Jessica Ghilani

Super insightful work that sheds light on the cultivation of habit formation via algorithmic short form video platforms. I wonder how/whether things shift if the plan to bring its ownership into compliance with US law happens.

Goodbye the AOL Dial Up Internet Service The end of an era

A short write up about and on the occasion of the last day of AOL Dial Up Internet Service open.substack.com/pub/mediahis...

I think business owners are relying (in bad faith) on the lack of suburban understanding of the block by block lay of the land, so the 200+ angry nextdoor posts declaring to “never come into the city again if they do this!” will actually come back to bite those businesses for exaggerating.

Yes the messaging on it is all wrong. The folks in Bridgeville or wherever who are agitating about how this will “ruin the strip” don’t know it block by block. The message should have been “Wholeys, Penn Mac, and what you think of as ‘the Strip’ will be unchanged. Calm down!”

(I know they do. They're arguing in bad faith).

Don't they realize that the bulk of car traffic gums up 22nd street between Liberty and Penn to come to their businesses??

Folks don't realize the change is only from 31st to 22nd St which if you are regularly in that stretch isn't even the most congested, business clustered part of the Strip. When people think of it, they assume below 22nd until around 16th. This isn't gonna change the Penn Mac corridor calm down!

Thank you James! This visualizes it: bsky.app/profile/sant...

Strip District Update: The City has announced the Final Plans for Penn Ave Rightsizing - BikePGH In order to make this dangerous section of Penn Ave in the Strip District safer, the City has planned these traffic safety improvements

As this overview relays, "Aside from some pedestrian-friendly interventions, they are proposing very little change between 22nd St and 16th St." I want to scream on angry NextDoor posts that: You will still have all your lanes and parking by Penn Mac, calm down guys!! bikepgh.org/2025/09/10/f...

The thing is, the lane closure would only be from 31st to 22nd street which if you are regularly in that stretch isn't even the most congested or business clustered part of the Strip. When people think of it, they think of everything below 22nd until around 16th.

We have allowed the lazy, grifting Silicon Valley charlatans into the front door, & in doing so, we have learned just how many of our own colleagues & administrators simply are not interested in the actual business of education. It's incredibly demoralizing.

bsky.app/profile/mcop...

Photo of the print version of the newspaper, on which the cover of the living section features the article and a photo of me providing commentary on tech and social media for KDKA/CBS television program, Talk Pittsburgh.

Thank you to @triblive.bsky.social for featuring me in your article about shifting tides of social media use among young folks. It was a thrill to see in the printed Sunday paper. triblive.com/local/region...

Photo of the print version of the newspaper, on which the cover of the living section features the article and a photo of me providing commentary on tech and social media for KDKA/CBS television program, Talk Pittsburgh.

Thank you to @triblive.bsky.social for featuring me in your article about shifting tides of social media use among young folks. It was a thrill to see in the printed Sunday paper. triblive.com/local/region...

Screencap from the more perfect union account where they post: “in 1983, 50 companies controlled 90% of the US media market. That number is now down to 5.”

The other half is ranting about the telecommunications act of 1996 which resulted in this:

Screencap from cspan of rfk jr speaking at the memorial for Charlie Kirk, saying, “we are all hooked into social algorithms that are hacked into the reptilian cores of our brain.”

At least half of my media studies lectures:

Brendan Carr’s FCC is an anti-consumer, rights-trampling harassment machine The White House’s personal censor.

While people are suddenly and uncharacteristically paying attention to media regulation, please take a moment to notice all the massive harm Brendan Carr has done to consumer protection and public safety as well

me, back in April:

My intro media studies class units on the telecom act of 1996 always hit hard because of the enduring influence of deregulation on our mass media environment, but it really feels helpful to be discussing it with 18-24 year olds this and next week. I wish there were less plentiful examples from news.

This could not be more correct. It's easier to censor media that is consolidated. Repeal the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

These firings, with zero due process, are violations of widely accepted principles of academic freedom & are completely unacceptable. College & university administrators MUST NOT exploit these shocking events to censor protected speech & concentrate their own power.

www.wsmv.com/2025/09/12/t...

From what I understand, it was the mainstreaming of Kirk that Fuentes resented. He didn’t want a slightly larger tent. Kirk seemed likely to pursue public office, whereas Fuentes (who did seem proud of a legacy media nytimes profile) embraced the troll/heel persona that doesn’t lend to that easily.

Sorry it is a series of photos and videos in a post. Called carousel like a slide carousel because you can scroll through them. You can post up to 20 I think. This video is edited to splice together some stills and videos she shared on the post.

Yes it was from a carousel she posted on her Instagram.

Insightful thread on political incongruity of some young folks, whose sensibilities are shaped by/ through meme culture + the predicament of being very (very) online. I say this as someone that came of age in presocial media messageboards that I thought made me very online. But this is different.

Very good point.

But post political also encapsulates it well.

I keep talking about it as political incoherence born from/through being terminally online. Legacy media’s attempt to simplify into left or right vs decode meme culture references on the shell casings demonstrates how ill equipped soundbite news and talking head punditry is for this moment.

It was like 2004 maybe? A while ago.

Reminds me of my friend who worked at Google in the early era of Gmail, where her job was to read folks’ emails and assign advertising topics to determine what ads made sense to serve to the user. Eventually, the work became automated but for a while it was someone’s job to read your private emails.

I think it’s this plus the fact that if you opened an algorithmic platform any time after 3pm today, you likely saw (or were fed) videos of his assassination, from multiple angles, creating a different (perhaps parasocial, and definitely more concretely visualized) relationship with his death.

And yeah same re the opening. It was fine but the integration of the remixes into the set at the cube was incredible. I'm glad to gab about it because I can't stop thinking about how great it was (and that I almost didn't catch it, were it not for the review that sparked my interest).