Had the pleasure of reviewing Making synthwave: How an online music community invented a genre by @blaisejess.bsky.social for the International Journal of the Sociology of Leisure. A must-read for any interested in digital music cultures (and check out that gorgeous cover)! 🌆📼🎹
rdcu.be/e9hGh

The Soundtrack of the Doomscroll Generation? It’s Phonk.

Have you heard of phonk? According to postdoc @lumarch.bsky.social, it's "music that you’ve probably never heard of, but you’ve almost certainly heard." The @nytimes.com recently spoke to March about the genre:

This is so cool Paula!!🥳

In case you have never seen this.

Call for Abstracts: 2026 CDCS Symposium

CFP alert! 💻 My Center is currently accepting abstract submissions for our spring symposium, "Good Vibes Only? How Affects and Emotions Are Mediated for Justice in Digital Culture." Submit by 12/1! More info:
www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/...

Take Me Back Yuno Miles x Fantano (Official Video) YouTube video by Yuno Miles

Just in time for his Yuno Miles feature, which is a perfect collaboration IMO www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kPU...

“Ya’ll know this is just my opinion, right?”: Anthony Fantano’s cultivation of authenticity and digital celebrity through memes Published in Celebrity Studies (Ahead of Print, 2025)

In a new essay for the Forum section of Celebrity Studies, I share some thoughts on how YouTube music critic and digital celebrity Anthony Fantano employs memes to build his dedicated fanbase, and how it relates to his murky digital history: dx.doi.org/10.1080/1939...

Experimental evidence of the effects of large language models versus web search on depth of learning Abstract. The effects of using large language models (LLMs) versus traditional web search on depth of learning are explored. A theory is proposed that when

When people learn with ChatGPT instead of following their own searches, they end up knowing less, caring less, and producing worse advice, even when the facts are the same.

Friction is an essential ingredient for learning! Convenience makes us shallow.

academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

Another tuckered hound checking in💯

AGAINST AI

teachers!

excited to share a new website at this late date of Aug 15 to try to help us collectively prepare for back to school in the interpretative humanities classroom assaulted by the AI grift, so we don't have to go it alone.

take a look, share, + most importantly: CONTRIBUTE
against-a-i.com

New Report Calls for Faculty Control in AI Decisions Today, the AAUP released a new report, Artificial Intelligence and the Academic Professions, sharing survey findings and calling for the establishment of policies in colleges and universities that pri...

Today, the AAUP released a new report, "Artificial Intelligence & Academic Professions." The report calls for policies that prioritize economic security, faculty working & student learning conditions as AI tech accelerates.

www.aaup.org/news/new-rep...
🧵1/9

Critical Minded - Allied Media Projects In order for artists to shift dominant narratives and seed visions of new possibility, the ideas embedded in their work must travel. This is the…Read more

Critical Minded website: alliedmedia.org/projects/cri...

Calling all music critics! Please take the Critical Minded Pop Music Critic Survey! Your answers will be part of a report by Critical Minded, a grantmaking and learning initiative fiscally sponsored by Allied Media. Feel free to share/DM me any questions! LINK: csulb.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

Can't wait!!

CDCS Symposium: Reframing Leisure, Humor, and Play in Global Digital Culture CDCS Symposium: Reframing Leisure, Humor, and Play in Global Digital Culture

And of course thanks to UPenn for getting me here to get this cheesesteak. Excited to present tomorrow with @lumarch.bsky.social @jessmaddox.bsky.social @adrishaw.bsky.social and more.

For folks who don’t know, ethnic studies programs like African American/Africana Studies, Asian American Studies, Chicano Studies and the like come directly from civil right era campus activism. Attempts to disempower such programs should be framed as attacks on civil rights same as much else rn.

Another day where the presidents of every R1 university in the country should be our loudly & collectively in front of microphones calling out the authoritarianism, condemning the budget cuts that are an existential crisis for 🇺🇸 higher education & science, & doing anything other than more silence.

They don’t want women getting PhDs, they want them pregnant

CDCS Symposium: Reframing Leisure, Humor, and Play in Global Digital Culture CDCS Symposium: Reframing Leisure, Humor, and Play in Global Digital Culture

Here is the program of our 4/25 Symposium on Reframing Leisure, Humor, and Play in Global Digital Culture www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/.... @annenbergcargc.bsky.social

Next Wednesday, 2/19 at 12pm, higher ed workers from across Philly are rallying to tell Senator McCormick: Hands Off our Healthcare, Research, and Jobs!

Science and education are under attack. Join us at 2000 Market Street to fight back!

RSVP here: labor4highered.org#register

Fascinating convo in the replies here

Designing a loving robot: A social construction analysis of a sex robot creator's vision

Check out my friend Annette Masterson's work - just wrote a diss on sex robots :) search.informit.org/doi/abs/10.3...

A wonderful opportunity for new PhDs in digital culture 😊

Facebook Deletes Internal Employee Criticism of New Board Member Dana White "Insulting, criticizing, or antagonizing our colleagues or Board members is not aligned with the CEE."

"Meta’s HR team is deleting internal employee criticism of new board member, UFC president and CEO Dana White, at the same time that CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced to the world that Meta will 'get back to our roots around free expression,' 404 Media has learned" www.404media.co/facebook-del...

What the UnitedHealthcare CEO Shooting Memes Tell Us The internet has been completely obsessed with this case.

CDCS postdoc @lumarch.bsky.social recently spoke to @teenvogue.bsky.social about the social media reactions to the UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting:

Conference Each spring, CSA holds an international annual conference. As with other professional organizations, the conference members an opportunity to meet and network with other professionals in the...

Hey! The Cultural Studies Association just released its call for papers for its meeting in LA in 2025. Pls amplify! @academic-chatter.bsky.social @ejcs-journal.bsky.social @mediacomgold.bsky.social @jcultecon.bsky.social @culturalstudies.bsky.social www.culturalstudiesassociation.org/conference.h...

Grieving One Direction fans return to where they last met — online Liam Payne’s death brought on real grief for Gen Z fans. The only ones who understand how they process it -- sometimes with dark humor -- are fellow Directioners.

@cdcspenn.bsky.social postdoc @lumarch.bsky.social spoke to @washingtonpost.com about how grieving One Direction fans are processing Liam Payne’s death online: www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Academe in the Age of Social Media: Scholarly Inquiry at Risk? Join the Center for Media at Risk and the Center on Digital Culture and Society for a symposium examining the relationship between social media and the academy.

We're premiering on Bluesky with an announcement of our upcoming symposium on Academe in the Age of Social Media: Scholarly Inquiry at Risk? Jointly organized with @ascmediarisk.bsky.social www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/...