EPISODE 821: META ME ONCE...
Dancing with the Zuck
POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW
Hi and welcome to Pop Culture Spirit Wow, the newsletter that dares to ask, Why hasn’t Jeff Bezos made his own Twitter app yet?
Oh boy do we have some stuff to talk about this week. Let’s jump in.
THE WOWND UP
So at the end of last week “Meta,” aka the Zuckerberg Pop and Flop, released a new app which you have probably heard about called Threads, which is clearly intended to be the killing blow on Twitter, even though that is completely ridiculous, you can’t kill a zombie by creating a zombie of your own. Zombies eat live brains—and Twitter today sure loves to eat a lot of them; they don’t eat other zombies.
So here’s how Threads works. Just like Twitter, you pick people to follow, and then you’re in a feed that looks exactly like Twitter. Except here your timeline is totally curated. There is no chronological feed option, or lists that you can make for yourself. Just like on Facebook or Instagram, you’re going to see what the Algo wants you to see. And fun twist—some and/or a lot of that seems to be people you aren’t following.
So it’s sort of like Spotify, I guess—you tell it the music you like and then it gives you a lot of other stuff that it thinks you might want, except this is people not music, and also Meta, the company that brought you Algorithms to Like Literally Make You Go Insane.
Actually, for the most part it’s not even people, it’s brands and influencers that no doubt have paid Meta to get that sweet sweet boost into your feed. Seriously, I’ve seen photos where the entire feed is just brands.
And here’s another great thing that people are only just learning about Threads: once you download it, you cannot delete your account without also deleting your Instagram account. Which, you know, sucks as a consumer model, but on the other hand, at this point it should be pretty clear, if you dance with the Zuck, you’re gonna get f***ed.
REASONS TO NOT SIGN ON TO THREADS
Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
JE STILL T’AIME TWITTER, I GUESS?
The comedian Rob Delaney put the Threads situation pretty well, I’d say.
This is also pretty great, for the nerds in the house.
Having said that, Threads has already reached 100 million downloads. So what do we know, maybe the people want threads of Grimace selling them purple milkshakes.
But one story connected to all this that I don’t see being reported on very much is what it says that a Twitter knock-off from the guy whose last big idea was to force everyone in his company to have their offices in his own weirdo version of Sim City, and the idea before that was to try and get adults upset and children anxious because that makes them more likely to use his services was immediately such a big hit. Or that there’s this other service waiting in the wings that feels just like Twitter, but without the bullying. (It’s in Beta, so, you know, not exactly dealing with the real world yet.) Or that there’s other attempts, like Mastodon, which is sort of like what if Twitter was simultaneously created by 300 different scientists living in 200 countries and also 278 periods of real or imagined history.
(Mastodonheads got very nervous when Twitter first hit the iceberg, because they have a lot nicer etiquette than all the folks from steerage that started pouring onto their site wondering where the **** Neil Gaiman was. But lucky for them it doesn’t seem like it’s really caught on the way they feared.)
And for me the point is, characterize Twitter however you will—Hellspace, dumpster fire, homophobic misogynist white supremacist bro cave—still, there’s something about the underlying concept of Twitter that continues to speak to people. I’m sure there’s lots of answers to the questions what that is, but if I can rosy the tint on our glasses for a sec, I wonder if part of it isn’t that, despite all evidence to the contrary, people still kind of believe in the possibility of a connection with strangers that is meaningful and life-giving. Friend of the Wow Chris Kent did me the absolute solid of giving me a pass to get on the Beta for Bluesky, which is another Twitter replacement that’s just starting to build buzz.
And I have to say I felt it myself, that thrill at the chance to find wonderful new people to connect with, and also wonderful old social media friends to reconnect with in an environment that doesn’t stink of fear or regret yet.
This weekend my LA friend Tiffany was in town and invited me to her birthday lunch. (This is actually not from that lunch, but today it became the largest apple pie I have ever seen in person.)
Tiffany is one of these amazing people who creates community wherever she goes without seeming to even think about it. There were five of us at lunch with her, and none of us had ever met. To me that sounds like a nightmare scenario, and it was an absolute delight.
And as were sitting there I was thinking back to how I met Tiffany. And it was on Twitter. I don’t know who followed who first, but at some point she DM’d me out of the blue about getting lunch, which as an Old made me very nervous. And it was just the best.
That was not a thing that ever happened before social media. I want to say it really wasn’t a thing before Twitter, either. Facebook built from a much more naturally guarded position. People have to say yes to your friend requests. And if you don’t know them already, you’re probably not giving that the thumbs up.
(Random Aside: Remember when someone would say yes to your friend request, and you’d follow up with a poke (which is still an option)? What the heck was that all about? You know who I want to interview? The person who invented that.
Totally betting on it being a guy.)
Since then I’ve probably had just a handful of social interactions with people I met on Twitter. (Even if I like it, I’m still an Old.) But each one of them has been super-positive. So much inside of me rails against the possibility of that. Stranger=Danger, y’all! But there it is.
The press wants to chase who’s going to “win” this new Twitter replacement war. But for me the real story is, we still believe that we have something to offer each other, and also on a platform that not only do we not control but is almost certainly at some point down the road going to pancake into greed and disaster.
I don’t know, some might call that just not learning your lesson. Fool me once…. But I think it’s kind of wonderful.
LOVE AND ROCKETS
Some of you know me as this crazy dude who likes to write about culture and tries to be playful about it all.
But for the last 31 years (!) I’ve also been a member of a Catholic religious community of priests and brothers known as the Jesuits. It’s been a very rich and wonderful life. I’m blown away by the trust people have placed in me, and also by the incredible and strange-for-priests stuff that I’ve gotten to do, like working in a parish in the Outback of Australia, working as an “exorcist tech” for a TV show in Hollywood (this is my favorite job title ever), or spending the last two years just writing non-stop for America and a lot of other places about everything from God and queer life and the Catholic Church to Stephen Sondheim musicals, British mystery shows and Adam Sandler movies. (I just spent an entire week producing a series of deep dive articles about the new season of The Witcher. I can’t even begin to tell you how much fun I had doing it.)
There have been challenges, too, like in any life, bruises that don’t heal so easy and also questions that don’t have easy answers. In the Pre-Covid times I went to a Moth event in LA and was randomly chosen to tell a story that I think was about relief, maybe? And the story I told was how since I had come to Los Angeles, I had kept expecting to be rejected—by UCLA, which accepted me into their screenwriting program along with an insane group of all-star writers who taught me everything; by my classmates; and by the industry. And at pretty much every step I was instead embraced and encouraged.
Which sounds great, but in reality it kind of freaked me out. Because as much as I love being a priest, you’re also representing an institution that has at times done some really bad things. I expected at some point someone would look at me and say “Hell no. We won’t be having any of your crazy brew of misogyny, homophobia, grooming and whatever other crazy nightmare stuff you guys are up to around here.” And the fact that no one ever did that, I don’t know, it threw me.
Then at one point I was applying for internships, and I had these two different opportunities. One was to work for AMC, which is what worked out, and pretty much changed my life.
The other was to work for a production company that has made some really good shows. And whereas at AMC I said nothing about being a priest, at the other place it came up. And ultimately they didn’t hire me.
And here’s the thing: Rather than feeling sad, I realized later that I felt tremendously relieved. Finally someone treated me the way I thought I deserved to be treated. Finally someone saw me.
The weight of being a representative of the church, it’s interesting, you’d think it would get easier, but actually for me it’s just gotten heavier. I’ve also noticed a greater restlessness in me about life and where I’m headed.
And so, as of the beginning of this month, I’m taking a year’s leave from the Jesuits. I’m actually writing you from my postage-stamp-meets-hoarders’-paradise of an apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where I’m hoping to spend the next year freelance writing for anyone who will have me. Magazine, screen, book, greeting cards—I’m here for all of it!
I have no idea how any of that’s going to go, and I’m sad to leave the magazine I’ve been working at and also the Jesuits I’ve been living with. They’ve all been incredibly kind to me and just wonderful companions.
But honestly, and I’ve been very surprised to realize this, once again, more than anything, I feel relieved.
I’ll have some more to say on all this next week. Also on where Pop Culture Spirit Wow goes from here, too. I don’t plan to mess with the Wownd Up; I love doing it, and it seems like people like reading it. But for a while now I’ve been daydreaming about occasionally doing some other kinds of things, like that Mark Shaiman at Marie’s Crisis piece I did a month ago, and I’ve got a couple theater interviews coming.
Also—and maybe this is totally self-involved—
—I’d like to write about what it’s been like being a priest and also (hilariously) what it’s like to take a leave from the priesthood and basically have no idea how normal reality works. Like, how much does stuff cost? Which is the cheap supermarket? And how do you live in an apartment which has no closet?
Maybe that stuff belongs somewhere else, I don’t know. I hate it when a newsletter comes too often, or goes too long. (CLEARLY.) But I’m chewing on ideas.
It’s weird, in recent months a couple people have also paid for subscriptions to the newsletter, which I didn’t even know you could do when it’s free. I think Substack may be pushing hat on its own.
As of yet I haven’t accepted their money (sorry you guys!), because I really have never thought of the newsletter that way. I started it eight years ago as just a fun little thing thrown out into the universe to whoever might enjoy it. I’ve never charged for it, and my inclination is not to. I hate it when they start charging you for free stuff!
But as I’m thinking about stuff like paying electricity—Did you know that you have to pay for your electricity? It’s blowing my mind! (ha ha ha)—I was thinking maybe I’d do a subscription option for those who want more stuff? Or a tip jar, maybe, where people can drop me some coffee money if they like what they read?
I don’t know. If you have thoughts on any of this, feel free to share them.
MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE
Let me leave you with this, which I think of as my life vibe right now.
See you next week!
A year freelancing -- how exciting! Wishing you all the best. I hope it’s an adventure
I'm remembering now why I first subscribed to you aeons ago. It dates from early FB days when you were the medicine for my soul that was writhing in horrified shock of Zuck.