16 September 2016 21:39 (seven years ago) link
https://cdn.meme.am/images/100x100/951.jpg
― nomar, Friday, 16 September 2016 21:42 (seven years ago) link
btw I'm not just talking about "clickbait" here I'm talking about the impulse people seem to have to need to have a take on every single word that comes out of Trump's mouth, while very little gets said about Hillary. I think some of it is just instinctive and internalized -- Trump is good entertainment, and everyone in journalism is, to an extent, trained to look for that, even if s/he also has higher and better aims.
― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Friday, 16 September 2016 21:42 (seven years ago) link
but also closer races are more exciting and better for page views and drive more eyeballs so stories that humanize trump and his supporters + stories that cast suspicion [sometimes warranted, often not] on hillary are good for business
― Mordy, Friday, 16 September 2016 21:49 (seven years ago) link
and reporters love stories
― lag∞n, Friday, 16 September 2016 21:53 (seven years ago) link
of course most of the actual non horse race trump stories remain unreported
― lag∞n, Friday, 16 September 2016 21:55 (seven years ago) link