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Jan 14, 2025 | 
kevinmunger.substack.com | Kevin Munger
It’s been a year since I sent off the proofs for The YouTube Apparatus (now free to download!), and I haven’t been following the platform as closely while I was focused more on Twitch, TikTok and moving to Italy. One nice thing about studying social media through the lens of creators and influencers is that some of them are quite forthcoming about their experiences; that’s the nature of the gig.
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Dec 6, 2024 | 
chronicle.com | Kevin Munger |in Florence
Like many other academic institutions, my university is currently considering whether to cease posting on X. Last week, I participated in a panel discussion on “the evolving dynamics of tech companies’ roles in shaping online communication” and whether X was still a channel worth using.
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Dec 4, 2024 | 
kevinmunger.substack.com | Kevin Munger
During the pandemic, I was seduced by a charming British management consultant. A debonair James Bond-type who went from driving a Rolls Royce around his countryside estate to orchestrating the Chilean economic experiment under Allende to teaching Brian Eno about the principles of complex systems in a stone cottage in Wales.
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Nov 26, 2024 | 
crookedtimber.org | Kevin Munger
Ownership and control of social media platforms is a first-order concern for both domestic politics and international conflict. The most important battleground in the Russia-Ukraine war is elections in NATO member states. And there, Russia is clearly winning. Trump, obviously, but yesterday saw the stunning success of formerly fringe right-wing candidate C?lin Georgescu.
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Nov 8, 2024 | 
crookedtimber.org | Kevin Munger
One of my favorite metasciences lines is: “Does anyone look around and say…things are going great, I just think we need MORE PAPERS?”Obviously, we all want more scientific progress, better evidence, broader scope — but I don’t think that this is best accomplished by churning out more of these fancy peer-reviewed pdfs. Indeed, our systems of peer review and knowledge evaluation are breaking down under the strain.
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Oct 28, 2024 | 
crookedtimber.org | Kevin Munger
The idea of the gold rush is deeply rooted in the American psyche. “There’s gold in them thar hills.” Anyone can abandon his family and community to gamble big on themselves. Thanks to this rugged individualism and the natural bounty of our territory, there’s a chance that you can strike it rich. More than American, perhaps, the gold rush is specifically Californian.
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Oct 21, 2024 | 
crookedtimber.org | Kevin Munger
There are many processes now subsumed under the term “Artificial Intelligence.” The reason we’re talking about it now, though, is that the websites are doing things we never thought websites could do. The pixels of our devices light up like never before. Techno-optimists believe that we’re nowhere close to the limit, that websites will continue to dazzle us — and I hope that this reframing helps put AI in perspective.
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Sep 16, 2024 | 
kevinmunger.substack.com | Kevin Munger
The two 2024 Presidential Debates have proven the continued centrality of television to our electoral system. Despite all of the hype around digital campaigns conducted on social media, television still moves the needle. This is in part the result of Boomer Ballast — but not entirely. The Trump-Biden debate is one of the most important media events in American political history.
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Aug 28, 2024 | 
crookedtimber.org | Kevin Munger
Harris’ nomination locks in another Boomer presidency. This single generation — those born in the nineteen years between 1946 and 1964 — is guaranteed another presidency. 36 consecutive years, not counting the Biden Interregnum (he’s technically too old). Despite being a Boomer, you may have noticed that she’s the young, exciting candidate. Yes, the generational cutoff points are arbitrary, 19 is too many years to define a coherent generation.
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Aug 28, 2024 | 
kevinmunger.substack.com | Kevin Munger
(Yes, this post is the beginning of a victory lap. In 2022, I wrote a book about the importance of generations for electoral politics.)Harris’ nomination locks in another Boomer presidency. This single generation — those born in the nineteen years between 1946 and 1964 — is guaranteed another presidency. 36 consecutive years, not counting the Biden Interregnum (he’s technically too old). Despite being a Boomer, you may have noticed that she’s the young, exciting candidate.
