Category Archives: Media & Entertainment

History Report

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From a brilliant essay in The New Yorker by Simon Rich:

“They met in College, which is a place people used to go to after high school to drink alcohol. […] Instead of matching with someone through a dating app and sending a series of nude photos to each other before eventually meeting up for sex, you would meet them in person, before doing anything else. This meant that when my Great-Grandparents went out for the first time, they had no idea what each other looked like naked.”

A note about the link above. Many (most) of my favorite magazines –New York Magazine, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker– are behind paywalls. So I finally gave in and subscribed to Apple News which gives me access to 300 publications for $13 a month. If you are a subscriber the link above will take you to the essay. If not? There’s no free ride. Sorry.

Age of Social Media Ending

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That’s the title of an article in The Atlantic back in 2022. It’s behind a paywall so I’ll share a few of my favorite excerpts (and a few thoughts). The piece is a year old so some of this might less (or more) relevant.

The reporter traces an evolution/devolution of “social networks” to “social media.”

Instead of facilitating the modest use of existing connections—largely for offline life (to organize a birthday party, say)—social software turned those connections into a latent broadcast channel. All at once, billions of people saw themselves as celebrities, pundits, and tastemakers.

Blogs (and bloglike services, such as Tumblr) [hosted] “musings” seen by few and engaged by fewer. In 2008, the Dutch media theorist Geert Lovink published a book about blogs and social networks whose title summarized their average reach: Zero Comments.

I was blogging long before social networks or media. And I read lots of blogs. I recall being…mystified?… by the idea of social media.

“social media,” a name so familiar that it has ceased to bear meaning. But two decades ago, that term didn’t exist. […] “…social networking became social media around 2009, between the introduction of the smartphone and the launch of Instagram. Instead of connection—forging latent ties to people and organizations we would mostly ignore—social media offered platforms through which people could publish content as widely as possible, well beyond their networks of immediate contacts. Social media turned you, me, and everyone into broadcasters (if aspirational ones).” […] The network, which had previously been used to establish and maintain relationships, becomes reinterpreted as a channel through which to broadcast.

As a one-time broadcaster (radio) I understand the appeal of reaching an audience.

Social media showed that everyone has the potential to reach a massive audience at low cost and high gain—and that potential gave many people the impression that they deserve such an audience.

I loved blogging. Still do. But damned few people ever read this blog. And I got even fewer comments. Disabled that feature years ago. “The rush of likes and shares felt so good because the age of zero comments felt so lonely.”

Drone view of corn harvest

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My buddy George has been flying drones —and using them to record video— pretty much since drones have been available for the consumer market. He has become quite proficient.

The video below –the work of Jack Dodson, a friend and client– is a fascinating look at the corn harvest (from combine to truck) on the Steck farm in the Missouri River Bottom near Jefferson City. The video was captured with the DJI Mavic 3 Pro Cine.

Sigma Male

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I had never heard to term “sigma male” before coming across it in a review of David Fincher’s new movie “The Killer” by Max Read. According to Mr. Read, “sigma philosophies include social asceticism, dorm-room Nietzscheanism, weird resentment, boorish self-justification.”

Or, more simply, “If you don’t have any friends, and people don’t really want to talk to you? You might just be a Sigma Male.”

Wikipedia gives the term a more positive spin:

Sigma male is an internet slang term to describe masculine men. The term gained prominence within Internet culture during the late 2010s and early 2020s, and has inspired numerous memes, graffitis and videos. It is used to denote a male who is equally dominant to an alpha male, but exists outside the alpha-beta male hierarchy as a “lone wolf”. In the manosphere, it is regarded as the “rarest” kind of male.

Fincher is best known for the movies Se7en, Gone Girl, Zodiac, The Game, Fight Club, Panic Room, and The Social Network. All pretty dark. The Killer is available on Netflix.

 

1946 Jeep CJ2A

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I spent a couple of hours at the Jeep Reunion that took place in Fulton, MO on Friday and Saturday (I’ll share a few photos in a separate post). The highlight for me was the Latimer Family Jeep, a 1946 CJ2A.

The Jeep has been handed down to C. J. Latimer who was at the reunion with his father, step-father and grandmother. It was purchased by C. J.’s great grandfather in 1946 for use on the family farm near Marshall, MO.

A local businessman opened a Willys distributorship just after the war and the Latimer Jeep was the first one sold in Saline County. C. J.’s great grandfather purchased the Jeep for $150 and it arrived in a crate, ready for assembly!

The Latimer Jeep has an extension to the tub that was sold as a dealer accessory for agricultural use. According to family history, Great grandpa Latimer had to sign an affidavit that the Jeep would be used for agriculture. And when it was time to put up hay, the Jeep could be put in low gear and great grandpa Latimer could walk along beside the Jeep loading bales of hay.

C.J’s great-grandfather added a glove compartment but the Jeep is –for the most part– unchanged since it was purchased almost 80 years ago. The only hands that used and worked on the Jeep were C. J’s grandfather and great grandfather.

C. J. plans to get the Jeep drivable but plans no other changes.

Life after Village People

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Following my frustrating experience with a “rope saw,” I called in the pros and this morning Lovell and Yeri showed up to prune a couple of dead limbs. Before becoming tree professionals, they had a brief music career that I found fascinating.

Seems they were two of the original members of the Village People but were forced out of the group before stardom hit. The other members felt Yeri’s Tree Climber looked too much like the Construction Work and people would be confused. Additionally, there were some concerns about his climbing spikes. They were just never sure what Lovell was supposed to be.