thebsideofthings

[thebsideofthings]

"It is hard not to see this development as a true indicator that we're nearing the endpoint of robust, meaningful music criticism as a concept. The idea that music journalism has no value is one of the most pervasive thoughts circulating among the suits who control the industry. What those people continue to deprive us of is smart, varied music coverage produced by actual journalists, most of whom now find themselves being squeezed out of an industry that only rewards slavish devotion to the biggest pop stars, or a constant courting of drama, gossip, and violence that is only tangentially related to music."

- Music Journalism Can’t Afford A Hollowed-Out Pitchfork by Israel Daramola in Defector

#pitchfork #journalism #media #mainstream media #gq magazine #music #tech companies #journalists #diversity in media #popular music #pop culture #pop music

[thebsideofthings]

Looks fun!

#gta #grand theft auto online #grand theft auto #gta 6 #video games #vice city #florida #miami #rockstar games #Youtube

[thebsideofthings]

"In theory, the “free market” should reward publications that are doing important work. The more people care about a given issue the more they’ll read news stories about it, which should give publications covering it traffic and ad dollars. In reality, the advertising industry has singled out the issues the audience cares about most, like reproductive rights, as unsuitable to sell ads against, even though a ton of people want to read about them. This helps explain the precarity of publications like Jezebel, despite it being more vital to its audience than ever."

- Advertisers Don’t Want Sites Like Jezebel to Exist by Jason Koebler and Emanuel Maiberg for 404 Media

#jezebel #mainstream media #media #journalism #online media #gawker #gizmodo #closure #website #big business #reproductive rights #news coverage

[thebsideofthings]

"The soul artists of the 1970s partially relied on social causes to bring their environmentalist message to the forefront, with documented greats assuring music predecessors of better days to come. Now, modern soul artists, too, have emanated their atmospheric scope into futurism, with artists like Janelle Monáe, Erykah Badu, Solange, serpentwithfeet and FKA Twigs envisioning new worlds for Black people to rest and be free. Through nature’s plentifulness, Black artists can shift their intention on fantasizing a Black experience without environmental degradation. And so, as eco-conscious music has reentered the mainstream in the last few years—with artists like Lana Del Rey, The 1975, and Gorillaz making music about the climate crisis—let the Earthbound origins of Black music serve as a reminder not to whitewash the history of environmentalism in music."

- Composing Climate Change: The Radical Legacy of Black Musicians by Jaelani Turner-Williams in Atmos

#soul music #activism #black music #r&b music #r&b #solange knowles #erykah badu #funk music #climate change #community organizing #janelle monae #soul #earth #stevie wonder

[thebsideofthings]

“There’s a level of creativity that the computers are never going to be able to replace that will always necessitate people. “What AI can do is write a game story. There’s a lot of things in our world that AI can do that really can affect the employment prospects that a lot of us have in this game.”

- Bomani Jones to Front Office Sports

#sports writing #sports #artificial intelligence #ai #ai art #content #mainstream media #media #wga strike #wga strong #unions #hbo #espn #disney

[thebsideofthings]

"In D.C. and in cities around the country, the ever-expanding racial wealth gap exacerbates the conditions that contribute to this uniquely U.S. crisis. Decades of housing discrimination, redlining, lack of access to quality education, high rates of joblessness and low-wage employment compound the challenges faced by Black communities. As the former vice president for programs at the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence put it, “inequality isn’t just about making money or not making money; it’s really about whether you’re going to survive.”

- Valerie Jean Charles in We Can’t Tackle Gun Violence Until We Address Racial Inequity for Truthout

#gun violence #gentrification #public policy #socioeconomic #public health #politics #community #washington dc #gun safety #local politics #advocacy #activism

[thebsideofthings]

"The scavenge for short-term gains from people like Zaslav, Bob Iger, and Ted Sarandos is craven and so hungrily capitalistic that it’d be impressive if it weren’t so destructive. The money they’re earning through tax write-offs and corner-cutting will not balance out the inevitable financial losses that will follow when filmmakers refuse to work with them, audiences reject their slop, and everyone goes back to binge-watching The Office again. That might be the point of it all, of course. How often have we seen big money acquisitions give way to the slow decimation of what made those places so special in the first place, all because infinite growth is impossible yet demanded?"

- "Hollywood is Run by Cultural Vandals" by Kayleigh Donaldson in Pajiba

#politics #hollywood #film making #film #tv #television #streaming #disney #bob iger #david zaslav #ted sarandos #netflix #warner bros #discovery #reality tv #greedy corporations #capitalism #growth #writer's strike #content

[thebsideofthings]

"AI might help profligate this kind of content, but you are completely delusional if you can’t see that the modern content mill of the internet is already full of crap specifically built to convince Google to give it more traffic. This is the direct result of monetizing media through advertising. You need traffic, and you need that traffic to be consistent, and the way to get consistent traffic is to make “helpful” content.

Google has effectively outsourced its own function — to provide the answers to a question or help you find something — to the media, who have in turn changed their mission from growing their own audience to catering to the one that Google provides. Much like the average social media influencer, media outlets find themselves locked in a battle with a shadowy and ever-changing algorithm, and said battle distracts them from doing good work, because doing good work is insufficient proof that your content is “good” or “right.”"

- The Internet Is Already Broken by Ed Zitron on Substack

#politics #community #journalism #internet #tech #technology #google #AI #seo #search engine optimization #facebook #twitter #elon musk #apps #captialism

[thebsideofthings]

"It’s not just the larger American audience that misinterprets the meaning of Juneteenth. Across the diaspora the message gets distorted, reflected in how most Juneteenth event flyers often have the colors of the Pan-African movement instead of Juneteenth’s actual colors. The official Juneteenth colors are red, white, and blue. The presence of the patriotic colors symbolizes the American flag, serving as a poignant reminder that slaves and their descendants were, and continue to be, an integral part of the United States."

- Shelby Stewart in "As Juneteenth Becomes Co-Opted, Don't Forget Its Texas Roots" for Okayplayer

#juneteenth #texas #black history #american history #public policy #federal holiday #black culture #american culture #history #journalism #politics #usa #music journalism

[thebsideofthings]

"Fan driven cancel culture as we've seen it for the last 10 years or so is changing. People are seeing it doesn't work because "deplatforming" only works if there is industry action behind it and often there won't be. Because it doesn't work, cancel culture as we know it online right now just feels more interested in trying to be The Most Ethical Consumer more than it feels interested in genuine safety or positive change. The tides are changing to reacting to that feeling, which I fear is destined to swing all the way to the other side especially as uninvested people watch big pop star stans have these emotional reactions.

It's kind of ridiculous to say people shouldn't have standards for the public figures they engage with. There is nothing wrong with wanting to see your values reflected in the people who make the stuff you like, but that is an active pursuit that has to do with you and your choices to participate in something or not. It's not something that can be found in demanding the stuff you like conform to what you think would be best morally or ethically."

- What Can we Expect by Miranda Reinert

#taylor swift #matt healy #outrage #fans #popular music #pop culture #swifties #cancel culture #morality #music #community #fanbases

[thebsideofthings]

"School support, fan groups, local businesses bringing in celebrities, posters in business lobbies for consumers to see, small businesses promoting them while ignoring the women even when the women were doing better. It’s not only a Syracuse problem; it’s been a problem nearly everywhere until the ceiling is broken, usually by a woman punching it until it finally smashes."

- Women's college basketball winners and losers: USC's big upset, building generational fandom by Cassandra Negley for Yahoo Sports

#ncaa basketball #college sports #women's basketball #athletics #fans #sports #support #sports media

[thebsideofthings]

"WHEN WE INVOKE BURNOUT, we dress ourselves in a concept marked by the ash of dispossessions past. Though that intimate violence was imprinted onto the term almost by accident, it holds the key to burnout’s insurgent potential. What this infrastructural unconscious reveals is that burnout’s utility as a term of critique is contingent upon its attention to power and difference, rather than its attempt to express some universal exhaustion. It’s for this reason that, years before it became a household word, burnout found a home in activist communities that were especially attuned to the health effects of structural inequality. I first encountered the term in the disability justice and prison abolitionist circles of the mid-2000s, where it was a staple of activist life in a time of forever wars and endless prison expansion. Socially differentiated exhaustion has been a particular focus of the disability justice movement. As writer and activist Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha puts it, activists must be mindful of the ways in which social movements themselves can become “burnout paced” when they “work from a place of crisis.” That means building a culture of collective care, encouraging self-reflection, and balancing workloads to account for access needs."

- "Edifice Complex" by Bench Ansfield in Jewish Currents

#housing #burnout #equal rights #tenants rights #justice #mental health #new york city #landlords #journalism #culture #work life balance

[thebsideofthings]

"The reservation frenzy has become so ridiculous, at least in part, because of all the other kinds of in-person social experiences that people no longer have. Americans go out for movies less frequently than they did a decade or two ago, few of them participate in recreational sports leagues, and attendance at religious services and membership in civic organizations are both flagging. In the past 10 years, few residents of American cities have avoided the experience of seeing a beloved local community space or music venue torn down and replaced with a bank branch. And for many people in the trendy-restaurant tax bracket, working from home has wiped out another vector for routine sociality, even if they genuinely prefer not to commute and sit in an office all day. It can be hard to feel like you’re a part of anything when you mostly just sit at home."

- "Nothing is Cooler than Going out to Dinner" by Amanda Mull in The Atlantic

#dinner #dining #fine dining #restaurant #food industry #culture #community #the atlantic #writing #commerce #celebrity chef #taste #foodie #food #coolness #pop culture

[thebsideofthings]

“Well, it’s systemic. So in any of our lifetimes, this won’t be fixed. But it’s about what steps you took while you had the power to do something. Did you just benefit from being the one person in the room? Or did you make sure that you not only had a seat at the table but created another room? We have to think about what will be next, because this is so deeply ingrained. We’re talking a 100-year-old industry — I don’t think there’s any snap of the fingers that’s going to get it done.”

- Ava Duvernay speaking about diversity in Hollywood to Variety Magazine

#ava duvernay #oprah winfrey #oprah #interview #queen sugar #black owned #diversity in media #culture #hollywood #entertainment #film #cinema #art #oprah winfrey network #black women

[thebsideofthings]

"To take the shot is to embrace failure and success at the same time. To miss so much and yet feel confident enough to shoot again and again embodies the best qualities of human beings: to imagine something beyond what is, beyond what you’ve ever been able to do, and to strive to make that a reality, no matter how many times you fail."

- Why We Love Kobe Bryant: He Took the Shot by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

#kareem abdul jabbar #kobe bryant #tribute #sports writing #sports #national basketball association #nba #hoops #family #community #athletics #friendship #humanity

[thebsideofthings]

"And when the pandemic hit, Beyoncé caught on to what her fans missed most: the unfettered joy of gathering together in the club, rolling face and sweating as a collective body. As our biggest pop stars increasingly turn to dance music for inspiration, Beyoncé focused her famous work ethic on the nuances of club culture for a challenging, densely-referenced album that runs circles around her similarly minded, Billboard-charting peers. For nearly a decade she has made pop music on her own terms, uninterested in the dusty edicts of the music industry and pointed about her intended audience; now pop fans bend to Beyoncé, not the other way around."

- Julianne Escobedo Shepherd's review of Renaissance for Pitchfork

#beyonce #bey #renaissance #album review #dance music #pop music #r&b #icons #soul #lemonade #bey hive #nostalgia #culture #black music #diversity in media

[thebsideofthings]

"But even some people who agree don’t realize what it means to actually change the way you view poverty or financial struggle. Rather than dismantle the systems that exploited people into poverty, low-wealth people are often blamed for their conditions. Some assume people struggle because they either didn’t work hard enough, lack discipline or mismanage their money out of ignorance or incompetence.

But when companies want to lay people off or say they can’t give raises, CEOs never turn over their budgets and prove the math behind their claim to workers. And they receive assistance from the government with little scrutiny."

- "Loans got me into journalism. Student debt pushed me out" by Carrington J. Tatum in MLK50

#journalism #education #college #student loans #student debt #diversity #mlk #diversity in media #black writers #advocacy #equality #finances #cancel student debt