Choose my new hair color! The Decade in Memes
Howdy [subscriber:firstname | default:there]
If you haven’t heard, I’m doing a donation drive for my birthday, which is coming up near the end of the month. I’m collecting donations for The Zebra Coalition and The Trevor Project, two organizations that serve LGBTQ+ youth. As a bonus, when you donate you enter for a chance to choose what color I dye my hair for the next few months! More details and the donation form can be found here.
It’s the start of the new year, the start of a new decade! Everyone has been posting their own versions of the best things in 2019/the 2010’s/coming in 2020. I’m no exception! I wrote a post of “david’s Favorites of 2019“, which includes things like the Steven Universe Movie, a graphic novel about Tetris, a guide on How to Do Nothing, and some Jackbox games.
Of course the decade in culture posts that interested me the most were the ones about memes and internet culture. There were a few good roundups made, including:
The 100 Memes That Defined The 2010s — Buzzfeed
32 moments that made the decade — The Verge
The Decade in Internet Culture, in 34 Emblematic Posts The funniest, strangest, stupidest, most genius, and most unforgettable posts of the 2010s. — New York Magazine
As a counterpoint, Gen published a more negative leaning article, entitled “The Decade the Internet Lost Its Joy” (Medium Paywalled, sorry). Big social media companies and corporate conglomerates converted all activity online to walled gardens and spies that we allow to document our every move for profit.
Tomorrow is the 7th anniversary of Aaron Swartz‘s death. As a programmer, political organizer, and activist, Aaron has shaped a lot about how we use the internet, as well as how I view the internet as a whole.
I’m not sure if I’m going to do a longer post this year, but in 2015 I wrote about the Aaron Swartz documentary, ‘The Internet’s Own Boy’, as well as the Edward Snowden documentary, ‘Citizenfour’. I love a good documentary or biopics about our networked life. Do you have any that you think I should watch? Let me know what and where to find it to add to my queue!
I’m working out a format for future newsletters. Expect to see some experiments here, hopefully good ones!
