Never News: 🎶 Radiotopiaaa🎶
[SUDDEN EXPLOSION OF GLASS SHATTERING AS I LAUNCH THROUGH YOUR WINDOW IN AN EVEL KNIEVEL JUMPSUIT AND HELMET]
Have you heard the news? Well, as your dedicated news deliverer I, Producer Georgia, will tell you: NEVER POST HAS JOINED RADIOTOPIA!!!
[DEAFENING AIRHORN SOUND]
Fine, okay, enough theatrics. But in case you missed it, we have an off-week episode for you in which Mike breaks down what this means for us and for you. Short answer: a lot will stay the same! More on that below. But first! We must, as always, confront the news.
Some Internet aperitifs...
Bad Bunny debuted a Calvin Klein campaign, the reactions to which have remained one of the only things on my FYP for the last several days. Speaking of TikTok, the U.S. government claims that they're close to reaching a deal with the platform which could (?) keep it available in the United States. Wired drops its paywall to let everyone read their articles for free, prompting an interesting conversation about FOIA and access. More madness from Twitter as the "official" John F. Kennedy account posts about a JFK crypto coin and other foolishness. And finally, an interesting examination of the concept of AI models experiencing "hallucinations."
And now, for the main courses...
ITSNICETHAT: public domain, copyright, and "owning" culture
This is a super fascinating exploration of culture through the context of images: stock photos, public domain illustrations, and what kinds of images are allowed to be used by anyone or just a select few. It's one of those "how did I never think of this, YES" moments — because of course the visual culture of our digital lives is dictated by what kind of images people have access to. There's an especially interesting section about the aesthetic of stock imagery, especially what Elizabeth Goodspeed describes as "heritage aesthetics" (think: 16th century etchings, medical illustrations of plants, and the like).
SHOW NEWS: NeverPost joins Radiotopia!!!
Mike does a great job of explaining what this partnership means for us and for you in the bonus episode, linked above. But TLDR, our show will remain the same in big, crucial ways: we still decide what we cover and how we cover it. You'll hear different, more "podcast-y" ads on our feed, and at the end of the year we'll participate in Radiotopia's pledge drive. But our membership model stays the same, and remains the best way to support us (in case you need a reminder: go to neverpo.st and click "become a member" to join). On a personal note: I'm really, really excited about this. I've listened to Radiotopia shows for years, long before I even started working in this industry. They're the reason I wanted to do this job in the first place. So needless to say I'm freaking out and the first time I hear the Radiotopia jingle on our show I AM going to cry!
404 MEDIA: AI slop forces its way to the front of the algorithm
I try extremely hard to avoid engaging with any content online that is visibly created by AI, though sometimes it takes a few seconds to realize that what I'm looking at isn't real. With AI slop, however, that uncanny valley feeling of looking at artificially rendered content is jacked up to a billion — hybrid spiderlike creatures jerking and morphing across the screen, the oozing, nauseatingly shiny sheen of a pizza demon...absurdity is the point. But in this piece, the insanity of witnessing this content is explored as a means to an end: namely, unlocking the secret of instant SEO dominance, sidelining human-made content to favor AI-generated garbage.
SUBSTACK: Kate Wagner on more reasons to leave the phone at home
I've been reading more and more Substacks recently in an attempt to spend less time consuming short form video, and this essay by Kate Wagner (shared by NeverPost's own Jason Oberholtzer) came at the perfect time. It's another argument against smartphones and towards real, human connection, but told through the personal experience of a person trying to ground themselves after a brain injury. In a time where I am both terrified to open my news alerts and somehow also addicted to looking at them, it was a comfort and a helpful reminder to, maybe sometimes, just turn my phone off instead.
That's all on this installment of Never News. It's also the first day of spring, which means nothing in my home of Chicago, Illinois, where I can look out my window right now and see the snow-covered roofs of the houses on my street. But even so, the little buds are still pushing through the ground. There's an obvious metaphor there, but I'll allow you to connect those dots yourself. Tata!