And this is exactly why my dissertation approaches these manifestos as just repackaged prosperity gospel attempting to proclaim good things into reality

Dave Karpf@davekarpf.bsky.social · 3w ago

Starting to read the Zuckerberg essay and this is SUCH a weird/clunky passage. They absolutely paid some consultant to sort through “types of philosophy,” and he’s just declaring which categories he selected.

What's at stake in seeing self-optimization as a sacred pursuit? Focusing on a group I call "masculine optimization influencers," I dive into the grindset. Come for discussions of shame and disgust, and stay for a chat about cold plunges as a baptismal practice. www.tandfonline.com/eprint/Q5A2T...

Masculine optimization influencers and the sacrality of self-optimization

Self-optimization has become a dominant idiom of contemporary American masculinity, crystallizing in a rising cohort of male influencers centered around reaching ‘maximum potential’ physically and ...

tandfonline.com

“why do you hate technology” as though “technology” were some discrete entity divorced entirely from the context of what it does and what it creates, rather than a category so broad as to constitute reality itself

“Today, as Silicon Valley leaders turn to the right, and particularly when they migrate to Texas, many are embracing the simultaneous celebration of entrepreneurship and Christian discipleship.”

The Texan Ideology | Fred Turner

The Texan Ideology reflects a century-old fusion of the oil industry and millenarian Christianity.

thebaffler.com

Taking a brief break from sporadically posting photos of my pitbull to shout this into the void: I’ve spent the last seven months thinking about the Antichrist, and now those thoughts are published over at @wired.com. www.wired.com/story/the-re...

The Real Stakes, and Real Story, of Peter Thiel’s Antichrist Obsession

Thirty years ago, a peace-loving Austrian theologian spoke to Peter Thiel about the apocalyptic theories of Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt. They’ve been a road map for the billionaire ever since.

wired.com

There’s a frenzy (from believers and nonbelievers) about the Rapture happening today. The content reveals a lot about our attention economy with its focus on self-help, revealing secret knowledge, and the difficulty parsing through earnest vs ironic engagement. open.substack.com/pub/holyscro...

Are you Rapture ready?

The attention economy goes apocalyptic

open.substack.com

Are you seeing this post? It might be because of divine intervention. A study by @sarareinis.bsky.social and @corrinalaughlin.bsky.social shows the many ways the #ChristianTikTok community conceptualizes and makes use of the TikTok algorithm:

How #ChristianTikTok Users Understand and Utilize the Platform’s Algorithm

asc.upenn.edu

Despite the veneer of placid smiles and pastoral bliss, tradwives operate from a place of rage—forming a distorted “mirror world” response to many issues traditionally taken up by feminists. This and more in my latest publication with Sarah Banet-Weiser: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

this exists it is called thinking

Despite the veneer of placid smiles and pastoral bliss, tradwives operate from a place of rage—forming a distorted “mirror world” response to many issues traditionally taken up by feminists. This and more in my latest publication with Sarah Banet-Weiser: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Some thoughts on the nature of “reality” in the gen AI age and a brief look into the booming genre of fake Christian worship music videos. open.substack.com/pub/holyscro...

Life is a continuous series of burdensome choices. True freedom comes when you give yourself over to the algorithm.

When I let ChatGPT manage my social life for a week, AI texted my friends and picked my outfits. It was strange but helpful.

When I first turned to ChatGPT to run my social life, I felt weird. But AI made me a better texter and I became someone who actually planned hangouts.

businessinsider.com

Some thoughts on the nature of “reality” in the gen AI age and a brief look into the booming genre of fake Christian worship music videos. open.substack.com/pub/holyscro...

"AI is not that novel. It is not that potentially revolutionary. It is in a long continuum of technologies that promise to transform education, starting with the TV, the typewriter, VCRs, tablets [and] Chromebooks." - @tressiemcphd.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/08/12/o...

Opinion | A.I. Is Fueling a ‘Poverty of Imagination.’ Here’s How We Can Fix It.

nytimes.com

New: A few weeks ago, when my father-in-law died, the funeral home asked if we wanted to use AI to write his obituary. So I dug into it and found that it's the biggest new trend in "death care." Tens of thousands of AI obits have been made already. Often the families don't even know wapo.st/4okuxIg

The rise of AI tools that write about you when you die

Families and funeral directors are using AI obituary generators to more efficiently memorialize the dead. What happens when they get it wrong?

wapo.st

Zuckerberg farted out some nonsense today, and since most media outlets refuse to report critically any time a tech CEO offers them some a pseudoserious press release, I've decided to do it for them. sonjadrimmer.com/blog-1/2025/7/30/how-to-read-an-ai-press-release

How to Read an "AI" Press Release — Sonja Drimmer

Every so often someone like Mark Zuckerberg or Sam Altman will dribble out some unadorned text in Times New Roman font, announcing with stentorian certitude the advent of a new world that their latest...

sonjadrimmer.com

Users on TikTok are asking ChatGPT what their "curse" is. What does it mean for us to want surveillance? To crave it? To feel comforted by being intimately known by software? open.substack.com/pub/holyscro...

ChatGPT, What is My Curse?

What does it mean to feel seen by a machine?

open.substack.com

My latest academic publication is out! After watching 3,000+ manifestation videos on TikTok, I dive into the ways platform features are shaping modern spirituality. 🔮🙏🏻 share this post to claim your blessing ✨🪽 Open access here: ijoc.org/index.php/ij...

Dozens more pregnant and postpartum women have died in Texas hospitals since the state banned abortion, our analysis shows. As the maternal mortality rate dropped nationally, it rose in Texas by 33%.

Texas Banned Abortion. Then Sepsis Rates Soared.

ProPublica’s first-of-its-kind analysis is the most detailed look yet into a rise in life-threatening complications for women experiencing pregnancy loss under Texas’ abortion ban.

propub.li

My latest: Generative AI is enabling a brute force attack against the algorithms that control reality. AI slop is taking over every algorithmically controlled social media platform and search platform, and the tech platforms are helping: www.404media.co/ai-slop-is-a...

AI Slop Is a Brute Force Attack on the Algorithms That Control Reality

Generative AI spammers are brute forcing the internet, and it is working.

404media.co

the creator presidency can promise only two things for certain: engagement and pain

Hill Woward@convolutedname.bsky.social · last yr.

This is a great strategy to create content and the possibly worst strategy to run the largest economy of the world.

Maya Man's digital piece on "day in the life" vlogs at @whitney.org prompted me to think about the internet content that renders the ordinary uncanny. (also, the AI slop historic pov videos and the humans-imitating-AI-imitating-humans videos that made me spiral 😵‍💫) defector.com/taking-the-l...

Taking The Life Out Of "Day In The Life" | Defector

11:59 a.m. The tiny clock at the bottom of the screen counts down to the top of the hour, and like a bizarre bell chime from a digital clocktower, large pink text overtakes the Whitney Museum’s websit...

defector.com

Are you seeing this post? It might be because of divine intervention. A new study by @sarareinis.bsky.social and @corrinalaughlin.bsky.social shows the many ways the #ChristianTikTok community conceptualizes and makes use of the TikTok algorithm:

How #ChristianTikTok Users Understand and Utilize the Platform’s Algorithm

asc.upenn.edu

Wrote some thoughts about memes of data nihilism and Meta takeover conspiracies in the wake of the temporary (but still vaguely looming) ban of TikTok.

Media@Risk@ascmediarisk.org · 2y ago

What happened to TikTok? And how did users adapt? Find out in this short & insightful piece by steering committee member @sarareinis.bsky.social bit.ly/41jCbch @bzelizer.bsky.social @asc.upenn.edu

Despite people's impressions of the tech world and religion being quite separate spheres, this has been brewing for a long time. We will only see more of this as tech leaders seek some sort of cosmic moral framework to justify their actions and deflect criticism. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/11/b...

Silicon Valley is Embracing Christianity (With the Help of Peter Thiel)

When tech luminaries talk about their Christian faith, people listen.

nytimes.com

New article on spirituality & social media by Steering Committee member @sarareinis.bsky.social and co-author @corrinalaughlin.bsky.social “GOD IS MY SPONSORED AD!! MY ALGORITHM!” Read it here: bit.ly/4hPLUMY @asc.upenn.edu @bzelizer.bsky.social

In other words, the nature of global "democracy" is changing again. The same way the citizen was replaced by the consumer, the consumer is now being replaced by the creator. Politics shifted from something you participated in to something you consumed. It's now something you parasocially relate to.

If I just read one million more posts tonight, I will have complete control over what comes next

i think it is important to say that the open and explicit racism of the president and the vice president isn’t just uncouth or “controversial” but a direct attack on tens of millions of americans and a dereliction of their duty to represent the entire country

Fascinating paper on how religious belief shapes how TikTok users understand the algorithm—and vice versa. Introduces the framework of the "spiritual algorithmic imaginary" which should prove incredibly useful in the age of online Christian nationalism. A+ title too.

Corrina Laughlin@corrinalaughlin.bsky.social · 2y ago

We have a new pub in New Media & Society! We looked at how Christians on TikTok understood and attempted to influence TikTok visibility. Check it out!