Ever Josue Figueroa, Ph.D.

Are you 18 or older with a fandom-related tattoo (or know someone who has one)? Please take 10 min to fill out this survey for my new book project on embodied fan identities and practices. Share widely! utexas.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_... Contact info: suzanne.scott@utexas.edu.

Bari Weiss always fails up. Always. CBS news is a joke. This is an article from an internet shitposter on CBS News and yes they spelled Zohran Mamdani's name wrong.

A classic case of irresponsible both-sidesism from the NYT. The story is that Trump and MAGA propagandists are lying about Portland to incite a conflict, not that there are different views of the matter.

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems... SIMON: What? SHAPIRO: ...Or saying... SIMON: You imagine that? SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over. SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level. SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this. SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

The video gaming space has been doing this stuff for well over a decade. Hopefully the T-Swift fans actually diagnose and blame capitalism instead of getting their hobby hijacked by grifting culture war losers that blame women and minorities.

It really doesn't make much sense to talk about right-wing media as distinct from legacy or mainstream media at this point.

Hopefully the whole Bari Weiss thing and Ezra Klein thing starts waking people up to the fact that corporate media is mostly populated with mediocre people who have made millions and gained unbelievable influence because they threaten nothing and tell wealthy people exactly what they want to hear.

In some personal news finally done with my student loans 🍻

Klein has one of the largest platforms in the country, if not the world. At a minimum, not knowing how to use that platform to achieve his supposedly liberal goals is profoundly lacking in imagination. At worst, is a profound moral failure.

In pro-wrestling this is also known as “kayfabe.”

Some big implications for journalism, too, where reporters often mistake trending posts as a reasonable reflection of public opinion.

streaming platforms have robbed us of the randomness that used to be both an essential property of tv watching and a quality that mitigated its addictiveness somewhat. we were wholly beholden to whatever happened to be on! if we didn’t like any of it we were obligated to go do something else!

My department at CU Boulder is hiring BOTH an Assistant Professor of Journalism AND an Associate/Full Professor of Journalism Studies. I am on the search committee for the Associate job. Happy to answer questions or direct you to the right people. Links in this thread.

We are hiring in the Lehigh U journalism department, a tenure-track position focused on technology law and policy. We take a multidisciplinary approach to platform governance and AI here that includes social sciences/humanities. Opportunity for someone wanting to make an impact. Spread the word!

JA Westenberg @Daojoan@mastodon.social My 9 year old and his classmates have started using “that’s AI” to mean “I don’t believe you.” Me: we’re having dinosaur meat for dinner Kiddo: that’s AI Sep 24, 2025, 07:36 AM

They've lost the 9yos

Oh, and hey, the Nexstar Tegna public comment period is now open, if you want to comment on the deleterious effect of the prospect of even greater consolidation of media ownership.

www.thewrap.com/nexstar-tegn...

Pretty sure freedom fries lasted longer than Jimmy Kimmel off air.

I know people who work at Nexstar and the entire operation is one hilarious joke. Disney/ABC execs would die of laughter if they heard their content plans.

Is anything safe these days? That’s not going to stop me or my colleagues in journalism studies from our work. There is a phrase in academia, “the good work continues.” And I choose to live by that.

Once more for the evening crowd...signal boosting appreciated across other platforms, I would love as many perspectives as possible!

Mark Cuban has to be acting out this scene right!? There’s no way he has dug in that deep right!? #nba

“Listen Pablo, if he really was trying to circumvent the cap he would have done all these things.”

Associate or Full Professor: jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDeta...

Assistant Professor: jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDeta...

My department at CU Boulder is hiring BOTH an Assistant Professor of Journalism AND an Associate/Full Professor of Journalism Studies. I am on the search committee for the Associate job. Happy to answer questions or direct you to the right people. Links in this thread.

Disney learned nothing from Andor.

Texas Professor Fired After Accusations of Teaching ‘Gender Ideology’

"The moves this week by Texas A&M represented 'the death of academic freedom in Texas, the remaking of universities as tools of authoritarianism that suppress free thought'" 🤐

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/10/u...

This country is a disaster

In October 2012 I asked a simple question on Twitter. 13 years later, it has finally been answered

"How Are the Very Rich Feeling About New York’s Next Mayor?"

A Dramatic Reading of The Recent New York Times Dispatch from the Hamptons.

Presented by The Gilded Age's Morgan Spector.