The Present Age Weekly Recap: April 29, 2022
Twitter, Tucker, and the richest man on the planet
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Welcome to the weekly recap. In this post, I’ll be linking to my work from the week, sharing some stories from others I thought were interesting, and providing a few casual thoughts on [gestures at everything]. If you’d like to receive this weekly email ONLY, please go to your account page and under “Email notifications” uncheck every box except “TPA Weekly Recap.” If you don’t want to receive the weekly recap, leave all boxes except “TPA Weekly Recap” checked.
From me this week: way too much stuff about Twitter, Tucker Carlson, and Elon Musk
On Monday, I wrote a story for Rolling Stone about the actual meaning and purpose behind Tucker Carlson’s “The End of Men” documentary.
And for TPA subscribers, I added a post containing a bit of bonus content that didn’t make it into that story:
On Tuesday, I wrote about how Twitter might have been able to avoid the Musk-bro takeover (by not giving him and other influential people a pass on having to follow the platform’s rules for years in the first place).
On Wednesday, I dove into the cesspool of the internet (4chan) to illustrate what the type of if it’s legal, it’s okay to post on Twitter policy Musk has promoted would look like in action.
And yesterday, I wrote about how strange it is that there are a lot of people on the right who seem to know who the assistant secretary of health at HHS is, and why that illustrates a problem with right-wing media.
Posts from others that I want to draw attention to.
Teddy Wilson has a new story over at his Radical Reports Substack with some great links. If you’re like me and try to keep up with what’s happening in the world of the radical right, you should give Teddy’s work a follow.
Here’s a post from Dirt, which is a Substack about cryptocurrency/NFTs/other things I don’t particularly understand (as much as I try!). I saw that they interviewed John Jannuzzi for it, and John’s a good dude who I’ve followed on Twitter for years and have worked with him on some writing in the past (he edited some catalog promos I wrote for him when he worked at Bonobos). Even if all this stuff isn’t your jam, you should consider giving him a follow on Twitter here.
This piece isn’t from this week, but I just saw it for the first time the other day and wanted to share it. Over at Talia Lavin’s The Sword and the Sandwich, she’s got a piece about how right-wing attempts to label LGBTQ people as “groomers” cover-up actual stories of child abuse.
And finally, I really enjoyed Heather Cox Richardson’s latest edition of Letters from an American. She has the most popular Substack on the planet — and for good reason. Check it out.
Today’s Tunes
“Happier Than Ever” (Live on The Tonight Show, 2021) by Billie Eilish
I follow both Talia Lavin and Heather Cox Richardson avidly so it's good to see them both mentioned here!