Notes on Feednet, Vol. 9: (+ 5MSC Workshops Coming Up)

Feednet is a quarterly-ish news roundup on technology, community organizing, and this month, a lot of feelings about YouTube. Subscribe to Feednet here.

Feednet Vol 9.  (The Earth is Burning, Want to Come to a Public Speaking Workshop?)

Howdy,  This month’s Feednet is an exciting mixture of suffering and excitement.  The Amazon is burning, BUT people love unions now!  Income inequality is worse than it’s ever been... but maybe Milton Friedman is finally discredited!  Sweeps in Hong Kong mean that many movement leaders were arrested... but 50% of the Koch Brothers are dead!  This month I tried to balance the good news with the bad as a way of saying, ‘it’s almost Libra season’. 

Here’s the roundup:

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how we talk about online relationships, from “engagement” to “membership” to “content farming”. Particularly as radical right wing groups build online power (both through propaganda and networks), I think about the ‘arc’ of indoctrination for violent white supremacists (as described by the media).   Ideology is formed through media consumption and engagement, directed by community. Action comes from trust. Our enemies are building decentralized, relational communities that will keep taking action, no matter how many domains major tech companies shut them down.  HOWEVER, that just means that we have to keep thinking about organizing, and organizing as an offshoot of community building, in new ways. I believe that there are not many transgender people alive right now who have not, at some point, thought about their identity in a different way because of media, even with the digital divide, in this post-“trans tipping point” world we live in.   For me, and for many other trans people, the ability to be myself happened because of genuine support, kindness, and patience from a decentralized, anonymous community, because people online spent hours and hours of time talking to a stranger who they would never meet in real life.  Though it was created by Google, I’m interested in methodology behind the Redirect Method —a tool used to disrupt ISIL methods of recruitment through curated narratives, YouTube channels and genuine online engagement.   —

Other Links: + Do you want Facebook to read your mind? Is there anyone in the world who answers yes to that question?   + Post-Bandersnatch, Netflix and other media companies have put a lot of money into interactive storytelling. The history of interactive storytelling is wild: in the 80s, as hypertext grew in popularity, there were issues w/ scaling, like ‘oh my god this takes so fucking long to write’. Here’s an example of what this form might look like in the future.   + Here’s how your brain reads in a smartphone world. It’s not all bad.   + Celebrities vlog now. I don’t know, I just thought you’d want to know.   —   Here’s a paragraph about what’s happening with me: (you can scroll past it, I promise I won’t be offended!)  First up: I am leaving ONE Northside! For now I will be tooling around working with Means TV, a group building a leftist YouTube channel, the Center for Story Based Strategy (pushing narrative shift goals and worksheets), and making a ton of explainers on municipal policy, Chicago, and technology history. I’ll also be applying for policy jobs and calling everyone I know to ask them for advice (can I call you?)  Second: after a lot of research, paperwork, and time spent avoiding paperwork, there are finally workshops for 5 Minute Speech Coach!  These workshops are one off sessions designed for people working on a specific public speaking goal (a pitch, an upcoming job interview, a tough conversation).  At the end of the session, you will have: a. comfort with a new model for structuring speaking preparation, b. lots of feedback, c. an action plan for next steps.  If you’re in Chicago, the first one will be on September 11th at 6:00 PM in the Andersonville Chamber of Commerce building.   The second will be online on Wednesday, September 28th. Sliding scale $25-30 (but if you can’t make that payment work, please be in touch on the form).   If you’re interested (or want to hear about future workshops), sign up here.    —

The one good thing about our dying, capitalist racist planet is that the speed of all kind of knowledge is faster than ever has been before.   I don’t know what this means for taking down the 1%, eradicating borders, or stopping our planet from burning.   But I do know is there is incredible potential in the connections we can make with each other through learning, sharing, and genuine care.

Have a good weekend, please go outside, - H