That's enough Death of the Author. It's time for Death of the Audience. Start running fools

#TheN0ughtie5 Day 21 30. Lady Gaga, “Bad Romance” (2008) Toward the end of the decade the half-life of my ability to appreciate a new pop girlie began to shorten, so that Gaga had only been triggering a rockist sneer for a year before I admitted that this was actually great. youtu.be/qrO4YZeyl0I

Justin Trudeau’s was surprisingly graceful and hopeful given the circumstances of being Trump threatening to invade and bring kicked out ungraciously by his own party youtu.be/wfSzRqvNJxA?...

We put a computer in every kid's pocket, but instead of teaching them how to use it, we force them to leave the computer at home. And that's part of the problem. For most people, technology is still sort of a toy rather than a tool.

The speech genuinely made me a bit sad because he *still* has not got that the job of the prime minister is not to spend five years talking about the next election. He never realised he was not leader of the opposition and now he never will.

I wouldn’t even mind as much if Starmer fans were ideologically ‘blue Labour’ or even realised that is where McSweeney came from. But they aren’t and don’t. Indeed many are using the ‘Burnham will take us back to the 70’s Labour’ line as though Starmer hasn’t.

I too thought “boring and competent” deserved a shot at governing but he wasn’t competent and he didn’t do any governing

Coronations are terrible for democracy. Of course Burnham wants one. Stock short-term Labour Party playing politics on easy mode. But Starmer won a Leadership election and a General Election and still suddenly had no supporters. Give it 18 months, Burnham will have even less protection. 1/10

I mean, I know when *I* think about lefty politics, the very first things that come to mind are demonizing trans people, demonizing immigrants, demonizing the disabled, embracing AI, and pandering to the voters of an explicitly white supremacist party. Can't imagine why the public didn't.

there is only one thing to learn from this entire thing and it is literally just that you cannot please people who hate you, you can only turn off people who are willing to hear you out

The commentariat class really going to go for "but Starmer was really left wing! Look he tweaked some fiscal stuff that has a negligible effect on your life while banning you from using the loo and sending your kids abroad without you!" are they? Fucking hell.

"Something just brushed past my leg!" — Luke Skywalker, #StarWars Image credit: tempestkc on Threads #LincolnMemorialReflectingPool #USA

Swing voters have soup for brains. They cannot be reasoned with, as they did not reason themselves into any of their fleeting, weathervane-like positions. The most reliable option is to bombard them with emotional stimuli to induce them to *feel* something like the correct opinion.

posting this image for no reason in particular

How Duncan Jones Made ‘Rogue Trooper’ Look Like a Studio Epic on an Indie Budget @variety.com variety.com/2026/film/fe...

I genuinely think that in the future we’re going to look back at this current era of “the internet is obviously deeply broken for everyone, and in response, we’re going to dismantle internet privacy while pretending it’s for the good of children” with deep embarrassment. Rather like Prohibition.

I really do think a lot about how big tech systematically destroyed all the reasonably-safe places intended specifically for kids online…. and now powerful interests are turning around and claiming that we have to destroy Internet privacy because being online is obviously dangerous for kids.

Currently reading “The Odyssey”, and I had forgotten that what the Sirens tempt Odysseus with is an endless recounting of his past glories. It is, like so much of “The Odyssey”, a nostalgia trap.

Starmer’s reign will go down as one of the most disappointed social democratic periods in history. Gifted a massive majority (solely) by the disproportional electoral system, he squandered it chasing illusionary “lost voters” while abandoning and alienating his real voters.

I still think there is a general misunderstanding about Brexit which has got lost in all the noise. Most people didn't care about the issue... until David Cameron said that he would resign if people voted for Brexit. 1/3

Prelude to the cigarette factory fight in CARMEN (1915), which got censored in Pennsylvania and Ohio

i suppose this is more biography than bluesky account but

There's really no need to AInvestigate stuff for the most part anyway. You can just say "this reads like lazy incoherent shit with no real worldview" and dismiss it even if it's written by a human. 99% of what humans write is also slop.

The movies lied to us: from the goose-stepping ultracompetent Nazis and gimlet-eyed Soviets to Darth Vader and glamorized absolute monarchs Fascism isn't cool and edgy. Authoritarianism isn't ruthlessly efficient. They're both too dumb for words Only Death of Stalin truly gets it right

I think the time to learn Trump so often steals objects from his wife's bedroom that staff have to take photos of everything she owns to replace them before she finds out & also check the president of the United States' bedroom trash cuz he throws out the sliver is when journos first heard about it

Aesop Rock had a whole track about how unreal it felt as a kid to actually see him incidentally in real life just going about his day

This gets back to that post about all the 80s celebs where you weren't sure who was real and who was fictional. Pee-wee Herman, Elvira, Hulk Hogan, John Gotti, Michael Jackson, Ronald Reagan, Madonna, the Pope, Boy George, Cyndi Lauper, Robin Leach, Donald Trump, Max Headroom, Prince, Dr. Ruth—???

I don't know why everyone is calling what is obviously Stephen Miller's true form "reflecting pool algae." The creature is obviously just trying to rest. Holding human form is taxing. Let it be.

Oh so Burnham‘s allowed a quick transition but I’m not? rude

I wish I could say I was surprised that no major comics voices have acknowledged @stephwilliams.bsky.social's historic Eisner nomination for Best Writer. But this silence is just the latest injustice in a long history of them. To wit, from my 2018 Christopher Priest profile: archive.is/0J97j

oh my god

Mark Carney's tenure has been going smoothly, though now it looks like he's going to burn his political capital and Canada's budget on going in all-on on AI even as Canadians' skepticism of it grows (and honestly the economy around it looks increasingly shaky).

This has the potential to derail him because people the more AI is forced on people, the more they hate it. It's not "illiteracy". It's the fact it's being forced on us with no discernible benefit to us. #cdnpoli

Count Binface - Andy Burnham - Protect British Wildlife Makerfield illustrating British politics at it's finest ☺️

Congratulations to Andy Burnham for winning The Masked Singer.

If he were a Columbia student and said this his citizenship would be revoked

Is it this? "Now which one of you gobshites threw a brick through my window?! I'll stop the Relief Act. And I know your da and I know your da and I know your da..."

WHAT KIND OF IRISH IS YOUR PREMIER?! WHAT KIND OF IRISH IS YOUR PM?!

my final, most powerful form

I'm sorry but "Kemi is good" is the real cope and it does not meaningfully have any evidence in the real world.

You're not supposed to say this, but conservatives hate HPV vaccines because they think that removing the risk of cervical cancer from sex incentives women to be sluts. It's been a Christian thing since way before RFK Jr. was around, everybody knows what it's about, but you have to pretend not to.

Some Westerners do very literally think that the people of the conflicts they hear about are fictional.

Listening to an oral history and the IWM interview goes "it seems extraordinary to me that the South Africans couldn't set their racism aside because of the war" at which point you hear a room of Trinis scoff

Doctor Who: The Pandorica Opens (Steven Moffat, 2010)

#TrekADay It's time for Worf to count up his dad's sins.

Count Binface is the Absolute reboot of Lord Buckethead

One of my strongest views is that most uses of the LED Soundstage in SNW are not much better than the soundstage planets in TOS, but for significantly more money