Casey Newton

Brett Scott (@brettscott)

Marshall McLuhan is famous for his observation that the form of a communication technology can shape our mind and society The age of the printed book, for example, carried with it a particular way of being. Regardless of the differing content of different books, all books required a particular mindset in which a thread is followed from the beginning to the end through an arc I feel the age of social media is like the age of a ripped up book, as if we were surrounded by torn shards and shreds of paper floating like confetti around us. We grab for them, hoping for some tiny insight, but not having any way of knowing where it fits in the overarching narrative This note is one such shard. You can toss it away now

Shifts in U.S. Social Media Use, 2020–2024: Decline, Fragmentation, and Enduring Polarization

The social media ecosystem appears to be in flux. Twitter’s rebranding to X has come to symbolize a broader reorganization of online publics – political reshuffling, user attrition, and uncertainty over the role of legacy platforms. Simultaneously, the shift from text-based, networked feeds toward algorithmically curated, short-form video has accelerated, with TikTok setting the pace for the wider ecosystem [18, 14, 16]. At the same time, everyday communication increasingly migrates from large, open networks to semi-private spaces such as group chats and messaging apps. Commentators describe a digital public sphere in transition: smaller, more fragmented, less dominated by traditional social networking sites, and rise of more broadcast-oriented forms of media – with some even suggesting that we are seeing the beginning of the end of the social media era.

Tumblr

Tumblr. Pure effervescent enrichment. Old internet energy. Home of the Reblogs. All the art you never knew you needed. All the fandoms you could wish for. Enough memes to knock out a moderately-sized mammal. Add to it or simply scroll through and soak it up.

Tumblr

Tumblr. Pure effervescent enrichment. Old internet energy. Home of the Reblogs. All the art you never knew you needed. All the fandoms you could wish for. Enough memes to knock out a moderately-sized mammal. Add to it or simply scroll through and soak it up.

ben guo 🏇 on Twitter / X

i gave this talk last night at @southpkcommons about why the personal computing revolution never happened, and what we can do about it. pumped about the feedback afterwards: "it's giving early tumblr", "you guys are like punk apple", "i want more early internet mixtape vibes" pic.twitter.com/0Lwz3CaWBX— ben guo 🏇 (@0thernet) November 6, 2025

Tumblr

Tumblr is a place to express yourself, discover yourself, and bond over the stuff you love. It's where your interests connect you with your people.

TransFem.org / Sharkey · GitLab

🌎 A Sharkish microblogging platform 🚀

‘There’s a Value in What We Produce Because We Feel – and an AI Chatbot Can’t Feel’

Byline Times' Editor in Chief meets Kate Devlin, Professor of AI and Society at King’s College London, to explore how relationships with AI companions aren’t particularly new, why she believes the under-16s social media ban is flawed, and why human creativity can't be matched

A Tweet Before Dying

The revolutionary internet is over, and we don’t have much to show for it. A new start is out there, somewhere.

Social Media Is Now Parasocial Media

When practitioners used the term “social media” to describe the internet tools that emerged in the mid-aughts, they were giving a name to the kinds of platforms and protocols that allowed people to socialize with friends and communities of interest by using digital technologies. Twenty years later, users of social media are far more likely to scroll than post – and the content that they consume is often strategically produced and algorithmically curated. In this essay, I argue that the very essence of social media has changed. To more effectively interrogate what we are witnessing, we need to stop presuming that these tools are “social media” and begin recognizing that they are now “parasocial media.” Doing so raises new questions about digitally mediated sociality, not to mention the politics and governance of these platforms.

Tumblr to Leaflet

Migrate your Tumblr blog to Leaflet.pub. Your words deserve a home you actually own, built on AT Protocol.

Bluesky is what Tumblr was

Over the past several months I have watched carefully as leftists have migrated over to Bluesky from X/twitter.

Fast Capitalism | Mavs Open Press Open Access Journals | University of Texas at Arlington

Fast Capitalism is an academic journal aimed at describing the current moment of capitalism. We publish peer reviewed scholarship and essays about the impact of rapid information and communication technologies on self, society and culture in the 21st century. Our authors examine how heretofore distinct social institutions, such as work and family, education and entertainment, have blurred to the point of near identity in an accelerated, post-Fordist stage of capitalism. This makes it difficult for people to shield themselves from subordination and surveillance. The working day has expanded; there is little down time anymore. People can 'office' anywhere, using laptops and cells to stay in touch. But these invasive technologies that tether us to capital and control can also help us resist these tendencies. People use the Internet as a public sphere in which they express and enlighten themselves and organize others; information technologies afford connection, mitigate isolation, and even make way for social movements. We are convinced that the best way to study an accelerated media culture and its various political economies and existential meanings is dialectically, with nuance, avoiding sheer condemnation and ebullient celebration. We seek to shape these new technologies and social structures in democratic ways. We look at technology, Artificial Intelligence (AI), global flows, political economy, culture and cultural studies, social theory, political theory, intersectionality, and the envionrment.

Weaver - Long-form writing

I grew up, like a lot of people on Bluesky, in the era of the internet where most of your online social interactions took place via text. I had a MySpace account, MSN messenger and Google Chat, I first got on Facebook back when they required a school email to sign up, I had a Tumblr, though not a LiveJournal. I was super into reddit for a long time. Big fan of Fanfiction.net and later Archive of Our Own.