archive

Important Internet phenomenon

Sarah McRae (Alberta): “Get Off My Internets”: How Anti-Fans Deconstruct Lifestyle Bloggers’ Authenticity Work. The ascendance of the cat as the mascot of the Internet relied on an insider culture that saw the Internet as a snarky, alienated alternative to the mainstream. The rise of the Twitter thread: Virginia Heffernan on the compelling, incendiary literary form of the Trump era. Meet Poe’s Law, 2017’s most important Internet phenomenon. The human cost of monitoring the Internet: Thousands dredge through the worst of the web to protect those online from trauma-inducing content — but what happens to the workers?

Scott McLemee reviews The Ambivalent Internet: Mischief, Oddity and Antagonism Online by Whitney Phillips and Ryan M. Milner. An oasis of horror in an Internet of boredom: Angela Nagle on the online politics of transgression. Tumblr’s unclear future shows that there’s no money in Internet culture. Farhad Manjoo on how the Internet is saving culture, not killing it.