social media

Oh, Gee

Sep 29, 2022 Jay

Apple apps Facebook Instagram Meta social media The OG App

Yesterday I became aware of the awkwardly named “The OG App” (🙄), which promises “the OG Instagram experience”: “With the OG app, you can easily filter what you see in your Instagram feed, create custom feeds, remove reels, ads, suggested content, and more!” It seemed impossible, and that’s because it is.

I nearly gave the app access to my Instagram account, believing for a moment that maybe, given its presence in the App Store at all, it had been properly vetted; but because of their suspiciously slow homepage, as well as the company’s bizarre name (“Un1feed”) and the dearth of info about it, I decided to wait. I’m glad I did.

Ryan Broderick on War (And Everything) As Content

Feb 28, 2022 Jay

news social media Ukraine invasion

Hard to choose what to quote from this piece, but (all emphasis mine):

The hashtag #nuclearwar is trending on Twitter right now. If you click in on it, it shows you the top content tagged #nuclearwar. If you click on one of the posts, in giant letters, Twitter asks you to “tweet your reply.” What’s your take on nuclear annihilation, the bird site wonders thoughtlessly.

and:

What is QAnon if not just a way to always have something new to create or consume during breaking news events.

and:

There are a lot of internet users who, after a decade of exposure to viral media, have had their minds so thoroughly warped by trending content that they believe that reacting to popular internet culture is […] some kind of moral duty.

and:

The internet is at a place technologically now where connectivity is not just the default, but demanded of us all.

and:

memeification, the marvel-isation, the spectacle of an ongoing war rendered as entertainment etc. This is less about a lack of empathy or understanding of human suffering, and far more indicative of platforms doing what they were designed to do in producing everything as content
— Crossrail Morbius (@HKesvani) February 28, 2022