My Spider Senses Are Tingling

Early prepubescence teaches you the unacceptability of

smelling like yourself in public. It’s an unsolvable problem

that will follow you to the grave. Your only options are

temporary, and rarely work.

I’ve been thinking about the idea of a third place lately as it relates to the tech products we use and the different roles they aim to serve.

The way I see it, so many different devices are vying for the third place in our lives. We have our phones, which are, in many ways, the primary computers we use at home, to communicate with others, to... See more

The left has tended to lead the way in mastering new media, aided by its generally younger, tech-savvy supporters. Barack Obama harnessed Facebook in 2008, helping propel him into the White House. Today America’s right is ahead. Mr Trump has cultivated a following among the always-online, meme-sharing, crypto-trading tech community, which is more... See more

The voice of novel technological communication has been, almost from the beginning, a female voice, which is to say the voice of a helper, a perfect helper, pleasant, unflappable, immune to insults, come-ons and bossiness. It’s a short path from the telephone operator to Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa, both forever placating, always even-keeled,... See more

“One thing I’m thinking about,” Cunningham wrote, “is whether this election foretells a radical shift in campaign tactics, away from the ‘ground’ and even more ardently toward the Internet and whatever it is we mean when we say ‘television’ now.” In other words, he asked, “Are podcasts and social feeds and Twitch broadcasts the political... See more