Tina, Twitter; Twitter, Tina @12:00 PM
Tina Brown has a Twitter now. Yay! This should be great. But the real question is: whose job is it to print out all her followers' Tweets so she can read them? 3
The Great RSS Debate Rages in Nerddom @11:20 AM
A lot of nerds are talking about RSS feeds right now (okay, non-nerds: sites that you like visiting can be delivered to a single place, all together—one that is either browser-based, like Google Reader, or application-based, where you open it up and all your websites are just hangin' out there) and whether they should be "full" or "truncated." Recently, one rather large blog site called Gawker moved from a full RSS feed to a truncated one, and this is very upsetting to these people who care about such things and I love watching them rumble. (One person predicts that such a change has to do with cleaning up Gawker and making it a mega-news site; but then no one really understands why Gawker's owner Nick Denton does what he does.) The good news out of all of this is this fun stat of the day: "after the Guardian moved to full RSS feeds in late 2008, its web traffic grew dramatically, from 25 million to 37 million monthly uniques." If you'd like to learn more, go for it. Nerd. 31
Included among the 273 people and organizations nominated for this year's Nobel Peace Prize: the Internet, which has apparently made great strides in advancing the causes of "dialogue, debate, and consensus." The BBC notes that, "It is unclear who would accept the prize if the internet were to win," but I'm pretty sure it would either be the Star Wars kid, that Peter Pan guy, or the dude in the cat outfit from ChatRoulette. Ugh, I hate you all so much. @1:20 PM 13
For Sale by Auction: Sex.com (and Also Air America's Stuff) @1:35 PM
Things are about to get hot on March 18, when Sex.com gets auctioned off. For starters, you had better bring a "$1,000,000 bank certified check" just to bid. Why the sale? It is "for default in the payment of debt and performance of obligations owed by Escom, LLC (“Borrower”), to DOM Partners LLC (“Secured Party”)." Turns out that Escom paid $14 million for the domain in '06. And this leads us to the greatest book that we had never before heard of: Kieren McCarthy's Sex.com: One Domain, Two Men, Twelve Years and the Brutal Battle for the Jewel in the Internet's Crown. Am going to buy! For potential bidders, "the Collateral is being sold 'AS IS.'" That means you get all the garbagey gifs on it, I guess! And the following week, they're auctioning off all of Air America's equipment. You won't be needing the million dollar check for that one, obviously. 12
Two Black Men in White House Twice as Threatening to Internet @3:11 PM
"He visited the brother in the WH. No telling what our house looks like now. He'll let any body in it seems. I hope there's something from our past left by the time he parades all these thugs through there."
—Say what you will about anonymity, blog comments and the Internet: when Jay-Z visits Obama at the White House, it's only in the comments sections where you really learn how things truly are. (MEANWHILE, nobody's saying nothing about Beyonce or heads will roll…. even though she spent the day with Mike Bloomberg?) 32
The Five Kinds of Appeal to Authority You Meet on the Internet @2:50 PM
We know that humans—especially popes—are fallible. Any logician worth her adorable sweater vest will tell you that random philosopher p endorsing premise x affects a deductive conclusion in the amount of not one whit. Still, debaters are happy to hang their hats on dusty quotes and arguments from authority, the nastiest result being a communal tolerance of sickly ideas propped up by rhetorical parlor tricks. If only there were some credible source (preferably dead and/or otherwise unable to clarify himself) to which you might ascribe your toxic viewpoint… what? No, sorry, God is taken. But here are a few other ways to make the fallacy take wing; all remain facepalmingly common and resonant in the right echo chamber. READ MORE 27
Henry Blodget Can't Quite Afford Investigative Journalism Either @9:40 AM
Henry Blodget is learning some hard truths (again)! This morning he's gone all up on the Twitter, to explain, on behalf of his publication, Business Insider, that investigative reporting is time-consuming and expensive! (Did you know that?) "All right, look, here's the truth about this investigative reporting thing…" he wrote. "Everyone says they want more of it. No more aggregation, please. No more links. No more slideshows. No more picture [sic] of Erin Burnett." He is talking about Nick Carlson's new story on the origin of Facebook, but he simply can't give these kinds of stories to you all the time! "But the truth is, if we tried to do 3 a day, with our staff, we would DROP DEAD. We'd also go bust. Neither being a happy outcome." So: "We're going to try to give you one of these once in a while. You like reading 'em. And we like making 'em." But? Yes, there is a but: "And we're going to give you house porn, and features, and pictures of Erin Burnett. Because, truth be told, you GROOVE on that sh*t!" It is I guess true. Come for the Squawk on the Street pics, stay for the elaborate historical investigations. (Or is it the other way around?) 7
Matt Cherette Is Going To Move To New York City @4:20 PM
Matt Cherette is 25 and lives in Grand Haven, Michigan, about fifteen minutes from his parents' house. He traveled to New York in the second week of February and while he was here, he signed the paperwork for a job at Gawker.TV. He would be their night coordinator. This was an opportunity to actually get paid for the sort of diligent content repurposing that he’s been doing for free, for years, on the LiveJournal-hosted gossip community Oh No They Didn’t.
While he was in New York, he came to a party thrown by his new boss, Richard Blakeley, at Destination Bar, on Avenue A. The Tennessee-Vanderbilt game was on the TV at the bar, but no one was watching. Matt showed up at the high point of the party’s somewhat limited activity. READ MORE 264
The New Niceness: Your Mom "Liked" This @10:10 AM
Well we've known this for a while, so I guess now it's confirmed. Just a couple months ago, we discovered: the Internet is… making people… nicer? For instance, Tumblr was designed in a way that ensured that it "didn't have a lot of avenues for negativity," according to that first story! And in today's (actually very charming) Observer story, "There's a lot of incentive and positive reinforcement when you use Tumblr," is what Tumblr founder David Karp said. David Karp is your Internet mind-controller, because he will not install a button that says "I HATE THIS" on his blog platform! Still it is true I guess that no one has killed anyone by way of MySpace recently, so good job, you horrid wenches! 27
ChatRoulette Explained: Hot Girls Don't Get Nexted @9:50 AM
Using SCIENCE, this video pretty much explains everything you would ever need to know, including that just under 1 in 5 people on ChatRoulette on a weekday afternoon can be classified as "perverts." 15
Iced Out: These Olympics Are Totally Awesome! @4:15 PM
"These Olympics have just been a complete disaster," said a coworker the other day with the sort of learned gravitas that can only be acquired via a force-fed nightly diet of Chris Collinsworth's zip-up-necked sweaters (stitched, per the suddenly saucy Wall Street Journal, "entirely out of Phil Simms's hair.") READ MORE 74
Beyoncé Is An Illuminati Puppet–But One Man Knows the Truth @3:30 PM
One day in the early 2000s, I received an unsolicited email from someone I didn't know; if you had an email address then, you probably did too, daily, and most of the time ignored such notes. But there's spam, and then there's spam. It began: "If you are a time traveler or alien disguised as human and or have the technology to travel physically through time I need your help!" READ MORE 17
No, I Didn't Mean That At All! This Is Why I Don't Care About Your Band @12:10 PM
Last weekend, I didn't watch the Super Bowl either. But it was neither political nor an aesthetic preference for the alternate programming made available by the NFL's hydra-like presence and counter-presence in our broader culture. I had just come off the crippling debilitation of an internet-fast brought on by some malware thing, and I really just plum forgot! Reveling in the ability to stream things off the Internet, trolling YouTube, burning Camels with Teddy Pendergrass, I was bathing in the life that had felt so neglected lo those many (couple of) days. READ MORE 38
In Praise of High-Speed Overload @2:52 PM
Recent talk of the phenomenon of preemptive irritation has made me more aware of the various sources of everyday rage, dismay and unease. But just one of these irritants is responsible for my accelerating descent into permanent anxiety. It’s the intellectual overload brought on by excessive exposure to the Internets. READ MORE 34
BREAKING! Roger Hodge Joins Facebook @11:30 AM
And, unlike when he was editor of Harper's, many of Roger Hodge's new friends are women! (Too soon? Totally. It's a shame he was let go. And unfair? Probably! Sorry, it's just that we may never get over the Celia Farber incident. But we hereby offer him a job with us, for sure!) 13
The True/Slant "Abuses Writers" Scandal! @1:10 PM
Over the weekend a bunch of people hopped on to publicizing Oregon-based science writer (apparently not the proprietor of Very Media of the same name) David Appell's claim that "True/Slant abuses writers." (True/Slant is a centralized web-based writer-place, that engages writers for fairly low fees and sells advertising.) Appell signed up in November, for a fee of $200 a month—but was accidentally only paid $150 for December. He wrote the CEO—who did not respond to him! When other people in the company were alerted, they cut him a check for the remaining $50. But! AND THEN! They terminated their contract with him! "They're a pretty slimy organization," concluded Appell. Whyever (that's not a word) would they have done such a thing? READ MORE 16
On Preemptive Irritation, by Katie Baker @2:57 PM
I don't want to put a damper on anyone’s weekend, but I feel like I should give you unsuspecting folks a warning that an aggregate span of 22 minutes this Sunday is going to have a potentially painful and fairly unavoidable influence on your lives for the following two weeks—which is the length of time that the media has to drunk-drive you down the Road to the Super Bowl. READ MORE 104
Five Things To Do With Twitter When You Suspect You're Doing It Wrong @11:35 AM
This morning, someone asked: what the heck should one do with my Twitter account? She was afraid she was doing it wrong, that it had gone all stale or whiny or boresies. (That may be the case, but really, only you can decide if you are doing Twitter wrong! Let your conscience be your guide.) We have a few pro tips on shaking things up. READ MORE 34
Real America, with Abe Sauer: Obama's First Year in Pictures–Horrible, Horrible Pictures @2:30 PM
Exactly one year ago today, Barack Hussein Obama stood in Washington, D.C and recited the oath of office. Ten minutes later, men and women across America immediately started ordering CD-ROM copies of Learn Adobe® Photoshop® with Video Professor. What follows is another installment of The Awl's ongoing coverage of noteworthy Barack Obama Photoshop. This edition: the worst, most inexplicable Obama political art from the last 12 months. The gallery is quite Not Safe For Work, Reasonable Political Discourse. READ MORE 20
Nine Fine Wikipedia Entries, on the Occasion of Its Ninth Birthday @10:54 AM
Wikipedia commingles inane and profound topics willy-nilly, most always with equal weight and seriousness of tone. Cataloging everything under the sun with such seriousness of purpose and attention to detail is an amazing endeavor. The excerpts that follow are both very silly and very informative. The complete entries on "Deep-fried Mars Bar" and "Exploding Whale," for example, are each almost as long and serious in tone as the entry on "Immanuel Kant." They highlight the oddity and incongruity and wonder of the whole enterprise. What's more, these excerpts are proof that Wikipedia is most likely the most positive development in the history of our extremely troublesome Internet. READ MORE 34
Dear Internet: How do I make my chicken taste like cafeteria garbage? @3:43 PM 7
Guest Op Ed: I Fell For a Blind Girl @12:50 PM
From time to time, The Awl offers its space to normal, everyday people with a perspective on national issues. Today brings a report from Jay Casey, who has been paying attention to the Internet all week.
A few nights ago now, something insignificant happened. Therefore people on the internet became very interested. During the Boise State halftime show, a news camera panned down the drumline, stopping on a young woman playing the cowbell. She had what looked to be a sullen look on her face and after these seconds of footage, people were already talking about her on Twitter. They called her Sad Cowbell Girl. A clip was put on YouTube and her face was Photoshopped onto Will Ferrell's in Blue Öyster Cult parody videos. There was Christopher Walken, yelling for more cowbell while the girl beat to the rhythm. The meme was mildly amusing until her glassy gaze and blank expression was explained. She is blind. READ MORE 45
Get Ready To Call Daily! @10:39 AM
I am actually very excited that Tucker Carlson's website, the Daily Caller, is finally launching on Monday! (I will be calling it The Gaily Dollar, of course, but also I will be a devoted reader.) Also, the more independent web operations there are on the Internet, the better. I also think it is very brave to spend $3 million on the first year alone. If I'd spent $3 million on our first year, most of it would have been on like Kiton suits and PIZZA PARTIES FOR EVERYONE. Also to admire, this belief: “When was the last time you saw, on television, a straight explanation of what’s in the competing House and Senate health care bills? What’s in them? People want to know that!” I would like to think that as well! And of course our favorite quote from Tucker: “I keep reading all of these Nick Denton memos for Gawker, these ferocious memos to writers where it’s like ‘get a million pageviews this week or you’re fired!’ Maybe we’ll have to do that! But it’s not my personality at all.” (via) 46
30 Bloggers To Avoid in 2010 @10:30 AM
Here, on another side of the Internet (the Internet is like one of those Dungeons and Dragons cubes with 13 sides or whatever, which means that none of those sides can actually see any of the other sides?), is a list of the 30 killingest bloggers on the Internet. It's fascinating! Chris Guillebeau, anyone? "Chris has received a lot of attention with his blog, the Art of Non Conformity. His unique philosophy and compelling writing style propelled him to authority blogger in less than 279 days." Joanna Penn? "Joanna has been the hidden success story of 2010. Her blog, The Creative Penn, has had a lot of success in both the local and intertional [sic] blogging communitiese [sic] is developing a strong reputation for providing high quality content and is famous for providing high quality links on twitter." I have never been to this Internet and I'm obsessed with finding out how to climb through some tesseract to get there. 61
The End of the 00s: A Party In Iran, by Kaila Hale-Stern @3:00 PM
Hadi is showing me pictures from epic-looking parties. Men and women dance, their bodies caught in ecstatic pause. The women are, for the most part, rather scantily clad: microscopic skirts dominate, and belly shirts that show a good deal of taut belly. Their faces are masterworks of make-up art: streaks of vibrant color rising to the eyebrow, glitter and blush and outlined lips. They move, the partiers, with abandon, heads tipped back, preening and laughing. The pictures are from Iran. READ MORE 22
The End of the 00s: Imagined Responses to Four Emails That I Sent, To Which I Have Not Yet Received a Reply, 2000-2009, by Juli Weiner @9:00 AM
Dear Juli,
Received your query about the frozen chocolate chip cookie dough. You mentioned, quoting you here, "There were 24 cookies when I put them in the freezer last night, and now there is just one and a half-eaten bit of another." I feel somewhat responsible because I will completely admit to having two cookies. Totally and completely-that was me, those two, and believe me, I feel really gross about it. And the fact that you noticed the, again, quoting you here, "sandcastles of cookie crumbs around [my] bed" makes me feel even worse. Now of course, you'd be remiss to conflate my feelings of guilt with actual awareness about having done something wrong. It is one thing to take two cookies, for which I am so sorry, but quite another to take 22 and a half of a bit. It's disrespectful, is what it is, for someone to have eaten the remaining-okay, just, you know what? READ MORE 11
The End of the 00s: The Hunt for lonelygirl15, by Richard Rushfield @4:00 PM
In 2006, as a reporter for a major metropolitan newspaper, I joined in what was at that time the largest manhunt in human history: the search for lonelygirl15.
At the time, all the world knew about this shadowy underworld figure was that she claimed to be a teenage girl shooting videos of herself on a webcam from her teenage bedroom somewhere in the great sprawl of America. As the world became entranced by the beguiling and wise innocence of her two-minute films, the demand grew to a ferocious roar for the young star to step forward and accept all the honors that a celebrity-driven society could bestow on an instant sensation. And when Bree, aka lonelygirl, failed to materialize, the suspicion arose that perhaps this was some sort of fraud—that the world was being put on. READ MORE 15
Local Woman Surprised By Being Called A Racist After Blog Post @10:05 AM
A writer named Lisa Warren wrote a story yesterday afternoon on the Huffington Post. It was headlined "Two Black Role Models Done In By Hubris." One of those two "Black Role Models" was the president. (The other one was some athlete.) "It is tragic when an icon falls. When a black icon stumbles the tragedy seems doubly problematic," she wrote. The responses are apparently not quite what she expected! (Somehow!) Fortunately, she has her Twitter to keep her warm. 21
Listicle Without Commentary: 5 Things You Are No Longer Allowed To Say On The Internet, As Of Right Now @2:54 PM
5. "David Foster Wallace is probably a bit overrated."
4. "People should probably be nicer to each other."
3. "Something something 'Godwin's Law.'"
2. "Something something 'censorship.'"
1. "Presented without comment." 64