This is “Woof of the Week”, the newsletter about the things that make me say “Woof” the longest each week!
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A note before we get started: Thanks for your patience this week for this issue of the newsletter. I had a particularly hard time getting this one on the page, for no particular reason at all! I was tempted to make that the Woof of the Week… but then I remembered I did that already in the 2021 version of the newsletter.1 Perhaps I’ll do another version of that for next week’s Wednesday Woof! For now - enjoy!
Welcome to Woof of the Week!
I go to the movies a lot – I’m fortunate enough to live in a city where I’m spoiled for movie going options. I usually find myself at an AMC because of my subscription to AMC A-List which allows me to see three movies a week for a monthly subscription. And of course, the Nicole Kidman pre-roll ad.
I say all this not to shill for AMC or to brag that I have so little responsibilities in my life that I can afford to go to the movies a bunch - but, because of the frequency in which I go to the movies, you would think I would have grown out of my bad habit of falling asleep during them - something I developed in college. Yes, while attending film school is when I also started to fall asleep during movies.
The irony is not lost on me.
After falling asleep for nearly the entirety of John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum in theaters, I resolved to fix this issue. And for awhile there, I was doing alright! I chugged espressos before getting to the theater and always tried to have a cup of water even if it meant standing in the concessions line just to ask for one. Sure enough I was awake for the duration, even if that did mean I really had to suppress the urge to run to the bathroom sometimes. But somewhere along the way I got cocky - espressos and water cups be damned! Surely by now I can watch a movie in theaters without the aid of liquids to keep me awake!
Cut to a screening of John Wick: Chapter 4 where I yet again, found myself falling asleep to the dulcet tones of gunshots, stabbing, and other sounds created by John Wick murdering his way through the world.
Looks like liquids are back on the menu because I cannot fall asleep during Barbie.
Around the World in 80* Woofs
*more like, a handful of bullet points
Here’s some stories from the week that made me say Woof:
Doing your taxes is rarely an enjoyable process – it’s tedious, somehow both overcomplicated and simplistic, and just downright annoying. So why not get a little help? Introducing Tax Heaven 3000, the anime dating simulator starring Iris, a pink haired anime girl that helps you file your taxes! Of course, I’m not endorsing using a product created by VC-funded art collective MSCHF to do your taxes… but I imagine there must be someone has happily used this game from start to finish. Because couldn’t we all use a little bit of encouragement when it comes to filing our taxes? If you want to know more about the actual game, Tech Crunch’s Amanda Silberling has got you covered.
Wake up babe, new shape just dropped: A theoretical shape has finally been manifested into existence. This 13 sided shape can tile a surface “without its pattern ever repeating.” So what’s the name of the shape that’s been the answer to a long standing question in geometry? The Hat. Couldn’t come up with anything cooler there huh? Some pitches I came up with: Unwashed Sweatshirt, Chonky Bat and Bad Luck Shape. Maybe The Hat is the best name for it huh?
Another day, another cryptocurrency blunder. While attempting to prep an NFT that he had purchased for sale on another platform, Canadian man Brandon Riley accidentally deleted it, destroying “one third of his net worth.” He had acquired the original NFT for 77 Ethereum, which at the time of purchase was equal to $129,000 USD. So caught up with following the instructions, Mr. Riley accidentally sent the NFT to a “burn wallet” himself, deleting it. After lamenting his problems on Twitter - his NFT was resurrected as an “ordinal inscribed on a satoshi” which (1) means nothing to me and (2) Should really prove to you that NFT’s are only as valuable as you make them out to be. If you can “resurrect” something that is supposed to be one of a kind… well you should certainly be re-examining the perceived value that you hold for that object. Crypto & blockchain enthusiasts, feel free to reach out to me if I’m missing something here. Shout out to reader Saoli for sending this story to me!
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Twitter I Guess
Elon Musk’s mismanagement of Twitter is probably biggest public Woof to date. It’s the perfect storm of decisions seemingly driven by personal interests and desires that result in seemingly #dumb things that potentially have large scale ramifications.
The most recent example of course was the platform’s logo changing to the “Doge” icon on Monday. Whether this was a delayed April Fool’s joke, or a hidden ploy to raise the price of Dogecoin, it certainly was a Woof as we continue to see a platform which wields cultural influence and power over efficient information dissemination treated as a personal joke. Which, I guess isn’t tooooo far off from how a large section of Twitter users treat it anyways so maybe the Doge is here to stay.
However the big Woof from over the weekend was Twitter’s roll out of its Twitter Blue program. This plan, spearheaded by Musk, has users pay to display the verification badge, aka the “blue check mark” that confirms that the account actually represents the person or organization they purport to represent. In this reorganization of the verification system, accounts registered as businesses on Twitter would receive gold badges - while government organizations would get gray badges. I say badges and not check marks because… the check marks aren’t colored! Why didn’t we just call them white check marks? Or white check blue cloud badges? Language is so weird.
Over the weekend, people who were verified under the pre-Musk management, legacy verified accounts, were supposed to see their checkmarks removed if they had not signed up for Twitter Blue. In some cases this happened - with one of the more notable examples being the New York Times, which had stated it would not pay for verification. But largely - the blue check marks stayed. And if you hovered over the checkmark, you would get a pop up below:
The lack of blue check mark removal, as well as this weird middle ground of “Has this person paid for Twitter Blue or not?” led to a large uproar on Twitter. Some legacy verified accounts didn’t want to be seen as having paid for Twitter, while others, including several celebrities stated that they would also refuse to pay for Twitter verification. My favorite of these may have been the fact that even Sir Ian McKellen felt the need to tweet that he too would also not be paying for a blue checkmark.
In one sense, it’s funny that this lack of action on the Twitter’s team has made people be embarrassed for confirming who they are. But the program has greater consequences - once it’s fully enacted and this gray area of verification disappears, it will likely lead to some pretty chaotic moments on Twitter in the coming months. Already there are so many accounts pretending to be others – I personally have excitedly relayed a story about some surprising movie casting news, only to find out that I had been looking at the parody account “Disbussing Film” as opposed to the entertainment news aggregator “Discussing Film”.
Even with Musk’s rule about banning unlabeled parody accounts, which was created after the first run at introducing paid verification, this new “pay to play” system will likely only exacerbate the rise of misinformation and disinformation as anyone can now pay for the name they want, while disguising their account to look like an official page. And if it took two days for Musk’s team to pull off an April Fool’s joke of changing the Twitter logo, I can only imagine how long it will take to shut down a parody account before it’s done some real damage.
Again, I’m not saying anything new here. I think what interests me most about this whole situation is asking for people to pay to prove that they are themselves. On the one hand yes, the app needs to make money. But on the other hand… why? Why choose to profit off the simple fact of wanting to affirm my existence in the digital world? (Answer: because “they can”) And with Meta rolling out paid verification on Instagram, will being “verified” start becoming more important for people who aren’t in the public eye?
All in all, I chose a really interesting time to join Twitter.
As someone who did not have a Twitter account from 2013 - 2022, I felt ill-equipped to write about it, thus leading to the delays of this newsletter. I think I’ve only scratched the surface about some of the things that have been going on in my head - paid verification leads to so many interesting thoughts about digital identities, perceived and real value in the digital age, and where the future lies with the way the written word is handled and disseminated online.
I think it’s best if I sort those thoughts out in a longer piece, or perhaps an audio conversation?
I’ll leave you with this though:
Having just started to interact with Twitter, it feels like I’m late to a weekend comic convention. While I was stuck in traffic, everyone else got to know each other - they complimented each other’s cosplays, bonded over shared interests, and of course clashed with other fandoms. But no argument could really stand in the way from the attendees gathering for the panelists and celebrities that came for the convention.
But now that I’ve arrived - it feels like the panels are done for the day. The sun has sett on the convention, which means it’s time for the “after-hours” events. It’s all really messy to figure out, between the people in costumes, the different parties, and where each one is taking place. It’s loud, it’s crowded, and it’s chaotic. And yet everyone who’s there is still there, trying to stretch out the experience as long as possible. But no matter how long people want it to keep going -
The party always ends.
Quote of the Week
This week’s quote is from 2022, overheard while sitting on the back patio of a coffeeshop on a Sunday.
Person 1: I’m going to end up looking like a tomato after this
Person 2: You wish, you’ll look more like a potato
I couldn’t tell if they were friends or a couple, but they seem like they have a lot of fun together. I wish them well!
That’s all folks!
Thanks for reading this week’s edition of Woof of the Week! Leave a comment because I’d love to hear your thoughts! Some questions I have for you -
Do you fall asleep during movies?
Would you pay for Twitter Blue?
Will you adopt a new Twitter-like social media?
See you on the next one!
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