The Conservation of Angular Momentum
Metadata
- Author: Robin Sloan
- Full Title: The Conservation of Angular Momentum
- Category:#articles
- URL: https://www.robinsloan.com/newsletters/angular-momentum/#lorde
Highlights
- Why are YouTube comments such rich terrain? Here’s my theory. Watching a YouTube video, perhaps reading the comments at the same time, the feeling is “sitting side by side, facing the same direction”—as in a theater, or, better yet, a moving car. Contrast that with the feeling of “facing each other straight-on”: the death stare of social media. YouTube’s users aren’t stuck looking at each other; rather, they look at this other thing (perhaps a scratchy dub of a music video that played on MTV in 1987) together. Perhaps that arrangement suggests different, and generally better, ways of speaking online. (View Highlight)
- Erin McKean:
Greenlandic mythology is not for the squeamish. “The qivittoq (the mountain wanderer) is a person who has left their village or settlement in shame and wandered into the mountains. For a qivittoq to gain magical powers, the person has to freeze to death over the course of five days.” (View Highlight)
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I go online and look at everyone. Beautiful people sing to me. Everyone’s gotten really good at the same thing. I look at arched backs and wet flower mouths, the right bag, the right sunglasses. I wonder if it feels as good as it looks, it’s been so long since I chose the best picture from a hundred, lined it up like pulling an arrow taut in a bow, and let it go. “Everyone’s gotten really good at the same thing”: as sharp as a song lyric (no surprise) and as good a scalpel for this moment, the meat of the 2020s, as you’ll find. “Everyone’s gotten really good at the same thing”: which means it’s time to get good at something else. (View Highlight)
title: “The Conservation of Angular Momentum” author: “Robin Sloan” url: ”https://www.robinsloan.com/newsletters/angular-momentum/#lorde” date: 2023-12-19 source: reader tags: media/articles
The Conservation of Angular Momentum
Metadata
- Author: Robin Sloan
- Full Title: The Conservation of Angular Momentum
- Category:#articles
- URL: https://www.robinsloan.com/newsletters/angular-momentum/#lorde
Highlights
- Why are YouTube comments such rich terrain? Here’s my theory. Watching a YouTube video, perhaps reading the comments at the same time, the feeling is “sitting side by side, facing the same direction”—as in a theater, or, better yet, a moving car. Contrast that with the feeling of “facing each other straight-on”: the death stare of social media. YouTube’s users aren’t stuck looking at each other; rather, they look at this other thing (perhaps a scratchy dub of a music video that played on MTV in 1987) together. Perhaps that arrangement suggests different, and generally better, ways of speaking online. (View Highlight)
- Erin McKean:
Greenlandic mythology is not for the squeamish. “The qivittoq (the mountain wanderer) is a person who has left their village or settlement in shame and wandered into the mountains. For a qivittoq to gain magical powers, the person has to freeze to death over the course of five days.” (View Highlight)
-
I go online and look at everyone. Beautiful people sing to me. Everyone’s gotten really good at the same thing. I look at arched backs and wet flower mouths, the right bag, the right sunglasses. I wonder if it feels as good as it looks, it’s been so long since I chose the best picture from a hundred, lined it up like pulling an arrow taut in a bow, and let it go. “Everyone’s gotten really good at the same thing”: as sharp as a song lyric (no surprise) and as good a scalpel for this moment, the meat of the 2020s, as you’ll find. “Everyone’s gotten really good at the same thing”: which means it’s time to get good at something else. (View Highlight)