Who Killed Rock and Roll

Who Killed Rock and Roll?

Shock rocker Marilyn Manson may have been rather tame and boring in hindsight. But in retrospect, it turns out that he did make at least one true observation. Rock and roll is in fact dead. And it died right around the time he was singing about its demise. If you've…
January 17, 20244 Comments
Teen Drug Overdose

Teen Drug Overdoses Double

The mental, physical, and spiritual health crises facing American young adults and adolescents took a massive turn for the worse in 2022. According to the New England Journal of Medicine and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the rates of teen drug overdoses doubled compared to 2018. Using data…
January 16, 20245 Comments
Millennial in Hall of Mirrors

Millennial Hall of Mirrors

Talk to Millennials long enough, and they'll turn the topic of conversation to their preferred pop culture brands. Discussing these corporate IPs with them for any length of time will give you the definite impression that this generation doesn't just consume these entertainment products, they project themselves into them. To…
January 15, 20249 Comments
Break Down

The Break Down

Reader Rudolph Harrier comments on a previous post: What makes things worse is that Zoomers have only learned how to deal with existing services. Music sites everywhere are littered with comments of “I heard a song I liked but it’s not on Spotify so how can I listen to it…
December 12, 202313 Comments
Digital Infrastructure Crisis

The Competency Crisis

Admit it. You've noticed. Once-straightforward routines are now frustrating ordeals. What used to be quick errands now stretch into weeks-long hassles. Formerly simple interactions have become convoluted, too often ineffective, exercises in hoop-jumping. Just yesterday, you could take it for granted that the software your job depends on would work…
December 7, 20239 Comments
Best Evenings

Blockbuster Bellwether

  Glance around online, and you see more and more people discussing the besetting vices of Generation Y. Oh, a lot of them are swallowing the revisionist psyop that's dialed back the start of the Millennial generation to 1979 or earlier, so they use the term "Millennial." But when you're…
November 24, 202327 Comments
Twitter X Ban

Burned Book Banned?

A year ago, I went on record speculating that Elon Musk may have bought Twitter to destroy it. If the latest wave of censorship on the embattled platform - including dissident account ban waves and the apparent implementation of a subtler "social credit" style policy are any indication, Twitter's demise…
October 13, 202311 Comments
fingers crossed

Agreement Incapable

I regret to inform you that the motley gang of linear thinking helots and malfunctioning bots infesting Amazon are at it again. And now they've gotten back around to setting beloved Mil-Sci fi authors Jason Anspach and Nick Cole in their sights. Nick broke the news on Twitter. In case…
September 25, 202320 Comments
surrogate hamster

Surrogate Activities

A video posted last month by a mid-sized video game review channel issued a scathing indictment of current AAA gaming. It's worth a watch, despite some crude language. Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8jC2KT481c The immediate reaction from anyone with the least bit of awareness is "He's right! Video games suck now!"…
September 20, 202319 Comments
Iron Age

Dawn of the Iron Age

Yesterday's post on the Death Cult's conquest of pop culture occasioned much comment about where indie creators - in particular newpub authors - go next. A common refrain among the commentariat invoked a burgeoning new counterculture movement, the Iron Age. The rise of another online campaign to counter corporate skinsuit…
August 8, 20232 Comments