This 2024 piece from @defaultfriend.bsky.social does an excellent job of capturing the cultural shift we're experiencing right now as we move decisively from a cultural environment structured by the mass media to one structured by networked digital media.

The always interesting @defaultfriend.bsky.social , on the shifting “Overton Window” for fringe beliefs. When a politician mentions “demons”, how do you react? (Personally, I do not believe in the supernatural. Not my upbringing.) unherd.com/newsroom/jd-...

"Alt kids are the social fabric of the most economically depressed, culturally conservative corners of America and have been for a very long time...My son is now jumping on me, literally, so until next time, Deeists." No paywall, please read this study of South Florida over the last 30 years.

This and rotisserie chicken would go so hard rn

ya girl weighed in on dinergoths: default.blog/p/against-am...

We’re Underestimating Gavin Newsom: The California governor has the ‘it’ factor. And he knows it. | Katherine Dee https://thedispatch.com/article/gavin-newsom-internet-fan-culture-empty/

i think about it all the time

"The term I want to propose is mediated murderer: a perpetrator who, without physical co-presence, uses networked communication as the primary instrument by which he establishes coercive control over a specific victim and drives that victim toward death." Tough read, FBI materials.

I had a theory over the weekend: default.blog/p/the-mediat...

@defaultfriend.bsky.social last year wrote about psychological adaptions to online life which look like psychological disorders in offline line: "This is the internet: it demands a disposition that appears 'sick' in the physical world."

Is AO3 *actually* a private space or are fans being a bunch of babies? I investigate: www.gq.com/story/heated...

The always interesting @defaultfriend.bsky.social, on conspiracy thinking as culture: default.blog/p/candace-ow... #CandaceOwens #culture

“…living within the digital archive disintegrates our basic, linear perception of time...every era is equally available, &all events are potentially happening at the same time, the chain of causality &influence breaks down completely.” intriguing read c/o @defaultfriend.bsky.social, esp paired w/ qt

The call-in show is live... Join us on Kick, where unlike OTHER platforms, we have zero viewers... The theme is vampires, but as always you're free to interpret that as you wish... kick.com/americandrea...

More context for the NY Times article on her substack default.blog/p/what-is-fa...

Just discovering the writing of Katherine Dee @defaultfriend.bsky.social. Consider me bewitched.

Free access: @defaultfriend.bsky.social on how the manosphere copies 1960s Black masculinity, especially the pimp culture. Tate himself is a biracial man who grew up in Chicago and Indiana before moving with his English mother to Luton, an infamously rough town. open.substack.com/pub/defaultf...

This breakdown of the manosphere's pimp culture heritage by @defaultfriend.bsky.social was equal parts fascinating, eye-opening, and depressing. default.blog/p/andrew-tat...

Carmilla is much better than Dracula

My dad passed away and I miss him so much.

CAE 57 is now out, with the best things I read last month. This month's great pieces include: - @thelocal.to on a freelancer not being what she seemed - @rosalindadams.bsky.social on the godmother of weed in NY - @defaultfriend.bsky.social on how trad culture was never counterculture & more!

“The otherworld rewards skilled navigators and destroys the careless: Treasures turn to leaves; fairy wives eventually disappear back home; hubris causes travelers to be lost forever, or worse, to wither and die.” @defaultfriend.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/11/28/o...

“Seeing the internet as a fairyland — an otherworld with its own logic — isn’t about mystifying technology. It’s about seeing it sharply, as the strange and powerful environment it really is,” Katya Ungerman writes.

"With the internet, we cross a threshold into an otherworld. A.I. is like a creature from the otherworld who crosses into ours." I love this piece by @defaultfriend.bsky.social about the need for myth to survive the digital age.

Hello from Australia @defaultfriend.bsky.social (video in reply)

"Finally, Featured Author @defaultfriend.bsky.social makes the case that unlike the “trad” movement, the next real counterculture will refuse spectacle." Among this week's Fairer Disputations highlights. www.gq.com/story/trad-m...

Tune it : )

And we're LIVE! Psychedelia and Mormons. The theme is THE GREAT TRIP. open.substack.com/live-stream/...

😈❤️‍🔥🔥❤️‍🔥😈 ❤️🥵😍🥵❤️ 🔥😍😏😍🔥 ❤️🥵😍🥵❤️ 😈❤️‍🔥🔥❤️‍🔥😈

15ish minutes

Tonight at 7:30 CT. Streaming on X, Twitch, and default.blog

Reading this now, highly recommend so far… more thoughts when I finish!

This week's call-in show is a true homage to Bell: GHOST TO GHOST! default.blog/p/ghost-to-g...

18,000 people tuned in…

It's in 30... default.blog

Today, for paid subscribers, I explore whether the fact that we talk to our computers, listen to posts, and send endless voice memos matters in the conversation about the end of print culture. default.blog/p/from-post-...

Today, I wrote about taboos. default.blog/p/what-is-ta...

everything i've posted here is off the record

Today, I wrote about taboos. default.blog/p/what-is-ta...

Worth the read from @defaultfriend.bsky.social.

'The internet changes our sense of who we’re speaking to and how our words land. Until we confront that shift directly, we will keep circling the same argument about whether people “really mean it."' @defaultfriend.bsky.social for @politico.com www.politico.com/news/magazin...

New record traffic on Pre-History of an Encounter!

Today, I continue my techno-mystical adventure by diving head first out of my depth. What if LLMs are djinn? default.blog/p/llms-as-dj...

I expanded on the idea that the Internet is an otherworld and proposed some rules for how to navigate it: thespectator.com/topic/what-f...

Social media is not a substitute for news. I don't want to find out information from a Nextdoor push notification. thespectator.com/topic/life-c...

𝘋𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨, a letter recounting Substacks’s Stacked Debate: The Digital Sexual Revolution, hosted by @defaultfriend.bsky.social Written by Brianna Perry and illustrated by Blaise Larmee.

A very good point

I wrote about eugenics, looksmaxxing, and @wired.com's latest Looksmaxxing piece. default.blog/p/looksmaxxi...

TIL Victorian anti-masturbation beliefs is partially responsible for the invention and popularization of sex magick