Getting into some previously-undisclosed details of my troublesome stay on this platform.
I’ve been reticent to talk about this because it will fundamentally alter my relationship with the people at Medium — a few of whom I was and in some cases am still very good friends with — but given my decision a month ago to depart the platform for pastures new, I thought it would be only appropriate to outline the reasons why I switched to Substack after what has been a relatively successful three years on here.
The main reason I started a Medium blog in the first place was because of an argument on Twitter–I thought to myself…
Creators are taking the fight to the literal foreground of climate change.
YouTube’s resident philanthropist MrBeast is once again back at it with what might be his most ambitious goal to date — leverage a platform-wide collaboration to plant 20 million trees through the Arbor Day Foundation in what poises to be one of the largest fundraisers in YouTube’s history. If the effort is indeed MrBeast’s idea, it is with the help of hundreds of other content creators that he hopes to achieve it, and it’s a masterclass in how the economics of virality can be leveraged for the common good.
Under any other circumstances, this effort would’ve sounded benign — but…
How faulty academic work and shaky science is fueling a quieter, but equally dangerous form of white supremacy online
As the latest wind of terror swept across America, the media blamed overt neo-Nazis like Richard Spencer, or soft-spoken white supremacists like Stefan Molyneux or Lauren Southern, but almost none would mention a more hidden form of very similar ideas. This group, known for its appeal to shaky scientific reasoning, is referred to as the alt-lite, and it’s gaining communicative power online precisely because it can distance itself from the alt-right.
The characterization of the alt-lite is similar to the “Intellectual Dark Web,” the group first brought to the attention of readers of mainstream media by Bari Weiss in an…
The New York Times columnist offers a mind-numbing example of intellectual dishonesty
This isn’t the first time the New York Times’ cavalcade of columnist trolls have inspired a public scandal stretching far beyond the realm of believability. If Bari Weiss already mastered the art of baiting faux concern by constantly espousing Islamophobic views in a paper of record, Bret Stephens was the kid in class who always tried too hard; though their term papers lacked originality or substance, they still somehow ended up being valedictorian.
The saga began this week with David Karpf, an associate professor at George Washington University, who joked on Twitter about bedbugs infesting the New York Times newsroom…
And this is a good thing
The first time you sit down with video editing software like Premiere and Final Cut, you realize that the experience runs counter to everything intuitive about modern conventions of UI design and functionality. There are so many buttons, dials, knobs, settings, and keyboard shortcuts to remember that learning how it all works becomes in and of itself an exercise in patience and resolve. The barrier to entry is also steep — you have to own a capable machine and know how everything works. And what happens when you’ve finally edited your video masterpiece? You’re going to need connections, possibly a…
