Chris Menning

dailydot: The dark side of Reddit’s GoneWild When Gawker’s...

Fri, 24 May 2013 11:51:37 -0500

The dark side of Reddit’s GoneWild

When Gawker’s Adrian Chen revealed the identity of violentacrez, one of the site’s most well-known trolls and a moderators for shady subreddits like r/jailbait, it was seen as a massive attack on the freedom and anonymity that Reddit promises. Chen was labeled a villain, and Gawker was banned from Reddit.

But the aforementioned IamTheFapMaster and other redditors routinely “punish” women posting to GW by revealing their real names and sending their nude photos to teachers and family members. It’s easy to track via the watchdog subreddit, r/ShitRedditSays, which lists out every instance of misogyny, slut-shaming, and general douchebaggery the rest of Reddit dumps onto GW.

Oh, is that what Reddit means when they say they’re “making the world suck less”?

From now on, when people ask where I’m from I’m just...

Fri, 24 May 2013 10:43:28 -0500

From now on, when people ask where I’m from I’m just gonna show them this gif and point at the center of the huge spinning vortex.

(via Poor Mojo’s Newswire: This is what the weather in “tornado alley” looks like)

joshfjelstad: Sick burn, Ken Jennings.

Thu, 23 May 2013 13:29:12 -0500

joshfjelstad:

Sick burn, Ken Jennings.

fuckyeahdementia: I miss Dr. Sbaitso [x-entertainment] I had...

Tue, 21 May 2013 13:03:35 -0500

fuckyeahdementia:

I miss Dr. Sbaitso

[x-entertainment]

I had this on my 386. It was rad.

I’m not certain, but I’m pretty sure that’s a...

Mon, 20 May 2013 14:49:33 -0500

I’m not certain, but I’m pretty sure that’s a dog’s head on a cat’s body.

Mike Pursel wants to help you advertise cheap viagra India SEO...

Mon, 20 May 2013 12:59:09 -0500

Mike Pursel wants to help you advertise cheap viagra India SEO dot com.

Like, actually marrying, or "mai waifu" marrying?

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:36:16 -0500

Like, actually marrying on August 17th. We have the venue and hotels booked, the menu planned, the guests invited, and are still working on a lot of the other brain-crushing details that go into planning a wedding. But yeah, every now and then I tell her she’s gonna be “mai waifu.” She usually just laughs, and then calls me something really explicit that I won’t say publicly.

"Consequently, lumping “trolls” into one discrete group is not only not helpful; it’s harmful. If..."

Mon, 20 May 2013 09:44:22 -0500

“Consequently, lumping “trolls” into one discrete group is not only not helpful; it’s harmful. If there really were some clear-cut division between troll and not-troll, all we’d need to do to solve the very real problem of online harassment and bigotry is ban the trolls—and then boom, suddenly we’d have a fair and equitable Internet. Right? Not quite. Because the fact is, the division between trolls and regular Internet users is hardly clear cut. Compartmentalizing bigoted speech and behavior within some poorly-defined online non-category—“trolling”—that somehow manages to subsume every unpleasant interaction on the internet while establishing a clear demarcation between the “them” who trolls and the “us” who does not only obscures that fact, and precludes serious conversations about systemic harassment and bigotry.”

- Whitney Phillips - The Daily Dot - A brief history of trolls (or, what exactly is a troll?)

"describing all problematic online behaviors as trolling and all online aggressors as trolls is a bad..."

Mon, 20 May 2013 09:39:58 -0500

“describing all problematic online behaviors as trolling and all online aggressors as trolls is a bad idea. Not because there is only one “correct” way to troll, as some trolls might insist, but because using the term as a stand-in for everything terrible online is imprecise, unhelpful, and—most importantly—tends to obscure the underlying problem of offline bigotry and aggression.”

- The Daily Dot - A brief history of trolls (or, what exactly is a troll?)

"What’s more, trolling in this newly-established subcultural sense, whose most conspicuous..."

Mon, 20 May 2013 09:38:03 -0500

“What’s more, trolling in this newly-established subcultural sense, whose most conspicuous characteristic was that participating trolls proudly identified as such, was directly plugged into, and in fact provided a great deal of creative fodder for, a little thing called meme culture.”

- Ladies and gentlemen, the woman I’m marrying.

Whitney Phillips in The Daily Dot - A brief history of trolls (or, what exactly is a troll?)

Fortune Favors The Bold: Keep in mind that there is a pretty wide circle of people in the...

Sun, 19 May 2013 15:01:40 -0500

Fortune Favors The Bold: Keep in mind that there is a pretty wide circle of people in the...:

nickdouglas:

brianvan:

Keep in mind that there is a pretty wide circle of people in the Tumblr user Venn Diagram who:

Are more or less happy with Tumblr the way that it is

Have nothing specific to fear with a change of management or ownership, or even a modest change in dashboard behavior

May find it appropriate and…

Yuuup

The Tech Crunch article here has some of the vital stats you...

Sun, 19 May 2013 12:28:00 -0500

The Tech Crunch article here has some of the vital stats you need to know about Yahoo’s acquisition of Tumblr in case you haven’t read about it yet. I’m only linking to it because of the graphic.

(via Yahoo Board Has Approved A $1.1 Billion Cash Deal For Tumblr, WSJ Reports | TechCrunch)

So here are my initial thoughts:

This is great for Yahoo. They wanted to score cool points, and Tumblr is certainly cooler than any of their existing properties.

Some Tumblr users are obviously going to feel like the company “sold out.” Those kids need a reality check. Tumblr, as a company, has been about making money from the start. This ain’t free and open software built for the good of the community. If that’s what you want, you’ll have to look elsewhere. Does this mean that Yahoo didn’t really acquire all the “cool points” that it thought it was getting? I’m certain that people within Yahoo and Tumblr anticipated some user backlash to the acquisition and have some sort of contingency plan in the works. Even though Instagram lost some cool factor after being acquired by Facebook, I still know plenty of regular people (those who don’t work in social media) that use it. I think Yahumblr will work similarly.

But — I predict — within the next year we’ll see sponsored posts introduced to the main feed rather than being relegated to the sponsored posts area. Yahoo will most likely want to maximize their ad revenue. This will annoy some more users. Some little Tumblr exodus movements will spring up, but so far there really isn’t a better version of the same thing. WeHeartIt has already been around for some time and it’s no better.

Okay, that’s all for now. I’m going to take Nathan to the biggest dog park I’ve ever seen in my life.

PS: Oh yeah! I just want to add that at a time when every other startup and social media whatsamajigger has been laying off employees or going bankrupt, I really can’t hate on anyone for escaping the looming spectre of the Web 2.0 crash.

Pretty sure you’re not supposed to interact with your...

Sat, 18 May 2013 12:28:14 -0500

Pretty sure you’re not supposed to interact with your alternates. Oh well. This timeline was fun while it lasted.

Bread on drugs?

Sat, 18 May 2013 11:56:10 -0500

Bread on drugs?

The art in this yogurt shop just gets me.

Fri, 17 May 2013 22:11:43 -0500

The art in this yogurt shop just gets me.

Photo

Fri, 17 May 2013 10:05:13 -0500

thelefttside: Same.

Fri, 17 May 2013 00:37:12 -0500

thelefttside:

Same.

"The things people are screaming at each other about today are seamlessly replaced with whatever..."

Thu, 16 May 2013 12:55:00 -0500

“The things people are screaming at each other about today are seamlessly replaced with whatever thing they’ll be screaming at each other about tomorrow, which will promptly be forgotten once Gawker posts whatever snarky thing about the next socio-cultural indignity, for example the latest episode of HBO’s Girls. Everyone will start screaming again, and Twitter will light up with jokes that are both mean and not funny, and the whole process will almost immediately begin repeating itself. I’m tired of watching people scream at each other for literally no reason, and am tired of getting worked into a lather over things I know full well will be forgotten by the morning. I’m tired of impermanence, I guess you could say, which is why I like the trail and river so much.”

- Whitney wrote some things about our recent move to Spokane. We like it here.

a sandwich, with words???

yellowcherries: esofine: hopefulveterinarian: Excellent...

Thu, 16 May 2013 12:21:00 -0500

yellowcherries:

esofine:

hopefulveterinarian:

Excellent alternatives to the yellow ribbon concept.

Check them out here: Friendly Dog Collars

This is brilliant. I would love to get Jacks the “Friendly” one to let those that ask if their children can pet him know he’s nice right away. And also so dumbass cops know to leave me the hell alone because I have a great dog.

I love the yellow ribbon concept, but thought it might be a bit to vague for people not in the know, you know? This is just brilliant.

I wonder what would be appropriate for Nathan? Something like, “friendly, but he’ll totally jump all over you and try to wrestle”? The vet calls him “a happy handful.”

bombliate: how weird is it to have pets though like a random animal just lives in your house and...

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:38:59 -0500

bombliate:

how weird is it to have pets though like a random animal just lives in your house and you can’t communicate with it but you both just accept it

Given the 100K+ notes I feel like there must be a joke here that I don’t get.

I mean, my dog and I communicate just fine. He understands around 25 words so far. He communicates his needs and wants through scratching on the door, pointing with his nose, hopping up and down, sniffing and pacing, and other body language signals. I mean, given that he’s the result of 15,000 years of selective breeding and human cohabitation he ought to be pretty good at socializing with humans. There’s nothing random about it.

Maybe the post gets so many notes because of people like me who can’t let it go without pointing out how wrong it is.

/rant