A busy few weeks. It’s time to catch up on all the open tabs I’m finally reading
OM’s Blog:
An interesting argument is that Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter has political value to him, much as moguls of the past purchased newspapers to exert influence.
My money would go towards snapping up something that sways, controls, and monopolizes attention with ruthless precision at scale — a social network. And that’s why in hindsight, Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter (despite being overpriced and messy) is turning out to be a great strategic acquisition for the space cowboy.
Musk has positioned himself as the new Murdoch and Twitter as the new Fox.
“5 Ways to Use Text to Increase Your Podcast’s Listenership”
Based on research conducted by Camilla Sager of the University of Southern Denmark during their master thesis.
#3 is “use emotional language,” I take from this the need for an interesting and meaningful introduction to the episode, why value is there to listening, what will I learn?
Read more and “Grow your podcast audience with these five tips for writing compelling podcast episode descriptions.”
What Was Twitter Anyway?
A fabulous long-read on Twitter, who used it, how they used it, why they used it, and how it connected people.
I think back fondly to the early days of Twitter, “meeting” people in higher education from across the United States, some of the early YouTube celebrities (what we call influencers nowadays).
I enjoyed this example of how quickly Twitter took off:
Twitter’s takeover of the media class was rapid. In April 2009, Maureen Dowd interviewed Williams and Stone, telling them that she “would rather be tied up to stakes in the Kalahari Desert, have honey poured over me and red ants eat out my eyes than open a Twitter account”; she signed up three months later to promote her column.
Jerry Springer’s Death
The Jerry Springer Show, it wasn’t even a guilty pleasure because everyone watched and talked about it in the 1990s.
Springer died in the last week of April.
What I found most fascinating about Springer was his intellect and political career. My introduction was his trash show and he was one of the first public figures I learned enough about to go “What the Heck are you doing?”
Eventually, I understood, he was making money, lots of money.
And fame, he gained a lot of fame. If not for his trash TV show, we wouldn’t know who he was.
Research on Intergenerational Domestic Abuse/Violence
I ended up in foster care as a child, becoming a Crown Ward. My biological mother had abuse boyfriends, one in particular was terrible to her and even worse to me. My paternal grandfather was a terrible person, he abused his wives.
I committed myself to breaking the cycle, and I have. More on that for my memoirs one day.
For many years, before foster care, I lived in an Ontario Housing complex known as Congress Crescent. There are families who cannot / have not broke the cycle of poverty and abuse.
It is with this context I read a newly published academic paper preprint “‘It’s so beneficial to be able to stop the cycle’: Perceptions of intergenerational transmission of violence and parenting practices among pregnant women and their abusive partners“