Brady Robards

The Inattention Economy Revealing the unheralded contributions of women of color to the foundation and development of the digital economyThe Inattention Economy challenges the wides...

A link to my new book cover and table of contents. www.upress.umn.edu/978081669906...

BlaQademics A randomly ordered list of Indigiqueer scholars and thinkers that explore queerness, Indigineity, and creative artmaking Across our program we have learned from the powerful work of Indigenous scho…

Blaqademics/Indigiqueers
We made this for us to celebrate queer Indigenous scholarship lies, but it also counters the many non-Indigenous queer and gender studies scholars that tell us that they can’t find the work of any IndigiQueers. Here's a few hundred citations.

queer-as.org/blaqademics/

The Right to Delete would just solve so many persistent problems in the ways personal data is misused or left open to attacks/hacks/poor security etc.

As a Right it wouldn't HAVE to be used in every case (that's part of the point), but having the option is so very powerful.

100% backing this!

it was delicious!

Countries 239 scholars from Brazil, for 208 of whom this was their first AoIR 443 first timers in total

For anyone still wondering: THIS IS WHY WE’RE HERE. Welcome to our family, and thank you for welcoming us to yours. #AoIR2025

And so we learn that the Portuguese word for enshittification is merdificacão. 🤣 #AoIR2025

If you take Haidt’s premise that phones and social media are hurting children as true, then you should question whether the right policy remedy is an intervention in the way teachers run their classrooms and what children are allowed to see and do online Why not fine the companies for endangering kids or create new rules they have to follow? Why not introduce competition into a monopolized market space, so that parents and kids have more choice in how to spend their time online? Why not put consumer safety standards on the algorithms, the software, the devices themselves? Why is the preferred tool to save a generation from anguish and our democracy from decline a patchwork of laws governing the decisions consumers can make, instead of a strategy to hold bad actors and industry to account?

Aidan Walker on why "now is *not* the time to ban phones ...
why Jonathan Haidt sucks"

howtodothingswithmemes.substack.com/p/now-is-not...

last week, I wrote about how the rushed/bizarre teen social media ban policy process could lead to bad outcomes for Australians.

One scenario? Platforms forced to check users ages leak private data. Anyway, there's now a leak of some Discord user's passports

www.crikey.com.au/2025/09/30/a...

Loot boxes are still rife in kids’ mobile games, despite ban on ‘gambling-like’ features Games with ‘loot boxes’ should be classified for over-15s – but a new study shows many of the most popular mobile games completely ignore the rules.

New article in @theconversation.com today reflecting on Australia’s 2024 loot box regulations and how, 1 year later, there remains widespread non-compliance - and generally really confusing age ratings for mobile games on the App Stores!

theconversation.com/loot-boxes-a...

✨I’m recruiting for a research project on game monetisation!✨
I’m keen to chat to game devs about how monetisation shapes the dev process. Interviews will be 60mins via Zoom. To learn more, head to bit.ly/40mOB3f

if you'd like to participate, shoot me a DM or email taylor.hardwick@sydney.edu.au 😊

squad!!

Raewyn’s groundbreaking work changed how we think about men. Its origins were deeply personal Raewyn Connell has a global reputation and is speaking at an event marking one of the PM’s intellectual influences.

Wonderful profile of Raewyn Connell just published in the SMH www.smh.com.au/national/rae... - her Wheelwright Lecture, “Should we abolish universities?” is on tomorrow night! www.ppesydney.net/2025-wheelwr...

How Australia’s anti-immigration rallies were amplified online by the global far right Prominent figures such as Elon Musk and Tommy Robinson are increasingly using social media to unite far-right groups and causes around the world.

🚨 New article in The Conversation from Callum Jones and myself.

We wanted to focus specifically on how the white nationalist rallies were supported and amplified online by far-right actors like Elon Musk and Tommy Robinson

theconversation.com/how-australi...

yessss so happy for you Joe, congrats and can't wait to see what comes out of this!

Darkness to hyper-visibility: exploring promotional and creator cultures of social media This one-day symposium explores the visibility games at the heart of social media’s promotional and creator cultures. From influencers and everyday users to advertisers and automated algorithms, every...

From Darkness to Hypervisibility! A one day symposium on the promotional and creator cultures of social media at UQ in November. CFP and details here: hass.uq.edu.au/event/sessio... @bradyjay.bsky.social @antmandan.bsky.social

Digital Intimacies 11 The Love of Machines

✨ Digital Intimacies 11: The Love of Machines is here!

Explore how machines reshape intimacy. Submission deadline: 29 Aug 2025.

Join the conversation: 🖥️🤖❤️
👉 digitalintiamcies11.wordpress.com

#digint11 #TheLoveOfMachines

Glad to share my new publication in The Sociological Review: "Queer milestones: Intergenerational relations and youth transitions of Chinese queer female students residing overseas" (open access). doi.org/10.1177/0038...

We all have forests on our minds. Forests unexplored, unending. Each one of us gets lost in the forest, every night, alone.

A new paper co-authored with R. Reschiglian & @bradyjay.bsky.social

We explored how Italian LGBTQ+ young adults navigate safety on dating apps in a challenging sociocultural climate.

If you’re interested in LGBTQ+ digital cultures, safety, have a look!
👉 rosa.uniroma1.it/rosa03/media...

Desire lines, queer cartographies and cartographic queers - Ash Watson, Emma Kirby, 2025 Digital technologies have enabled communities to map and (re)claim space in novel ways and at significant scale. Queering the Map (queeringthemap.com), a commun...

I am THRILLED to have a new article with Emma Kirby in @societyandspace.bsky.social

Focused on Queering the Map, we analyse how people contribute to this queer mapping of life – and become cartographic queers 📍💜

Open access: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

@emmawatsonkirby.bsky.social

Qualified Hope: Young People’s Education and Employment Pathways in Times of Disruption - Journal of Applied Youth Studies The pandemic and its aftermath have prompted an extended public and academic conversation about young people, with concerns about the increasing uncertainty of youth employment and education trajector...

In our new paper 'Qualified Hope' we counter concern for a 'COVID generation' of young people with upended work and study plans.

Despite hardship, hope is a psychosocial resource for sense-making and reflects young people’s resourcefulness and adaptability. 👀📃⤵️

‘Hang on, why am I editing my photos?’ Disrupting the virtual gaze through selfie-editing workshops - Julia Coffey, Akane Kanai, Amy S Dobson, Rosalind Gill, Niamh White, 2025 This article presents findings from a qualitative study that aimed to provide some of the first detailed accounts of how young people use selfie-editing apps, a...

‘Hang on, why am I editing my photos?’ Disrupting the virtual gaze through selfie-editing workshops - Julia Coffey, Akane Kanai, Amy S Dobson, Rosalind Gill, Niamh White, 2025 journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Necessary reminder that literally every digital media expert in the country have been saying exactly this since this whole sorry ordeal started. None of this is a surprise.

I think a lot about how Aaron Swartz committed suicide while facing a probably long jail sentence for download some of JSTOR, but no one at Meta is going to face any repercussions for using all of Libgen to train its AI.

Watt waves through Woodside, and Labor’s light on the hill becomes a gas flare The newly minted environment minister faced a stark choice: protect the environment, or approve a massive fossil fuel development that will destroy the environment. He chose destruction.

Murray Watt is a perfect model of the modern Labor politician. President of Young Labor. Chief of staff for a Premier. Boss of the Qld Left. Now he’s the Environment Minister with responsibility for a critical decision. He chose to destroy the environment. www.crikey.com.au/2025/05/29/m...

she did the meme

Gaza’s youngest influencer aged 11 among children killed by Israeli strikes Yaqeen Hammad offered tips for surviving life under bombardment and is just one of dozens of minors who have died

"She was also Gaza’s youngest influencer, offering practical survival tips for daily life under bombardment, such as advice on how to cook with improvised methods when there was no gas.

'I try to bring a bit of joy to the other children so that they can forget the war. '”

the interesting thing about this though is

The crazy thing is just how manufactured this Welcome to Country debate is. This wasn't a grassroots campaign during a cost-of-living election:

Clive Palmer paid millions for newspaper ads attacking it, Advance has been running ads about it
a bunch of neo-Nazis hijacked a high-profile event.

Thanks for all your input on the early survey design too Taylor! Lots of connections with your work here