social media


New Tech Trends

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Apple started selling their dumb goggles this week, so we’re being subjected to another round of hype trying to sell this garbage. Every “big idea” Silicon Valley’s tried to sell over the last decade or two has either been outright fraud (self-driving cars, Theranos, crypto, etc.) or just re-inventing something that already exists, but with middle-men to extract money from users and the people doing the real work (gig economy, rideshare, streaming, etc.).

I swear I’ll get off my “Capitalism Bad” kick next week.

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Influencers to Avoid

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I’m old and don’t regularly use the same social media that the kids do. I only glean bits and pieces that bleed over to the older, nerdier enclaves of Bluesky and Mastodon, or when YouTube’s terrible algorithm tries to push garbage on me while I’m watching old clips of Max Headroom.

The Non-Fungible-Tumbler refers to the current Stanley Cup fad, which I only heard about recently from a million hacky hockey jokes. Apparently grown-ass adults are collecting these things as status symbols like they’re Starter jackets in the ’90s. At least they exist, unlike NFTs.

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2023 New Year’s Resolutions

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I’m abstaining from making any predictions about 2023. Not for lack of any ideas where things are headed, but because I don’t want to be too much of a holiday party pooper.

I’ll let COVID, RSV, and flu do that.

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Social Media Substitutes

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Elon’s only been in charge of Twitter for a week, and already speedrunning it into an unusable hate speech mess. I thought it be around long enough for a soft exit, but now I’ve got to cold turkey my way out of a bad habit I’ve had since my late twenties.

I got a lot of work over that decade and a half posting there and getting my stuff across editors’ eyeballs. But now that Elon is welcoming antisemites, bigots, and CHUDs in general, I doubt any editors worth accepting a gig from will be on there much longer.

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Elon Musk’s Freak Speech Spending Spree

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Elon Musk has been trying to be the main character of Twitter for the better part of two months now. And just as I was locking in the final line art of this comic, an expose came out about how he harassed/assaulted a SpaceX employee, who signed an NDA for a severance of $250K. So if you’re wondering why there’s only slight mention of it, that’s why!

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Facebook’s Innovations

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Facebook recently unveiled some “new” things, such as smart glasses and virtual conference rooms. Which makes sense, since anybody old enough to remember Google Glass and Second Life fondly is old enough to be Facebook’s target demo.

Each time I log onto that garbage to post a cartoon, it’s a user-interface nightmare, not to mention the awful posts that get promoted to the top of the feed before I can toss some likes on my Mom’s posts before I log out.

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Facebook’s Oversight Orb

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Facebook’s oversight board made some news this week for issuing a toothless decree about kicking a certain ex-president off their platform. A shame actual regulations don’t apply to them and they get to make up their own on the fly.

(panel 1 – Title above a floating orb with Mark Zuckerberg’s face.)
Facebook’s Oversight Orb
(panel 2 – The Zuckerberg Orb hovering over someone typing at a computer.)
typing inset, “The Democrats are harvesting baby blood to commit SUPER VOTER FRAUD!”
Zuckerberg, “Not true, but the algorithm’s gonna spew this into everyone’s feed!”
(panel 3 – The Zuckerberg Orb hovering over a board meeting at Facebook headquarters.)
executive, “Should advertisers be running these invasive, creepy ads?”
Zuckerberg, “You say ‘creepy;’ I say ‘HIGHLY TARGETED.'”
(panel 4 – The Zuckerberg Orb hovering over someone texting.)
texting inset, “Bill Gates put tracking microchips in the vaccines!”
(panel 5 – The Zuckerberg Orb hovering over someone texting.)
Zuckerberg, “Keep posting that while you continue to let me track everything you do!”

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