Slate: Grieving With Google Street View. “One Twitter user recently posted that her family never got to say goodbye to her grandpa when he died a few years ago, but when she visited her grandpa’s farm through Street View, there he was, sitting at the end of the road. Thousands of people responded, many with their own stories of finding old Street View shots of their dearly departed grandmas reclining in their front yards or their grandpas getting into their trucks.”
internet culture
Mashable: YouTubers are quitting their day jobs to influence full time. Their followers aren’t always impressed.
Mashable: YouTubers are quitting their day jobs to influence full time. Their followers aren’t always impressed.. “There are many influencers with larger-than-life personas out there already. There’s Jeffree Star, who just dropped a video tour of his $14 million mansion; David Dobrik, who claimed to give away a Tesla on Instagram; and James Charles, who attended the Met Gala last year, just to name a few. They’ve long ago surpassed relatability and have actually parlayed their online fame and lavish lifestyles into bankable success. But the influencers we’re talking about here are a different breed.”
The Atlantic: The Divine Origins of the Horny Chain Text
The Atlantic: The Divine Origins of the Horny Chain Text. ” At this point in my life, I’m well aware of the unpleasant things that can happen to a person if she doesn’t forward a chain message: She can die, or she can miss out on a chance to make a fortune, or she can disappoint her Father in heaven, or she can have a totally sexless year. These consequences have been threatened for centuries in paper letters, emails—and, recently, smutty, emoji-studded text messages, typically timed to a holiday or major event. They are gross, they are phonetically challenging, and they are extremely compelling.” I guess there are some advantages to getting old; I have never seen one of these.
New York Times: We’re All in the Bathroom Filming Ourselves
New York Times: We’re All in the Bathroom Filming Ourselves. Not this old woman. “Most home bathrooms are well lit and have nice, bright acoustics. Unlike the kitchen, living room or even bedroom, bathrooms are private spaces, where parents and siblings are trained to not barge in. It’s almost inevitable that they would become the perfect stage set for the dramatic entrances, exits, skits, dances and story times of TikTok, the short-form social video app that has grown wildly popular in the last year.”
‘OK Boomer’: From TikTok meme to the US Supreme Court (BBC)
BBC: ‘OK Boomer’: From TikTok meme to the US Supreme Court. “You might have seen it as a meme on Twitter or TikTok but now it has made its way to the US Supreme Court. The catchphrase ‘OK Boomer’ went viral last year as a tongue-in-cheek dig by young people at older generations. In the highest US court, it was heard as part of a case about age discrimination.”
MEL Magazine: An Oral History of Rickrolling
MEL Magazine: An Oral History of Rickrolling. “Rickrolling is a bait-and-switch prank where someone posts a link that seems relevant to whatever discussion they’re having, but then the link redirects to Rick Astley’s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up.’ The prank of doing a bait-and-switch on 4chan is one of the oldest pastimes of the site.”
New York Times: Hype House and the Los Angeles TikTok Mansion Gold Rush
New York Times: Hype House and the Los Angeles TikTok Mansion Gold Rush. “So-called collab houses, also known as content houses, are an established tradition in the influencer world. Over the last five years they have formed a network of hubs across Los Angeles.”
