Language and the Internet
A few short, interesting pieces on the development of new words and phrases and how their (mis)appropriation has been accelerated by the speed they can spread, free of context, across the Web.
Quite obviously neither of these women know what the hell they’re talking about. Boboltz seemed to rely almost solely on Urban Dictionary and Sales just made some shit up. What’s worse, however, is that in their explorations, they provide absolutely no context for where the word came from: BLACK PEOPLE. Without that context, they completely erase black people from a word that they not only coined but have been using for years.
'The Definition of 'Fuckboy' Is Not What Bad Trend Pieces Are Telling You'
As with most recent internet slang, “Netflix and chill” seems to have originated on Black Twitter before migrating to Instagram, Tumblr, Vine, and the outer reaches of Memeland. And in a way, it’s the perfect teenage shibboleth. If you were 16, and your parents caught you texting “Netflix and chill?” to your girlfriend, they might think you were proposing an innocent night of watching Chopped on the couch.
'How 'Netflix and chill' became internet slang for having sex'
And how did curating, a highly specialized line of museum work involving the care, accessioning, and exhibition of artworks, come to mean, as cultural policy scholar Amanda Coles puts it, “just picking stuff?”
'The Politics of the Curation Craze'
Introducing the past exonerative tense.
Haters
The title is just an excuse to post this piece. I don't think Vidal really was a hater, despite his protestations.
“I am at heart a propagandist, a tremendous hater, a tiresome nag, complacently positive that there is no human problem that could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise.”
'A life in feuds: how Gore Vidal gripped a nation
Worth Pondering
Eye Candy
Totally Confused
Millennial sex games, Mayo versus Dublin memories, unbanning Wikipedia, Reddit's garbage design and hotspot ad injection
Finally, can you guess what looks like a "middlebrow kids clothing brand logo"?
Yours etc., @loughlin
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