When Us Weekly broke the story yesterday that Kristen Stewart had cheated on Robert Pattinson, twihards went nuts. First they went after the magazine, then they did some sleuthing to determine whether the evidence had been faked, and then they just tried to console each other on Instagram.
It is hilarious/a total nightmare.
All The Different Twihard Reactions To Kristen Stewart Cheating On Robert Pattinson
This makes me want to gouge my eyes out to un-see it… but I guess it is also a valid form of… expression… or something…
The 17th-Century Paper Social Network
Is this a 17th-century Twitter? Maybe. (Even before this scrap came to light, the promotional material for the play Brief Lives called Aubrey “the world’s oldest blogger.”) The scrap both does and doesn’t mirror a tweet — or a status update, or a Tumblr post, or anything on any social network. It has structural limits. It’s odd, jotted, and hasty. It brimming with scribbled social information, meaningful only to those steeped in its world.
One Million Moms Protests Gay-Themed Show It Hasn’t Even Seen Yet
One Million Moms has announced its latest protest: NBC’s The New Normal, a sitcom about a committed gay couple who hire a surrogate so they can have a child. The show doesn’t even premiere until September, but the hate group thinks it’s “harmful” enough that the show will have gay content at all [emphasis is original]:
NBC is using public airwaves to continue to subject families to the decay of morals and values, and the sanctity of marriage in attempting to redefine marriage. These things are harmful to our society, and this program is damaging to our culture. […]
Millions of Americans strongly believe that marriage should be between one man and one woman. NBC’s “The New Normal” is attempting to desensitize America and our children. It is the opposite of how families are designed and created. You cannot recreate the biological wheel.
One Millions Moms exists only as a symbolic PR tool. It is not itself a real organization — having no names or faces to represent it — but is merely a subsidiary of the American Family Association, a hate group run almost entirely by men.
Don’t know if the “OMM as PR tool for AFA” is documented or not, but it makes sense as a theory. On both sides of the political spectrum, these “coalitions” use branding to lead their base in a certain direction. Calling yourself “One Million Moms” is brilliant branding, because it literally brands you as the voice a million moms, with or without this actual number of moms. Of course: this is also highly unethical and manipulative branding, unless of the course the organization is constantly backed by that exact number of moms…
(via forgottenvanburen)
Source: justinspoliticalcorner
Q:Whenever you like one of my posts, it makes me feel like I've done something right. Thanks for having such an educational and interesting blog! It's a nice change from the cat pictures some others I follow post.
Anonymous
You’re welcome! I do see my main mission on here as one of education. I strive to only post factual information. In fact: I even do my best to fact-check all the quotes I post to make sure they’re from the right sources.
This is definitely the influence of my primary career as a college professor, but is also my attempted intervention within the Internet #social justice conversation: lots of folks on both sides of the political spectrum post a lot of non-factual and inflammatory stuff in the name of some twisted variety of “social justice.” One of the primary commitments of social justice, as I see it, is to truth, and not just truth with a capital ‘T’, but factual truth, truth you can prove.
Lastly: I remember that feeling the first time I started to “figure” Tumblr out (if it can be figured out ;-) and my posts started getting liked more and even reblogged by folks. I think the trick to this (again: if there is one) is to think about your unique identity on Tumblr. This is what I encourage students to do when I introduce Tumblr to them: I ask that they think about what they can contribute to the community. Whether that’s a particular kind of information, art, inspiration, whatever, and not just reblogging. I really didn’t start to develop a “following” on here until I started finding valuable information elsewhere on the Internet and adding it to the community. I think that’s an important service we could all do more of on here. It helps build the Tumblr community, and it helps us all be more informed about the things we care about.
Anyway: thanks for following!
Your habits WILL improve after absorbing this information. If you use Twitter to reach people, this may be the most useful infographic that you’ve seen in a while. Twitter is as much about timing as it is about content and copywriting. I don’t agree with all of the advice proffered in this graphic but it is a great start, regardless.
Big Data on Campus
With 72,000 students, A.S.U. is both the country’s largest public university and a hotbed of data-driven experiments. One core effort is a degree-monitoring system that keeps tabs on how students are doing in their majors. Stray off-course and a student may have to switch fields.
And while not exactly matchmaking, Arizona State takes an interest in students’ social lives, too. Its Facebook app mines profiles to suggest friends. One classmate shares eight things in common with Ms. Allisone, who “likes” education, photography and tattoos. Researchers are even trying to figure out social ties based on anonymized data culled from swipes of ID cards around the Tempe campus. This is college life, quantified.
Data mining hinges on one reality about life on the Web: what you do there leaves behind a trail of digital breadcrumbs. Companies scoop those up to tailor services, like the matchmaking of eHarmony or the book recommendations of Amazon. Now colleges, eager to get students out the door more efficiently, are awakening to the opportunities of so-called Big Data.
The new breed of software can predict how well students will do before they even set foot in the classroom. It recommends courses, Netflix-style, based on students’ academic records.
Data diggers hope to improve an education system in which professors often fly blind. That’s a particular problem in introductory-level courses, says Carol A. Twigg, president of the National Center for Academic Transformation. “The typical class, the professor rattles on in front of the class,” she says. “They give a midterm exam. Half the kids fail. Half the kids drop out. And they have no idea what’s going on with their students.”
As more of this technology comes online, it raises new tensions. What role does a professor play when an algorithm recommends the next lesson? If colleges can predict failure, should they steer students away from challenges? When paths are so tailored, do campuses cease to be places of exploration?
Sexual Assault Victim Faces Jail for Naming Attackers
Savannah Dietrich fell unconscious after drinking at a party last August. While she lay unconscious, two teen boys she knew sexually assaulted her, videotaping the incident and distributing pictures on the internet. Now Dietrich faces jail time for naming her attackers on Twitter.
Dietrich, 17, who told the Louisville Courier-Journal that she wanted her name to be used openly, tweeted the names of her attackers after they accepted a plea deal that she felt was too lenient. “There you go, lock me up,” Dietrich said, after tweeting their names. “I’m not protecting anyone that made my life a living Hell.”
Attorneys for the assailants then asked a Jefferson District Court Judge to hold Dietrich in contempt, for violating the confidentiality of the juvenile court hearing in which they pleaded guilty to felony first-degree sexual abuse and misdemeanor voyeurism.
“I felt like they were given a very, very light deal,” Dietrich said. “I wasn’t happy with it, at all.”
Dietrich has asked for the media to be present at her July 30 contempt hearing, and has waived confidentiality in order to allow the media to cover her case. Both Dietrich’s attorneys and the Courier-Journal have filed requests to open the hearings, arguing that she has the First Amendment right to speak on the case and have her own case be covered publicly.
Neticones
Online net art project can turn a webcam photo into a mosaic made from Facebook icons.
Try it out here
Negative Review of The Dark Knight Rises Causes Controversy on Rotten Tomatoes
It’s probably safe to say that The Dark Knight Rises is the most anticipated film of the year. More than The Hobbit. More than The Avengers. And my staff and I knew full well that when the first negative review came in, the reviewer would get pasted in the comments. That dubious honor goes to Marshall Fine. He’s a critic we’ve included on our site — he’s got a respectable background in criticism, and we think he should be included on our site.
Since the referral traffic seems to have crashed his server, we’ve temporarily removed the review link at Fine’s request, so his site can go back up. But the score will not be affected. His Rotten review still applies to the score, even if the link isn’t active at the moment.
Update: A second negative review came in, and we’ll be policing those comments, too.
Second Update: We have disabled comments on The Dark Knight Rises reviews for a few days.
As expected, we saw a mountain of comments come in about his review, and we’re policing them to make sure they’re in line with our TOS. Broadly speaking, threats and hate speech will get your commenting privileges revoked.
So where does that leave us? It doesn’t change the fact that there are trolls, and that minority opinions will be vehemently refuted. But I would like to leave everyone with a few final thoughts:
- If a critic often goes against the majority, but has well-reasoned arguments, it’s unlikely we’re going to ban them, at least not just for having a different opinion. We’re not looking for groupthink here.
- If a critic abuses our trust by linking to something that’s not a review, we will take action up to and including removing them from the Tomatometer. If a critic doesn’t take their reputation seriously, then neither will we.
- We’ll ban you for threats and hate speech — we’re trying to have fun here, so (to quote Wil Wheaton) don’t be a dick. And don’t try and argue about your right to free speech — this is a business, and we have the right to refuse service to anyone we feel like.
- We’re probably going to move to a Facebook-based commenting system that doesn’t allow for anonymity. You’ll have to stand by your comments, just like a critic does. So you’ll still be able to argue about a movie you haven’t seen, but people will know it was you. (I know that won’t make a difference for some people, but at least there may be some measure of responsibility). Third Update: We’re looking at many other options other than FB, including not allowing comments before a movie opens, moderating all comments before they go live, and a few other things. Facebook isn’t the only thing we’re considering.
I would probably have more followers
if I had more patience and didn’t get so irritated by other people… but if these things were true I probably wouldn’t be on Tumblr either…
