We Love the Internet 2022/38: The How platforms turn boring edition

Part 1: For the day job

Things to think about:

• How platforms turn boring
• Why Japan Stopped Innovating
• ‘Becoming a meme totally helps a show’: is TV being written with epic gifs in mind?
• As The Debate Over AI Rages, Artists Are Already Using It To Illustrate Entire Comics
• Kids Yell “Poop” At Alexa, And These Musicians Profit

Reference points:

• The 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time

Longer reads:

• Has streaming made it harder to discover new music?
• Tools Of The Trade: Gabe Swarr On Making A Video Game With GB Studio
• The Twisted Life of Clippy

Part 2: For the lunch-break

Things to play with/watch/listen to:

• Sidemen 2022 charity match official stream

Things to look at/read:

• The U.S. diet is deadly. Here are 7 ideas to get Americans eating healthier
• The Rise of Pumpkin Spice
• The Baffling World of MAGA Rap
• Bambi’s mum had to die

Animal corner:

• Love at first sight
• Annie didn’t believe me

Tweets of the week:

• This airport has a snake-telling-off room
• Car boot…they selling lost parcels for £2
• This might be the greatest paragraph ever written
• i’ve been taking some notes
• Confirmed. How QR codes are made.
• since mercury is in retrograde I have to bring back this text from my mom
• Let’s get it
• Me rushing back from the bathroom at 3 am so I dont lose any tiredness:

Part 3: For the weekend

Longer reads:

• John Boyega rises again
• Inside the Pain Cave

sk

We Love the Internet 2022/37: The Great landing page edition

Part 1: For the day job

Things to think about:

• Animators say they’re “clueless” and “confused” about HBO Max cancellations
• We Need to Talk About How Good A.I. Is Getting
• Social Media Was a C.E.O.’s Bullhorn, and How He Lured Women

Reference points:

• Great Landing Page Copy
• Why Wikipedia cannot claim the Earth is not flat
• Who owns what in Big Media today

Longer reads:

• $10,000 for one Instagram post? How food influencers can make or break restaurants
• Unboxing, bad baby and evil Santa: how YouTube got swamped with creepy content for kids
• We Spoke With the Last Person Standing in the Floppy Disk Business

Part 2: For the lunch-break

Things to play with/watch/listen to:

• Interpretive ringtone dances!!

Things to look at/read:

• Guy Fieri Is Saving the Country, One Slider at a Time

Animal corner:

• when i use behooves in a sentence
• As if you guys didn’t already know
• When someone walks in front of the TV when the game is on….
• Just lemme watch cartoons all day
• Heading to the park like…
• So many water monitors

Tweets of the week:

• Me watching ppl watch the movies I picked out for them
• this is the future of esports
• Whats wrong babe? You haven’t touched your beana colada
• do you think my dad likes my new tattoo?
• asking your bf to take your pic vs asking your gf to take your pic
• i rediscovered this phoenix wright video i made of a conversation from a group chat and its absolutely wonderful
• Thanks for the push notification, Siri – that’s exactly what I needed in that moment

Part 3: For the weekend

Longer reads:

• The reluctant prophet of effective altruism
• That’s Life in the Theater
• How Many Errorrs Are in This Essay?
• The architect who became the king of bank robberies
• Will This Be the First Country Bankrupted by Crypto?

sk

We Love the Internet 2022/36: The Sexy sax pug edition

Part 1: For the day job

Things to think about:

• How a photo of a woman yelling in a guy’s ear became a viral meme
• A Racist Backlash to ‘Rings of Power’ Puts Tolkien’s Legacy Into Focus
• With ‘Blonde,’ the NC-17 Movie Finally Comes of Age
• Gen Z Shows TikTok What Life’s Like on Wall Street, Where Confidentiality Is Key

Reference points:

• The ‘deaditors’ of Wikipedia

Longer reads:

• The Professional Try-Hard Is Dead, But You Still Need to Return to the Office

Part 2: For the lunch-break

Things to play with/watch/listen to:

• giving snakes there legs back.
• Kid drops hotdog at baseball game

Things to look at/read:

• Why R U Mad at the Name Kayleigh?
• What Is Fun? Can I Have It? Will We Ever Have It Again?

Animal corner:

• Sexy Sax Pug
• His face at the end!
• First and last time he’s getting in the lake
• Too relaxed!
• A catastrophe occurred on my morning trot
• WHY?!?!

Tweets of the week:

• Once in a blue screen, I see a bumper sticker that literally makes me laugh out loud. This is one of them.
• Poor Chris.
• There’s still no emoji to express my – very complicated – emotional reaction to this.
• There must be an easier way to blow up a balloon.
• A two-person 7-10 split trick shot.
• Somebody asked me how to download Black Twitter because they only have the regular one and I almost peed myself laughing.
• Sometimes it pays to have some googly eyes in your wallet.

Part 3: For the weekend

Longer reads:

• The frontrunners in the trillion-dollar race for limitless fusion power
• How Harry Styles Became the World’s Most Wanted Man
• Olivia Wilde on Don’t Worry Darling, “Baseless Rumors”—And Everything Else

sk

We Love the Internet 2022/35: The Big censored theory edition

Part 1: For the day job

Things to think about:

• Why Does Everything On Netflix Look Like That?
• What color is an elf? Or a Sea Snake? And why do you care?
• The Default Tech Settings You Should Turn Off Right Away

Reference points:

• The big censored theory
• It Happened on Medium: The First 10 Years
• Where Do Memes Come From? The Top Platforms From 2010-2022
• Critics and Fans Have Never Disagreed More About Movies

Longer reads:

Part 2: For the lunch-break

Things to play with/watch/listen to:

• Fun with stanchions

Animal corner:

• This is the second roll today..
• Wait for it….
• So Bentley chewed a hole in the curtain
• Get this dog on Strictly
• Scariest thing in the world.
• Her excitement is the cutest thing in the world

Tweets of the week:

• Currently feeling real dumb for how hard I laughed at this
• Why does he look like he’s won PL Player of the month
• A story in 3 parts
• an update in the years-long instagram group i’m in of people who have the same name as me.
• gone are the days that a talk show guest would just openly snort a bump of coke…. ahhhhhhhh the 70s
• Hear me out.  A parent trap remake where one twin grew up in the USA and one grew up in the UK.
• Twitter has ruined me. I’m in a lecture, and this picture popped up and I all I can think about is “he’s got the dawg in him”
• 9 year old me at 6:58am

Part 3: For the weekend

Longer reads:

• Every A24 movie ranked
• After the Zodiac Killer’s ‘340’ Cipher Stumped the FBI, Three Amateurs Made a Breakthrough
• The humiliating history of the TSA
• An essay bout watching Brad Pitt eat that is really about my own shit

sk

We Love the Internet 2022/34: The Internet from rocks edition

Part 1: For the day job

Things to think about:

• The End of Social Media and the Rise of Recommendation Media
• Are You Sure You’re Not Guilty of the ‘Millennial Pause’?
• How Do Songs Get Picked for TV?
• “The Longest TV Negotiation I Have Ever Seen”: Behind Kate Bush’s ‘Stranger Things’ Sync Deal
• The Twitterification of TikTok

Reference points:

• Cinetimes
• Making Sense of the “Do Nudges Work?” Debate
• Major publishers are buying ads in mobile games like ‘Subway Surfers’ to juice traffic

Longer reads:

• The Internet from Rocks — A High Level Explanation of Computers and the Internet
• The Great Consolidation of the Video Game Industry
• Monzo growth
• Tinder hearted
• Hocus focus: how magicians made a fortune on Facebook

Part 2: For the lunch-break

Things to play with/watch/listen to:

• The Anti-Smartphone Revolution
• Life on the Internet
• Cancelled – Dubai’s Palm Islands

Things to look at/read:

• This Is What The Sex Lives Of Gen Z-ers Are Actually Like
• How one company has pigeon-proofed all of New York City
• What the ‘golden age’ of flying was really like
• The Secret to Being Lucky
• Why you should really stop charging your phone overnight

Animal corner:

• The most intense fight I’ve seen
• Her excitement is the cutest thing in the world
• Only happy when it rains
• Where is the cat?
• When you steal a sock and mum doesnt chase you…

Tweets of the week:

• Timing is everything
• well ok then
• my husband RAN—I mean absolutely sprinted—in from the garden, yelling my name, at 8 am, so he could show me this tomato. happy saturday
• ok hear me out: Luigiana
• never worn.
• Good morning! What are we having for breakfast today?
• Got a new iPad. ‘It will be fun’, they said. ‘You can turn pages with your face’, they said. Safe to say I have not mastered this yet.
• Virgil Van Dijk watching Sancho score

Part 3: For the weekend

Longer reads:

• Sam Taggart’s hard sell
• “It’s Either Going to Be Really Funny, or They’re Going to Be Horrified”: An Oral History of Superbad
• The Seductions of Declinism
• Prison Money Diaries: What People Really Make (and Spend) Behind Bars
• The secret history of the US government’s family-separation policy

sk

We Love the Internet 2022/33: The Essential guide to IPA edition

Part 1: For the day job

Things to think about:

• The “Dark Brandon” meme — and why it’s so confusing — explained
• Diablo Immortal player spends $100k on game, now can’t find anyone suitable to matchmake with
• In the streaming era, Substack helps indie rockers pay the bills. Can it last?

Reference points:

• Instagram, TikTok, and the Three Trends

Longer reads:

• Archive of our own’s 15 year journey from blog post to fanfiction powerhouse

Part 2: For the lunch-break

Things to play with/watch/listen to:

• Still the greatest decathlon ever

Things to look at/read:

• What Is the Sound of Drill?

Animal corner:

• City tells New Yorkers: don’t panic about ‘splooting’ squirrels
• 😳😳😳😳😳
• The difference in momentum between cats and ducks is too great.
• When you steal a sock and mum doesnt chase you…
• You good bro?
• The goats eating a huge wheelbarrow of tomatoes!
• He’s all talk
• Bring down with one move

Tweets of the week:

• Working at some blokes gaff and he’s decided to lay on the bed watching us
• The scariest 8 words a man can say
• Don’t forget the sun cream
• wtf do they be even training for????
• Catholics and Protestants every July
• Strictly Conte Dancing
• Megan Thee Stallion pushing Gail Platt down the stairs

Part 3: For the weekend

Longer reads:

• The Essential Guide to IPA
• How Beyoncé turned herself into a pop god

sk

We Love the Internet 2022/32: The Age of algorithmic anxiety edition

Part 1: For the day job

Things to think about:

• The age of algorithmic anxiety
• Amazon’s Roomba Deal Is Really About Mapping Your Home
• Netflix is not in deep trouble. It’s becoming a media company
• Why HBO Max Spent $130 Million to Shelve ‘Batgirl’ and ‘Scoob 2’

Reference points:

• The Seriousness of Device Fragmentation and How It Impacts Streaming Services

Longer reads:

• Zuck turns up the heat

Part 2: For the lunch-break

Things to play with/watch/listen to:

• How Amy Schumer Became The Most Hated Human Ever
• Excel Esports: ALL-STAR BATTLE

Things to look at/read:

• A Sign of the Times: How Gen Z Turned Rap Emo
• How Dinner Parties Became the Fuzzy Blanket of Adulthood
• Why Your House Was So Expensive
• They Won the Lottery—and Friends and Family Turned on Them

Animal corner:

• This is the purest thing I’ve ever seen in my goddamn life
• its the weekend my dudes

Tweets of the week:

• This is why Men insurance premiums are very high
• Take these filters away from me oh my gosh
• Please tell me I’m not the only one who thought that was an inflatable of Batman twerking…
• Cannae get over how much this 90s German dance tune sounds like a woman from Glasgow saying “I’m Colin Firth”
• I’ve had this stuck in my head for 2 years. so glad to finally share it with you all.
• This is unreal

Part 3: For the weekend

Longer reads:

• The Making of Silent Bruce
• Disaster at 18,200 feet
• Lewis Hamilton: The F1 Superstar on Racism, His Future, and the Shocker That Cost Him a Championship

sk

We Love the Internet 2022/31: The History of user interfaces edition

Part 1: For the day job

Things to think about:

• Video Game Streaming Is Still Struggling to Keep the Classics Alive
• TikTok’s Latest Cringe Trend: Gen Z Critiques Their Former Selves
• Behind the Cancellation of ‘Batgirl’
• Will Alex Jones finally lose the info war?

Reference points:

• The history of user interfaces
• Notable people
• DALL-e meets Marinetti
• The 50 Greatest Fictional Deaths of All Time
• Platformer Toolkit

Longer reads:

• Very online
• The Great Fiction of AI
• The Metaverse Will Reshape Our Lives. Let’s Make Sure It’s for the Better

Part 2: For the lunch-break

Things to play with/watch/listen to:

• Adidas vs Puma – The Family Argument That Gave Rise to Sports Marketing
• Why brands are abandoning their colors
• Miriam Hamberg wins Norway’s 2019 Death Diving Championship, a breakdown

Things to look at/read:

• Teens are rewriting what is possible in the world of competitive Tetris

Animal corner:

• If Cats Sounded Like Arnold Schwarzenegger
• Monkey hired to carry towels for tennis players resigns on first day of work!
• This is what happens when you happen to have a corgi, a watermelon, and a diy queen best friend
• You asked so here it is

Tweets of the week:

• Easily the greatest paragraph in the history of the English language
• London zoo not pissing around
• Me leaving Warner Bros Studios with ‘Batgirl’ in a hard drive up my ass

Part 3: For the weekend

Longer reads:

• The haves and the have yachts

sk

We Love the Internet 2022/30: The TVs are too good now edition

Part 1: For the day job

Things to think about:

• TVs Are Too Good Now
• The Perils of Audience Capture
• Dall-E, make me another Picasso please
• I’m a VFX Artist, and I’m Tired of Getting ‘Pixel-F–ked’ by Marvel
• The Duffer brothers’ plans to retroactively edit episodes of Stranger Things could be the beginning of a worrying TV trend

Reference points:

• Things you’re allowed to do
• Amazon is giving Prime Video its biggest redesign in years

Longer reads:

• Ray Jay Johnson And Other People I Know Only From ‘The Simpsons’
• Meet the Lobbyist Next Door
• The weird analog delights of Foley sound effects

Part 2: For the lunch-break

Things to play with/watch/listen to:

• Metroverse
• playing “running up that hill” while running up a hill
• how twitter verification works
• How The U.S. Ruined Bread
• Did People Used To Look Older?

Things to look at/read:

• I Will Not Rest Until I’ve Uncovered the Meaning Behind My Favorite Band’s Outfits

Animal corner:

• Monkey hired to carry towels for tennis players resigns on first day of work!
• Run!!!

Tweets of the week:

• walter white seeing people hate his wife for being a normal person while hes the worst person ever
• This pub has brought my salad in a fish bowl, wtf
• could i make it any more obvious?
• absolutlely despise when a recipe tells me to add 2 cups of onion. they don’t come in cups. they come in onions
• Old Hollywood bloopers are a thing of beauty
• Me when an email finds me well x
• “Drum and Bass isn’t ‘back’, it just never went away. We were still filling clubs and festival stages around the world, but the mainstream music media stopped covering it. I’m still as motivated as I was 20 years ago”

Part 3: For the weekend

Longer reads:

• How ‘Baby Al Capone’ Pulled Off a $24 Million Crypto Heist
• The Most Important Emo Song of Every Year
• The Antihero’s Last Gasp
• Retirement the Margaritaville Way
• Final Girl, Terrible Place

sk

We Love the Internet 2022/29: The Marvel has a VFX problem edition

Part 1: For the day job

Things to think about:

• Marvel Has a VFX Problem
• There is no objective history of video games – every player’s experience is different
• How recession-proof is the esports industry?

Reference points:

• No One Even Comes Close to Bad Bunny’s Stardom Right Now
• TikTok doesn’t show the war in Ukraine to Russian users
• Notes on “Taste”
• 20 Things I’ve Learned as a Systems (Over) Thinker

Longer reads:

• Exclusive: Fake Accounts Fueled the ‘Snyder Cut’ Online Army
• The great fiction of AIa

Part 2: For the lunch-break

Things to play with/watch/listen to:

• Just a Normal Bike Math: 0.5 х 2 = 1 Wheel
• How to make the Perfect Burger at home, according to science.
• Using 27,000 1 penny coins and creating a copper penny floor
• Everyone Everywhere Needs Waymond Wang

Things to look at/read:

• Janeane Garofalo Never Sold Out. What a Relief.
• There’s nothing fashionable about being late
• Among the Landlords

Animal corner:

• dog reacts hilariously when owner says his favorite words
• Emmanuel knew I wasn’t playing when he heard his government name
• Nose bubbles
• South Yorkshire fires: ‘Miracle’ dog rescued from Maltby house gutted in blaze
• I can sleep in every position
• He always gotta pee before we head out!

Tweets of the week:

• A primary school in Bury once had an end-of-term tribute to Frank Sidebottom, and it’s the greatest thing I’ve ever seen …
• This must be the greatest typo ever.
• Me: “I love eating fruits and vegetables.” The fruits and vegetables:
• Utterly impossible not to read this in Mark Corrigan’s voice.
• Heads up everyone, it’s Ninja Turtle weather
• ‘Goldilocks Zone’ really seems the most apt phrase to use to describe one’s likelihood of encountering a bear imo
• This is why women live long than us men
• Beautiful Jeff Hardy tribute

Part 3: For the weekend

Longer reads:

• Jack White on His New Twin Albums, Spurring the Modern Vinyl Revolution and That Onstage Wedding
• Meet Richard Fritz, America’s Most Unelectable Elected Official

sk