Senior Lecturer in English and Writing at Washington University in St. Louis -- started as a Star Trek shitposting account but was subsumed into The Discourse
Joined February 2014
- Tweets15.5K
- Following688
- Followers465
- Likes11K
Michael O'Bryan retweeted
Something that more and more people are realizing is that the only reasons accusations like this did serious damage in the past is because everyone agreed that they would. Now they don't, so they don't.
Michael O'Bryan retweeted
im four beers deep and i need everyone to understand that wikipedia is the last good thing. millions of strangers agreed to write down everything for free and then argue about citations forever. no ads. no paywall. this should not exist and it does and i'm crying about it
Michael O'Bryan retweeted
100000% and if you don’t think a lot of these people would rather have the party lose while they keep their influence than the party win while they lose it, you don’t know these people.
My take from day 1 was that 1) Syed obviously did it, 2) he shouldn’t have been convicted, 3) Koenig is trying really hard to disprove the former because she realizes the latter, and (4) it was incredibly damaging to ‘10s social justice discourse to conflate the issues.
It was actually a rich text to talk about thorny issues at the intersection of new media, activist journalism, and infotainment, but if you tried to say anything like what I did above in 2014, chungus millennials called you an elitist killjoy, and in 2020 you’d get called racist.
It’s also completely lost in cultural memory that the podcast ends with the assistant journalists concluding he probably did it and Koenig all but overtly saying she sees that but just doesn’t want to believe it.
Michael O'Bryan retweeted
"I refuse to believe a piece of media I enjoyed as a child was criticized by adults at the time" is the weirdest thought that seems to never die on social media
Michael O'Bryan retweeted
Sitting in office hours having talked to another student, have to say despite much discourse about the myriad failings of higher ed, there are plenty of students who are incredibly passionate and diligent and committed to learning and we owe it to them not to succumb to cynicism.
Michael O'Bryan retweeted
since auto insurance is mandatory to buy and customers are unlikely to do strict quality comparisons, advertising is incredibly important and solely dedicated to getting people to remember the name of the company
it's important to reject the belief that mass behavior can be understood. it cannot. for example, liberty mutual ran "Limu Emu and Doug" commercials for 7 years bc analyses presumably showed that there exists a significant number of people who bought LiMu insurance *on the basis of that ad campaign.* and that's not something that anybody will ever be able to explain
Michael O'Bryan retweeted
It was a program in mass fascitization that was remarkably successful. It vanished because you don’t need to prime people for the Day of the Rope with lurid tales of HRC eating babies once they’ve become excited by really throwing tens of thousands of people & children into camps
20% of content on the mid-00s internet was about how the prequels suck—pretty much the entire critical conversation leading into Ep III was speculating if Lucas could salvage the trilogy at all—but the way people get on here and lie about this is always funny.
Michael O'Bryan retweeted
The Atlantic Monthly is for people who are put off by Trump's vulgarity but otherwise are comfortable with the MAGA agenda.
The Mehdi Hasan Test for immigration to the United States:
People with the views and associations of Mehdi Hasan should be barred from American citizenship.
My latest in @Commentary
commentary.org/articles/jame…
Michael O'Bryan retweeted
This makes sense when you realize that Acton's estranged mother represents a major demographic cohort -- parents who covered up horrific family secrets and are puzzled why their kids don't talk to them. This cohort is becoming politically organized.
#OhioGovernor
Axios: Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign says the ad with Acton’s estranged mother will begin streaming tonight, and will be airing statewide in Ohio.
Michael O'Bryan retweeted
This is the most likely AI apocalypse scenario, imo.
"Speculative data center debt is being repackaged and sold to pension and retirement funds, university endowments, and other institutional investors in a manner eerily reminiscent of the subprime bubble."
ourfinancialsecurity.org/res…
