If Karoline Leavitt is correct and TikTok’s algorithm is going to split so a new US entity has oversight of it, it could lobotmise the app in America. My latest for @fastcompany.com, featuring @jessmaddox.bsky.social, @boesch.bsky.social and @tomdivon.bsky.social www.fastcompany.com/91408598/tru...

Even though I'm currently writing about this, you know what I'm getting bored with? Visibility in creator/influencer studies. Give me a haptics of content creation. What would the audio of influencing be? We can't get stuck in visibility forever.

In hindsight, instead of putting a labubu on Karl Marx’s grave, it would have been funnier to put it on Theodor Adorno’s.

I don’t have the energy to explain why Rupert Murdoch being part of the TikTok deal is bad news.

I've written this post, and then I've deleted it. As a public scholar, I walk the line of commentary and inviting trouble. I don't believe I've done it, but in these times, I don't know. This is my diagnostic of internet culture, algorithms, & violence. bythewaysocial.substack.com/p/btw-social...

So the new TikTok detail requires: 1. A majority American board (which it already had) 2. Data to be housed in the US (which it already was) 3. ByteDance to retain control of the algorithm and “lease” it out to US TikTok (which it already did). Good art of the deal indeed.

Studying content creators, influencers, and internet culture…I’ve heard it all.

I hate how much AI makes me think of Marx and being alienated from our labor. It begs these questions: 1. Do you want to be a writer, or do you want to have written? 2. And for academics…do you want to publish, or do you want to think?

None of my students ever laugh at this image :(

New moment unlocked of my TA having to sort out my classroom tech for me. 🫠

Trump threatens to withhold federal funding from NY if NYC elects Mamdani. An impeachable offense for any other president in any other era. In this one it’s just another Monday.

A “framework” deal for TikTok? I’ll believe it when I see it. Either nothing happens or this screws over US creators. www.cnbc.com/2025/09/15/t...

Made a video about Internet culture and radicalization and hate speech (since we seem to be having THAT discussion again)…and TikTok immediately flagged it for…hate speech.

we. need. to. teach. media. literacy. in. schools. (social media is still media.) but Republicans would never allow it because they benefit from people’s knee-jerk reactions and fear mongering.

Good thread with good advice for us all in light of last week’s events.

This is a week I’ve sat with my thoughts instead of posting. There’s been so much shouting, and I don’t even know if this matters. But I’ve thought about a lot: gaslighting, violence, the boundaries of empathy.

This week: I got stung by something through my clothes. I got stung by a caterpillar that fell on me. I was introduced to the invasive joro spider. Me: 0; Georgia bugs: 3

In 1987, I was 11 and I was home alone during a snow day watching TV (WEBSTER rerun, I think) when the show was interrupted by live news coverage of a press conference held by disgraced PA Treasurer, Budd Dwyer. That's how I (and many other kids) ended up watching a live suicide on TV.

Ah shit the academic sales people found my new email.

Breaking news happening? Reminder: bsky.app/profile/onth...

"A suspect is in custody, according to a UVU alert sent to students. The campus is on lockdown. “A single shot was fired on campus toward a visiting speaker. Police are investigating now, suspect in custody,” an alert from UVU said." www.deseret.com/utah/2025/09...

If you're wondering what this is for it's because I have to defend my stance against a reviewer who said Marx is only a theory argument and not a methods argument. And tried to tell me Marx is Big-T theory.

"school shooting industry"

Academics: In search of some writings on Marx that help explain how his work is best viewed as methodological, not just theoretical.

Sometimes I feel too extremely online for my students.

hell yeah: "A Georgia judge on Tuesday said he will toss the racketeering charges against all 61 defendants accused of a yearslong conspiracy to halt the construction of a police and firefighter training facility that critics pejoratively call “Cop City.”" apnews.com/article/atla...

I’ve always wanted to talk about the physical toll being an academic takes on your body but am legitimately afraid of getting cancelled by people who think I’m comparing being a professor with hard, manual labor. I’m not!

Worth a read. I support the critics - being alarmist doesn’t get us anywhere and supports dangerous outright phone/social media bans. www.tes.com/magazine/tea...

So supposedly that US-specific TikTok was supposed to be officially announced or go live today or something, and all talk of it has basically vanished. The latest extension on the ban ends in a week a half or so

I’ve been listening to some publishing podcasts as my writing is changing spaces, and this episode of Plot Twist totally articulated what it feels like to be a public facing academic open.spotify.com/episode/73Z8...

Getting a little witchy this early September

Sitting on big exciting news sucks because I’m the type of person who buys my husband a great gift, tells him I bought him a great gift, and then five minutes later tells him what I got him. Big academic news coming in January.

My in-laws are visiting

We don’t talk enough about the online left to libertarian pipeline

The fear I lived in for five hours thinking I’d lost everything since my last backup (I didn’t).

NEW: Tenure-track position in History at UC Berkeley in the GLOBAL HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY. We are casting a wide net here: *all* periods, places, and fields are under consideration. I'm on the search committee, so do let me know if you have questions.

Mr. Beast crashing out over the fact he didn’t make Rolling Stone’s list of 2025’s most influential creators - bro, you’re like a mega celebrity now, not a creator. Even I don’t know where that line is but having a reality show with Amazon is well past it.

This is the type of brands-capitalizing-on-viral-events that I love

I’m being parasocial today and you can’t stop me

The number of people that texted me that Taylor Swift is engaged says something about my life that I’m okay with

Nobody warns you that the worst part of starting any new academic job is having to learn a brand new, equally counterintuitive learning management system.

Tonight: I made a sweet potato peanut stew with my first attempt at homemade garlic naan.

Friday.

When the dust settles, and if universities have meaningfully survived, it will be worth asking how institutions usually so resistant to thoroughgoing change chose to leap with both feet into an untested technology they didn't understand and didn't know how to use.

Hi friends! I’m teaching a doctoral seminar in critical theory for the first time next spring - I’d love any of your favorite reading recommendations!

Currently working my way through an R&R that implies this is the worst and most insulting thing the reader has ever read, and I should feel bad for even writing this and probably existing at all too.

Pretty sure I was AI hallucinated again for this “news article.”

Today in the first lecture day of entertainment media analysis, we talked about beginning to think critically about pop culture and how visual language matters, featuring KPop Demon Hunters and Sydney Sweeney.

Recent adventures in cooking back in Georgia.