Tynan's Anger

Arts & Culture Commentary from a Loving Digital Skeptic

Homophily in indie rock blogs

Last week there was excellent discussion on the increasingly essential On the Media last week about the Internet’s tendency to promote homophily. A lot of issues got swirled about (Moldova, Iran, swine flu, etc.), but the one that struck me most was about music: People feel extremely tribal and passionate about their music. And once [...]

The Dark Side of Internet Dumb-ocracy

The majority is never right. Never, I tell you! That’s one of these lies in society that no free and intelligent man can help rebelling against. Who are the people that make up the biggest proportion of the population — the intelligent ones or the fools?-Henrik Ibsen, “An Enemy of the People” The Internet, as [...]

How Roger Ebert Gets the Best Blog Comments

Image via WikipediaWhich blog has the best commenters on the Internet? It’s not Deadspin or Gawker or any other Gawker Media blog. Those blogs have arguably the funniest commenters, but the real purpose of blog commenting is to enhance the discussion created by the original blog post. Instead, the best comments on the Internet come [...]

I make my NPR debut

My dad’s been on All Things Considered Twice talking about Jews. I have now been on once on On The Media, talking about Internet comments. Jews control the media. Therefore, my dad controls me? (You can imagine the sarcasm traded between us over this tautology.) Also, true to my University of Chicago roots, this debut [...]

Internet Comments: The New Letters to the Editor?

When a new medium emerges and we don’t know how to deal with it, it’s helpful to compare it to the older media it is updating or replacing. Blog comments are as controversial of a new medium as we’ve seen since the emergence of the Internet. The above On The Media NPR segment addressed the [...]