We Love the Internet 2021/52: The How Tiktok reads your mind edition

Part 1: For the day job

Things to think about:

• How TikTok Reads Your Mind
• The Tamagotchi Was Tiny, but Its Impact Was Huge
• A Good Newsletter Exit Strategy Is Hard to Find
• A rose is a rose is a rose, but please, please make it clear to your readers what a “subscriber” is
• A young Argentine was caught in a cocaine-fueled celebrity scandal; 25 years later, Google won’t let her forget
• Instagram is Facebook now
• Why so much Obama-era pop culture feels so cringe now

Reference points:

• A Normie’s Guide to Becoming a Crypto Person
• The 50 Best Memes of 2021, Explained
• The Most Frequently Used Emoji of 2021
• ’90s Dad Thrillers: a List
• Comedy pet photography awards
• The year in vibes
• How to hit the top on each social media platform

Longer reads:

• How and Excel TikToker manifested her way to making six figures a day
• How Shein beat Amazon at its own game — and reinvented fast fashion
• The mess comes home
• Who Is the Bad Art Friend?
• Meet the Obsessive Role-Players Who Live Inside the World of Grand Theft Auto
• Up all night with a Twitch millionaire: The loneliness and rage of the Internet’s new rock stars
• What is the best mental model for NFTs?

Part 2: For the lunch-break

Things to play with/watch/listen to:

• Seinfeld If It Was Succession
• I Rented 10 Vin Diesels. What Should I Do Now?
• Casino Cheating Expert Reviews Card Counting and Casino Scams From Movies
• I made a Billy Bass synth module
• 1991 Bally’s Aladdin’s Castle Arcade Games Review

Things to look at/read:

• Lars Ulrich toilet the latest creation of musician who made skeleton guitar
• The Britishisms That Saved Me As A Brand-New, Expat Mother
• ‘Diet’ soda is disappearing from store shelves
• When Did We All Stop Smiling in Photos?
• Just Like Brandma Made

Animal corner:

• Richard Gere & John Travolta
• The cat got his christmas dinner
• “are we a joke to you?”
• I think it is very important that everyone sees this
• Dog dressup
• Not helping Milo
• Title you come to think
• Cute dog

Tweets of the week:

• Look, I’m just going to come right out and say it – I don’t think the NHS should be paying people to do this.
• Men out in the wild…
• Wasn’t feeling Christmassy – but then I saw this!
• babe what’s wrong? you’ve barely touched your custom non fungible token portrait of yourself as a humiliated ape
• I’m gunna drink 15 Boddingtons today. A thread:
• These brothers are adding more webs to their trophy cabinet
• my dad couldn’t breathe when he handed me this in a gift bag just on the floor laughing tears in his eyes
• top 10 tweet of the year

Part 3: For the weekend

Longer reads:

• What we will never know
• This webcomic made it okay to be sad online. Then its artist vanished.
• The Notorious Mrs. Mossler
• Alison Roman can’t help herself
• When multilevel marketing met Gen Z
• The new luxury vacation: Being dumped in the middle of nowhere
• How the FBI Discovered a Real-Life Indiana Jones in, of All Places, Rural Indiana

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My five fives of 2021

Previous lists for 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011 and 2010.

Top 5 Films (Cinema)

(Released in UK cinemas in 2021, which I have seen. Links point to IMDb)

1. Another Round
2. The French Dispatch
3. Free Guy
4. Spider-Man: No Way Home
5. Annette

Top 5 Films (Home)

(Watched for the first time in 2021. Links point to IMDb)

1. Nomadland
2. Palm Springs
3. Promising Young Woman
4. The Power Of The Dog
5. CODA

Top 5 Albums

(Released in the UK in 2021, which I have heard. Links point to Spotify)

1. Olivia Rodrigo – Sour
2. Chvrches – Screen Violence
3. St. Vincent – Daddy’s Home
4. Wolf Alice – Blue Weekend
5. Low – Hey What

Top 5 TV series (non BBC)

(Released in the UK in 2021, that I watched. Links point to IMDb)

1. Maid
2. It’s A Sin
3. Succession S3
4. Mare Of Easttown
5. Reservation Dogs

Top 5 Books

(That I read in 2021. Links point to Amazon)

1. Isaac Asimov – The Foundation
2. John Steinback – Of Mice And Men
3. China Mieville – Perdido Street Station
4. Adrian Tchaikovsky – Children Of Time
5. Kiley Reid – Such A Fun Age

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We Love the Internet 2021/51: The Busy simulator edition

Part 1: For the day job

Things to think about:

• 2021 Was the Year Binge-Watching Took a Back Seat to Weekly TV
• Do I Have Productivity Dysmorphia?
• Spotify Has a Gen Z Problem. Or Is It an Opportunity?
• A look under the hood of the most successful streaming service on the planet

Reference points:

• Busy Simulator
• 52 things I learned in 2021
• The Ringer’s 100 best rap songs of the 2010s
• The best inventions of 2021
• Support Systems for Learning

Longer reads:

• Why The Matrix never stopped being relevant
• The Internet Did Too Much, Even for 2021

Part 2: For the lunch-break

Things to play with/watch/listen to:

• Billie Eilish: Same Interview, The Fifth Year | Vanity Fair
• I can’t believe how long this took! – Pencil Drawing Process
• Why We Should NOT Look For Aliens – The Dark Forest
• Everything is a Remix Part 2 (2021)
• Mathematician Jordan Ellenberg breaks down Math films & TV shows
• I Accidentally Became A Meme: Have You Ever Had A Dream

Things to look at/read:

• Bros., Lecce: We Eat at The Worst Michelin Starred Restaurant, Ever
• I’m Black But Look White. Here Are The Horrible Things White People Feel Safe Telling Me.
• I’m the TikTok Couch Guy. Here’s What It Was Like Being Investigated on the Internet.
• People Are Buying Digital Clothes Because That’s a Thing Now

Animal corner:

• We Wish You a Merry Christmas | piano massage for meow
• Dog fakes injured leg but recovers when suggested cannot go for walk
• Just a couple of foxes harmonizing in a duet
• Kitten with four ears becomes internet sensation
• dogsoftiktok
• Me encanta cuando mamá me achucha
• Every morning the kitten jumps on my and waits for me to turn in snakes
•  

Tweets of the week:

• spotted in Paddington
• Forget fintechs. This is actual innovation:
• Thrilling chase underway
• The song ‘Silent Night’ in Linkedin profiles.
• I read this in Werner Herzog’s voice
• America’s most robust COVID data tracking system
• My covid test centre looks like a trap
• Crikey; he just gets a mince pie at our house

Part 3: For the weekend

Longer reads:

• The Gassing Of Satartia
• The Odor of Things
• Jackals: How to Survive In the Underworld of Professional Basketball
• The Secret Diary of a ‘Sustainable Investor’
• What lies beneath: the secrets of France’s top serial killer expert
• Lads, Gak and Union Jacks: The Oral History of ‘Cool Britannia’
• Your Favorite Scary Movie: The Oral History of ‘Scream’
• The Twisted, Stolen Legacy of the ‘Matrix’ Red Pill

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We Love the Internet 2021/50: The Three steps to the future edition

Part 1: For the day job

Things to think about:

• Zoom call: how the camera became the action in TV darts
• Paramount+ Thinks Live Channels Can Make Your Streaming Life Easier

Reference points:

• There’s No Better Set Than New York City

Longer reads:

• Three steps to the future

Part 2: For the lunch-break

Things to play with/watch/listen to:

• Kommander Karl reload compilation 1

Things to look at/read:

• Looking back at the ’90s has meant reexamining the decade’s toxic diet culture

Animal corner:

• Why does he look like he’s won PL Player of the month
• just had a squirrel square up to us
• how fastidious is this dog?Don’t eat French fries without ketchup!
• My mom claims this is the cutest video ever. It’s just another Wednesday night over here.

Tweets of the week:

• just witnessed an ice cream man’s funeral and all the ice cream vans came and followed in solidarity I AM SOBBING
• This is actually how I love to read a recipe. I don’t mind this
• Knocked over my Sports Direct mug of tea today
• how tall is he
• Me trying to open the cutlery drawer but the potato masher is stopping it from opening:
• this is patrick star in balenciaga

Part 3: For the weekend

Longer reads:

• What Is the Point of Boris Johnson?

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We Love the Internet 2021/49: The Movable feast edition

Part 1: For the day job

Things to think about:

• Inside the Extremely Unfunny War Between Comedians and Spotify
• Yellowjackets Reminds Us How Much Fun It Is to Wait
• Netflix Makes the Most Movies in Hollywood. It Wants to Make the Best.
• YouTube’s Crypto Influencers Try Shouting Over the Scammers

Reference points:

• The 50 Best Movie Soundtracks of the Past 50 Years

Longer reads:

• The Movable Feast
• The inside story of backstabbing, feuds and intrigue at the Daily Mail

Part 2: For the lunch-break

Things to play with/watch/listen to:

• The draw for the third round of the FA Cup, but with just David Seaman chuckling
• Granny didn’t much care for good beer

Things to look at/read:

• Kodi Smit-McPhee Is Here Now
• From snubbing Mick Jagger to explaining the cosmos: the secret life of MC Escher and his impossible worlds
• Anyone Can(’t) Cook

Animal corner:

• This goddamn cat
• Sextou!
• Squirrel
• Rent free
• Being dramatic because mums stroking the cat
• Original sound

Tweets of the week:

• People sitting in the front row in movie theatres
• great to see diversity
• me reading any recipe
• Why bother coming up with new horror creatures when “a guy who is too long” will always be scarier
• This is how NFTs work
• The famous south east London Cum Stairs, a beautiful piece of classical architecture.
• I missed my connecting flight so I have to stay overnight at O’Hare and let me tell you guys being practically alone in an airport is fucking AMMAAAZZZIIIIINNNNGGG.
• just saw this on reddit and i don’t think i will be able to stop thinking about it until I’ve made one. somehow it looks better than a regular banana sandwich even though it’s fundamentally the same

Part 3: For the weekend

Longer reads:

• Burying Leni Riefenstahl: one woman’s lifelong crusade against Hitler’s favourite film-maker
• Rice, Fat, Meat, Streets

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We Love the Internet 2021/48: The Spotify Wrapped, unwrapped edition

Part 1: For the day job

Things to think about:

• Spotify Wrapped, unwrapped
• Reality TV’s Absurd New Extreme
• The Skyrim and Sopranos Meme Universes Are Colliding
• Record labels really, really don’t like a new bill that could – eventually – change how artists get paid in the UK

Reference points:

• The worst gadgets we’ve ever touched
• Top gifs of 2021

Longer reads:

• Discord: Imagine a Place

Part 2: For the lunch-break

Things to play with/watch/listen to:

• A Bad Lip Reading of Dune
• Disney’s FastPass: A Complicated History
• 1 hour Wetherspoons ambience
• There’s more action and mystery in this one minute than the whole of Tenet.
• This remains one of my favourite ever videos on this app.
• Mission success

Things to look at/read:

• A French prankster (and definite misinformation agent) faked UFO sightings and landings

Animal corner:

• When I say everyone at the shelter adores Stephen, I mean it. The work Slack is full of pictures of him.
• Traindeer
• He’s so cute I can’t handle it
• Munchkin orders an ice water with strawberries
• The ending
• Happy thanksgiving!
• Kitty

Tweets of the week:

• My favorite of these so far
• No wonder we couldn’t score ffs
• These radiators look like a Manhattan skyline.
• What a cracking idea from my boy last night
• what?!
• accessible void
• you sure are bud
• Digne and Keane chasing Salah last night.

Part 3: For the weekend

Longer reads:

• The high cost of living in a disabling world
• The company man

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