Seppukurious
Not an hero we need right now
2yr ago
Hell, there is an entire industry of wannabe Solzhenitsyns sharing by now cliched Orwellisms that “The purpose of propaganda, at least in its late stage form, is not to inform you, or deceive you, or even manipulate you. It's to humiliate you.”
I feel the multiple senses of "propaganda" are doing a lot of work in this argument. American culture has always been heavy on groupthink. (Full passage under "Power exercised by the majority in America upon opinion.") As soon as mass media was invented, Americans demanded it cater to their tastes regardless of the facts. For example, in the 1890s they were hyper-nationalist jingoists, so they only bought newspapers that told them terrible things about the Spanish. And individual actors like William Randolph Hearst might steer these passions in a certain direction.
This is "propaganda" after a fashion. But it's not the same propaganda as a clique of oligarchs or a small political faction pulling the strings of the whole media landscape to distract or confuse the country.
Legacy media sucks now because it used to be very profitable but isn't anymore. Today, the only reason to own a newspaper is to control the narrative. So today, that is the only master newspapers serve. I do believe they once served other ones.
For some reason I grow fonder and fonder of that video. I really enjoy how she's singing about her vagina and such, dressed in a sexy outfit, but is completely unable to manifest an ounce of sexuality in her performance. She stomps around like an elephant on stilts.
To your article, does it really matter what the legacy media is up to? Their power has been waning, and I imagine that a lot of society's problems of the past few years aren't actually because of social media or political divisions, but because the legacy media is grabbing onto anything to try and stay relevant, and flexing every muscle to show its power. It doesn't care if it's cancelling some random soccer mom in Bumfuck, Nowhere, they are simply doing it as a way to show that they hold power. They are trying to curry favour with the right groups in order to strengthen that power. But at the end of the day, if all you can do is squash random nobodies and relegate 'dissidents' to far-flung corners of the web where they get more views than CNN does on a good day, then I feel like legacy media has lost the war already.
The legacy media spent 4+ years pushing 24/7 propaganda and barely got Trump out of office. And the heavy lifting on that can probably be better attributed to Google and social media (and probably even moreso to the FBI giving social media a 'heads up' about Trump's October Surprise).
For some reason I grow fonder and fonder of that video. I really enjoy how she's singing about her vagina and such, dressed in a sexy outfit, but is completely unable to manifest an ounce of sexuality in her performance. She stomps around like an elephant on stilts.
I choose to believe that Bill Nye is sitting there the whole time reminiscing about how when he was younger he didn't need to give a woman like Rachel Bloom a spot on his show just to sleep with her.
greyenlightenment
investments: META/FBL, TSLA, TQQQ, TECL, MSFT ...
2yr ago
Off-topic, but how many unique visitors/day do you get from this blog or unique visits per article? I have never used substack, I am wondering what sort of traffic a substack blog like your brings in . I am trying to also find a way to estimate traffic from visible engagement such as likes & comments.
I get like 1000-2000 per each post in the initial run of 1-2 days when I'm linking it everywhere I can, such as here... and then an additional 50-200 per day across the whole Substack sometimes it spikes up to 400 per day if my Twitter game is particularly good.
Long piece I wrote on the state of Legacy media and how its degraded in the past 8 years.
In the piece I argue that the primary business model of legacy media is not providing entertainment or even selling ad space, but rather selling selective silence to deep pocketed interests: Whether they be the military industrial complex, big pharma, NGOs or ever more often, the governments they're supposed to hold to account.
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Notes -
Hell, there is an entire industry of wannabe Solzhenitsyns sharing by now cliched Orwellisms that “The purpose of propaganda, at least in its late stage form, is not to inform you, or deceive you, or even manipulate you. It's to humiliate you.”
Sorry to nit-pick, but isn't that a Theodore Dalrympleism?
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I feel the multiple senses of "propaganda" are doing a lot of work in this argument. American culture has always been heavy on groupthink. (Full passage under "Power exercised by the majority in America upon opinion.") As soon as mass media was invented, Americans demanded it cater to their tastes regardless of the facts. For example, in the 1890s they were hyper-nationalist jingoists, so they only bought newspapers that told them terrible things about the Spanish. And individual actors like William Randolph Hearst might steer these passions in a certain direction.
This is "propaganda" after a fashion. But it's not the same propaganda as a clique of oligarchs or a small political faction pulling the strings of the whole media landscape to distract or confuse the country.
Legacy media sucks now because it used to be very profitable but isn't anymore. Today, the only reason to own a newspaper is to control the narrative. So today, that is the only master newspapers serve. I do believe they once served other ones.
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Context Copy link
For some reason I grow fonder and fonder of that video. I really enjoy how she's singing about her vagina and such, dressed in a sexy outfit, but is completely unable to manifest an ounce of sexuality in her performance. She stomps around like an elephant on stilts.
To your article, does it really matter what the legacy media is up to? Their power has been waning, and I imagine that a lot of society's problems of the past few years aren't actually because of social media or political divisions, but because the legacy media is grabbing onto anything to try and stay relevant, and flexing every muscle to show its power. It doesn't care if it's cancelling some random soccer mom in Bumfuck, Nowhere, they are simply doing it as a way to show that they hold power. They are trying to curry favour with the right groups in order to strengthen that power. But at the end of the day, if all you can do is squash random nobodies and relegate 'dissidents' to far-flung corners of the web where they get more views than CNN does on a good day, then I feel like legacy media has lost the war already.
The legacy media spent 4+ years pushing 24/7 propaganda and barely got Trump out of office. And the heavy lifting on that can probably be better attributed to Google and social media (and probably even moreso to the FBI giving social media a 'heads up' about Trump's October Surprise).
I choose to believe that Bill Nye is sitting there the whole time reminiscing about how when he was younger he didn't need to give a woman like Rachel Bloom a spot on his show just to sleep with her.
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I think MSNBC viewers might have a strong class action lawsuit for brain damage caused by weapons grade military propaganda.
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Off-topic, but how many unique visitors/day do you get from this blog or unique visits per article? I have never used substack, I am wondering what sort of traffic a substack blog like your brings in . I am trying to also find a way to estimate traffic from visible engagement such as likes & comments.
I get like 1000-2000 per each post in the initial run of 1-2 days when I'm linking it everywhere I can, such as here... and then an additional 50-200 per day across the whole Substack sometimes it spikes up to 400 per day if my Twitter game is particularly good.
My top post has about 5,000 unique views.
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Long piece I wrote on the state of Legacy media and how its degraded in the past 8 years.
In the piece I argue that the primary business model of legacy media is not providing entertainment or even selling ad space, but rather selling selective silence to deep pocketed interests: Whether they be the military industrial complex, big pharma, NGOs or ever more often, the governments they're supposed to hold to account.
More options
Context Copy link