It's Backrooms release day! If you are going this weekend it's a good moment to check out "Institutional Gothic" article from @mitpress.bsky.social Reader!

It might be tempting to turn to an artificial intelligence chatbot for free legal advice, but your questions could come back to haunt you in court.

From @TheAthletic: At the height of ICE activity at a Minnesota school, 150 students did not attend school in person because parents feared leaving their homes. Then a rookie principal and former football hero stepped in to protect his flock. nyti.ms/4tZYgrp

Soon-to-be-laid-off Meta contractors say they’re being treated differently than Mark Zuckerberg’s full-time employees, who stand to receive more generous severance packages. www.wired.com/story/meta-c...

America’s blitz in Iran offers a foretaste of how the battlefield is changing. As he mulls whether to resume the fight, Donald Trump should consider three things

Happy 30th anniversary to the Internet Archive (launched on May 10, 1996). A staggering piece of history and technology that must be preserved.

Mental defeat—negative self‑appraisals like feeling beaten or defined by pain—matters. That feeling that "pain has taken over" can shape daily pain experience and even worsen suffering, our new study published in PAIN suggests. #ChronicPain #PainPsychology 🧪(1/2) journals.lww.com/pain/abstrac...

One week ago I gave a talk at Giorno Poetry Systems ("The Bunker") where Burroughs once lived & many (other) strange things have happened. I made an argument about Burroughs, Doug Engelbart, and CUT and PASTE. Here is a version of that talk: unseeninternet.substack.com/p/cutpaste-c...

Chrome is reaching into users' machines and writing a 4 GB on-device AI model file to disk without asking. It is the weights for Gemini Nano, Google's on-device LLM. Chrome did not ask. Chrome does not surface it. If the user deletes it, Chrome re-downloads it. www.thatprivacyguy.com/blog/chrome-...

I DO NOT WANT TO 'CHAT WITH MY FILES'

open.substack.com/pub/unseenin... excellent piece on how to rip a hole in the fabric of reality, as it were..

Does anyone have a personal connection with Donna Haraway?

Some more depressing news: www.nytimes.com/2026/05/04/s...

Giorno Poetry Systems Thursday, April 30 7:30pm till late (Doors at 7pm) Video short by Yuyan Wang Mark Leckey in conversation with Felix the Cat Performance by Onyx Ashanti Lecture by Shira Chess titled How to Rip a Hole in the Fabric of Reality DJ set by Bullwackie and Ras Tayo

meanwhile, overseas… (note, the CL1 computer combines human neurons with a silicon chip) www.livescience.com/technology/c...

we’re approaching peak weirdness

New study claims that climate change and competition with H. Sapiens alone are not sufficient to explain why Neanderthals went extinct while Sapiens flourished. Sapiens’ stronger, more flexible social networks better equipped them to survive times of crisis, they claim. 🧪 🌱🐋

core text

skyline

The government’s new AI strategy is much more focused on pushing adoption of AI and buying into industry narratives over considering the harms that could come of using tools with a growing list of obvious drawbacks, which we saw first hand with Tumbler Ridge.

The best things in life were free, but now they’re just made with zero budget

“A lot of us in the games industry… we live in these bubbles. We think that what’s happening externally is not going to directly affect us, and that’s so incredibly untrue.” — Elaine Gomez, Chair of the Equity Committee for UVW-CWA, speaking to reporter @catbussell.bsky.social

patience pays off

“Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited.” Geneva Convention Additional Protocol I and Department of Defense Law of War Manual, § 5.2.2

still funny, perhaps more now than ever:

how would one write to oppose literacy?

AI is the spirit of hegemony vaguely animated. -Shira Chess

@shirachess.bsky.social helps you see the unseen in this awesome interview about her book The Unseen Internet Conjuring the Occult in Digital Discourse She's also my coauthor for next year's release about Mondo 2000 This is a great interview!

The Backrooms and the Rise of Institutional Gothic open.substack.com/pub/unseenin... More brilliance from @shirachess.bsky.social Looking forward to the release of Backrooms

Wondering what is going on in those Backrooms trailers? Some thought on the creepypasta, the web series, the film, and the emerging aesthetic of Institutional Gothic via @mitpress.bsky.social thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/backrooms-an...

Hey #SCMS26 - think magazine research is boring? Then you clearly haven’t met my panel. 2:15 today … it will get messy.

If you are at #SCMS26 you should come get a free signed copy of my new book, THE UNSEEN INTERNET. Counterculture icon @rusirius.bsky.social endorses that reading it is like tripping on robitussin! (This is probably not true.)

Spoke to Wired for this piece. In a world where AI can only mimic its prompt, it’s not surprise this reflects the inherent violence of reality TV dating shows. Also everyone should watch the old show UnReal

This week on The AP Strange Show, I had a fascinating chat with Shira Chess about her new book The Unseen Internet: Conjuring the Occult in Digital Discourse, covering the history of magick and weirdness in our modern technological age. We had a great time...🧵 podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

@philh.bsky.social spotted in the wild…

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t... #currentlylistening

I recently chatted with @rushkoff.com on Team Human to discuss about my new @mitpress.bsky.social book, The Unseen Internet. We talked about the esoteric wallpaper of the internet, meme magic, AI, and a whole lot of technological woo...

Fascinating body mod: www.reddit.com/r/bodymods/s...

I mean I can't imagine why people would not want to scan their face to get on the internet

Just to be clear Shira's book The Unseen Internet is published and you can purchase it. Our collaboration about Mondo 2000 is not yet published. You can't buy it yet.

Newly released records show a U.S. citizen was shot and killed in Texas by a federal immigration agent last year during a late-night traffic encounter that was not publicly disclosed by the Department of Homeland Security.

From the generation who brought you the terms meatspace and meatsack

This Sunday, 2/22 I'll be livestreaming with @drangelapuca.bsky.social about all things dark academia: www.youtube.com/live/TFx1WDU...

Of Internets, seen and unseen open.substack.com/pub/josephma... Joseph Matheny writes about the new book The Unseen Internet: Conjuring the Occult in Digital Discourse by my friend and coauthor (of a not yet published book) Shira Chess @shirachess.bsky.social

'The Unseen Internet' is a new book that seems interesting @shirachess.bsky.social - www.rawillumination.net/2026/02/the-...

Me too, moon. Me too