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Let’s Talk About Crypto, Streaming, and Bots

Lo-fi crypto winter vibes to worry about the death of cinema to

August 25, 2022

Tweets About Movies

The other week on Twitter, I described the Warner Brothers Discover merger as feeling “like microdosing the burning of the Library of Alexandria.” This week it’s really felt like the curtain was drawn back on many of the changes to the film and tv industries that have been bubbling beneath the surface since the dawn of the streaming era. In the spirit of microdosing, I now give you a two-tweet tasting menu of the death of cinema discourse. 

Matt Damon went on Hot Ones and explained how DVD sales were a critical part of making mid-budget films possible. 

MrBeast got owned here. 

Platform Updates

Instagram 

TikTok

Twitter

YouTube

Twitch 

BeReal 

Culture Movers 

Creator Economy 

Let’s Talk About Crypto

I haven’t talked about crypto yet in this newsletter for a few reasons. I started this project earlier in the summer, just as “crypto winter” was taking the momentum out of the Web3 investing conversation. The ups and downs of the crypto world just haven’t spilled over into the larger culture as much in the past few weeks. I’m also pretty pessimistic about the Web3 world. To be blunt, I think most Web3 projects are, at best, poorly conceived or outright scams. Even if you can get past the general scamminess of Web3’s unregulated casino, it’s still hard to overlook the massive environmental cost of running blockchain projects. This is why I am interested in the upcoming Ethereum merger. 

Tl;dr there are two main methods of validating transactions on a blockchain: proof-of-work and proof-of-stake. Ethereum, one of the largest blockchains that’s central to a lot of Web3 projects, currently runs on proof-of-work, which requires the computers to do more work, which requires more energy, which means burning more carbon, which means a larger environmental impact. A long-planned transition to proof-of-stake–a less energy intense validation method–will start next month. 

Credit where credit is due. Climate change has been an apocalyptic crisis before apocalypsic events were cool, and I welcome any effort to help our planet remain livable. While my crypto outlook remains pretty negative, I’m open to the possibility of cool, useful, non-scammy, environmentally responsible blockchain projects. Any technology is just a tool, and tools aren’t inherently positive or negative. What we choose to do with them matters. 

Digital advertising created an explosion of free-to-access media and social networking. It’s never been easier to learn about almost any subject because of this technology. It’s also never been easier to spread mis and dis-information or organize a hate movement. We are still wrestling with how to ethically build, deploy, scale, and interact with Web2 technology. I want new tech that solves real problems, but I’ve watched and worked in this industry long enough to know that even good intentions will create problems. I’ve seen that often, profit is the only intention, ethics and legality be damned. So I remain curious and cautious about crypto, just like I am with ad-tech.       

Boooo

BotSentinel is a wonderful little tool that scans the behavior of a Twitter account to rate how sketchy it is. If you have to do community management for a large Twitter audience, it’s gonna save you so much time by helping you spot trolls and weirdos faster. That is if Twitter doesn’t kill its API access because of the Elon trial. One more way this rich dude with ultra divorced guy energy makes his temper tantrums other people’s problems. *sigh*