Word of the Day
Gander (n., GAN-durr)
A male goose, or a look/glance around. Go on, take a gander around this site. Check out the Archives or the RSS feed.
Gif of the Day
AnimalsDogsCorgisWaggle waggle waggleLook ma, no tail!I'm so excited! I'm so excited!Hips don't lieShaken, not stirredLike a Polaroid pictureShow offs
Link of the Day
The internet is dead, and we have killed it
Todd VanDerWerff (formerly of the AV Club, currently at Vox) is one of the more astute commentators on popular media and culture. He's less academic than someone like Clay Shirky but still brings the thoughtfulness when he writes.
So it should be concerning when he states that the internet has died in 2015, presents some solid evidence to back up his analysis, and posits that it's not just the internet that has died but that the idea of an online community has died while the individual hot take has seized the throne.
And the rise of social has flipped the old writer/reader balance, restoring power to the reader. On social media, you share an article because you agree with the take, sure, but also because it says something about you, whether that fact is that you're angry about a political issue, or that you like cute bunnies, or that you love Back to the Future. Your social media feed is a curation of things you want people to know about you. Inconvenient truths, negative views, or anything too dark will be pushed aside.
...
The future belongs to the fleet, to the fast, to the instantly assembled hot take. Thoughtfulness is almost beside the point, in many cases, if you can produce something enough people will want to associate with the curation of their core beings.
I didn't lead off the week with this op-ed because I didn't want to immediately go to the thinky, depressing piece. (Call it a case of the Mondays.) And yes, I guess I am effectively doing the same thing as social media, sharing things I think are interesting and worth reading. But I try very definitely to not favor the hot take, the viral, the zeitgeist in favor of things I enjoy and go back to. The goal of this site is for people to enjoy the world, think about it, and (hopefully) find ways to share that joy and the things they love with others. The site's voice will always be individual but its aim will always be towards the community, even if the web moves away from us.
AnimationArticlesTodd VanDerWerffVoxThe interwebsIndividuality vs. CommunityGood ol' daysMuuuuurders