Worth the Click
Recent things I’ve found worth clicking on, including the tell-all book Zuckerberg tried to silence. (March 25th edition)
Here’s a bunch of things that have crossed my path recently that I think are worth sharing!
Watching this happen in real time was an absolute delight
The book Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams went from being on no one’s radar to an instant NYT bestseller. My library started with 6 copies, immediately bought 36 more, and currently (after I took the screenshot below) has 51 copies of the audiobook alone (look at that wait!).
Why did the book blow up so quickly? Because Meta (Facebook) — who has zero understanding of the Streisand effect — sued the author to stop her from promoting her book which is a tell-all about working at Meta. You know what makes people really want to immediately read a book they’ve never heard about? Telling them that the information in it is so damning that you’re trying to punish the author with a gag order. Even Roxane Gay wrote about going from not knowing the book existed to immediately reading it, writing about it, and giving it 5 stars.
And in kismet: while writing this my hold came in from my library so guess what I’m reading next?!
Teen Vogue continues to put most legacy media to shame
My new (to me) favorite podcast
The Black List podcast checks off so many things that I love: film (all entertainment, really), people talking about how they got into an industry (especially a difficult one), great questions that lead to fun conversations, people who love films and who love talking about films.
Franklin Leonard was working at Leonardo DiCaprio's production company when he got frustrated with the quality of screenplays and decided to take another route to finding the best screenplays, which is how the Black List was created. He also hosts this podcast with Kate Hagen (Black List Director of Community) where they talk to people in the film industry who love films. They ask fun questions (what’s the oddest place you’ve watched a film?) and talk to passionate filmmakers that I’m already a fan of, like Paul Feig (Bridesmaids, Ghostbusters, Jackpot!) and people I am now a fan of thanks to the podcast, like Alice Wu (The Half of It).
Michelle Obama has a new podcast (audio & video)
Michelle Obama has started a new podcast with her brother Craig Robinson (IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson Podcast) where they talk about life, answer advice style questions from listeners, and chat with celebrities and experts. It’s in two formats: you can watch the video recording on youtube or you can listen to the audio in your podcast app—I’m a big fan of options since many people only do one over the other.
If you’re looking for Michelle Obama to talk about what we can do to save democracy this isn’t it, she’s neither doing this in a role as a politician nor an activist (she’s neither). If you’re looking for a podcast about human connections, and how we can find better paths in life give this a try.
The first episode is Some Friendships Need to Go with Issa Rae, which you can watch on Youtube and listen to through your podcast app like apple, iheart, and spotify.
Family vlogging kids need regulatory protections
The internet that we know of today didn’t really come to be until I was a late teen—this along with camera phones and social media not being a big thing until I was an adult is something I am beyond grateful for every second. It’s probably why I was always uncomfortable by the explosion of family vlogging. I feel like every person I know has at least one childhood photo, or childhood story, that they’re happy to punt into the sun so it never sees the light of day. And all they have to deal with, at most, is that one relative who thinks it’s funny to show the picture to someone visiting or to tell the story at a family event. But what if instead it lived forever and ever on the internet for the entire world to see? And that’s just the uncomfortable aspect.
There are a lot of moral questions and a lack of protection for the children in mommy vlogging which two recent docuseries at least attempt to tackle, without being done in a sensational manner.
An Update On Our Family (HBO, 4 episodes)
What I really liked about An Update on Our Family is it steps back to look at the issues with transracial adoption, allowing not only someone who followed the Stauffer’s channel—as they adopted a young child from China and made him “the star” but then quietly disappeared him from content, worrying viewers for his safety—but who is herself an adoptee from Korea.
Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke (Hulu, 3 episodes)
What I really liked about Devil in the Family is it allowed two of the now adult children to tell their story of growing up with a mom obsessed with documenting their lives for an audience and the horrible abuses they and their younger siblings lived through. It highlighted how help should have, and could have, arrived far sooner for the two youngest children.
New Ronan Farrow
In #TheMoreYouKnow category
How to Avoid US-Based Digital Services—and Why You Might Want To
And that’s it for this round of Worth the Click.