Search Results for: Internet

Before the Internet, Your Lies Could Only Travel So Far

“I’m sure there were phonies who claimed to be the sole survivor of Thermopylae,” [Don] Shipley says. “Guys that claimed service at Gettysburg, Valley Forge. But they could only project it down a couple of barstools at the village pub. Now with the internet, you can be anyone you want to be.”

Michael Gaynor writing for Washingtonian about Don Shipley. A decorated former Navy SEAL himself, Shipley has become internet-famous for tracking down and exposing men who falsely claim to have been SEALs.

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From Doubles Tennis to Internet Porn

Longreads Pick

Senator Ted Cruz remembers the year he spent clerking in the Supreme Court for then-Chief Justice Rehnquist.

Author: Ted Cruz
Source: Politico
Published: Jun 29, 2015
Length: 11 minutes (2,900 words)

How Minions Destroyed the Internet

Longreads Pick

The strange world of Minions memes.

Source: The Awl
Published: Jun 23, 2015
Length: 6 minutes (1,679 words)

Quitting the Internet, Cold Turkey

The base of Solitude Mountain, Utah. Photo by Krista

The advice offered to me by people when I explain I am going to live by myself in the woods for a week varies from the sensible (“Develop a routine”) to the frankly awful (“Take some weed!”).

But it is Michael Harris, the Canadian author who published a book in 2014 called The End of Absence: Reclaiming What We’ve Lost in a World of Constant Connection, who I pay most attention to.

Like me, Harris decided to try and face his fears. He gave up the internet and his phone for an entire month, though not, it must be said, human contact altogether. Nevertheless, “crushing loneliness,” is how he describes the initial effects of his experiment.

“You have to remember, people who design our online experiences have devoted enormous resources toward making them as addictive as possible,” Harris says. “Walking away from it makes you feel like shit, because suddenly all your magic powers are gone.”

He is talking about the way email alerts and social media notifications are rewiring us by triggering endorphins in our brains.

“You have to burrow through that discomfort before you start to see the rewards on the other side. When you’re living online, there is a certain apparatus of approval. What you do, what you think and what you believe is governed by certain corporate interests and the interests of your friends—something becomes worthy if it gets 12 retweets, say.

“When you cut yourself off from the internet,” he says, “you’re forced to construct a personal approval system—something that is not beholden to the opinions of others.

In Esquire, Sam Parker quits the Internet cold turkey, experiencing classic withdrawal symptoms including anxiety and panic after traveling to a remote Scottish bothy in a bid to find true solitude.

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Is It Fair to Ask the Internet to Pay Your Hospital Bill?

Longreads Pick

Looking at the ethical issues that come with crowd funded healthcare.

Author: Cari Romm
Source: The Atlantic
Published: Mar 12, 2015
Length: 8 minutes (2,100 words)

‘If You Think The Internet Is Terrible Now, Just Wait a While’

Photo by CLUC

I have previously shared with you Balk’s Law (“Everything you hate about The Internet is actually everything you hate about people”) and Balk’s Second Law (“The worst thing is knowing what everyone thinks about anything”). Here I will impart to you Balk’s Third Law: “If you think The Internet is terrible now, just wait a while.” The moment you were just in was as good as it got. The stuff you shake your head about now will seem like fucking Shakespeare in 2016. I like to think of myself as an optimist, but I have a hard time seeing a future where anything gets better. Do you know why? Because everything is terrible and only getting worse. We won’t all be dead in twenty years, but we’ll all wish we were. I used to have hopes that once the Internet got completely unbearable some of the smart people would peel off and start something new, but with each passing day it seems ever less likely. (If anyone peels off to start something new it’s going to be teens, and we know what idiots they are.) No, the Internet is going to keep getting worse and there will be no chance for escape. It’s a massive torrent of sewage blasted at you at all hours and you pay handsomely for the privilege of having a hand-held cannon you carry with you at all times to spray more shit-sludge at yourself whenever you’re bored or anxious. Some of you sleep with it right next to your head in case you wake in the middle of the night and need to deliver another turgid shot to your wide-open mouth.

-From a short post by The Awl’s Alex Balk offering advice to young people.

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Inside the Universal Life Church, the Internet’s One True Religion

Longreads Pick

Most people know the Universal Life Church as a quick and easy place to get ordained without leaving your couch. But the history of the church, which emerged in the late ’60s, is far more complicated—and fascinating.

Source: The Kernel
Published: Dec 14, 2014
Length: 13 minutes (3,488 words)

Women vs. the Internet Trolls: A Reading List

Longreads Pick

Five stories illustrating the experiences of women who have been harassed online.

Source: Longreads
Published: Nov 16, 2014

Women vs. the Internet Trolls: A Reading List

I am the exception, not the rule; I am lucky. The writing I produce garners little to no (negative) attention. When it does, people usually correct my grammar or spelling. This is okay with me, because it’s constructive. To my knowledge, no one has called me ugly, or stupid, or any number of cruel epithets or slurs. This is privilege; I am lucky. But I am scared to put my name to controversial opinions, or to voice my own opinion at all. My tweets are innocuous quips or retweets of people far more articulate than I am. I hide behind other people’s words.

I scan Roxane Gay’s Twitter feed about once a day; she is one of my favorite writers. I don’t want to miss a thing. I know she must be exhausted from engaging with trolls, but she’s logical and courteous. She says, “God bless you” or “Live in the light,” and she sounds sincere, if not a little weary.

Ginsberg wrote, “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness.” I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by public trials on Twitter; by nasty misogynists who critiqued their appearances rather than their creations; by hurricanes of anonymous cruelty. And I can’t even offer an umbrella.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you probably aren’t a woman on the internet. Fortunately, I’ve collected several pieces that illustrate this experience far better than I ever could.

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MetaFilter: The Internet’s First Family

Longreads Pick

Stephen Thomas on how and why a site originally intended for sharing “best of the web” links become a place where strangers help each other in real life in extraordinary ways.

Source: Hazlitt
Published: Oct 31, 2014
Length: 24 minutes (6,233 words)