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‘In this light, a large portion of Pinterest's content starts to look largely like the great, white, suburban dreamscape of the 1950s pathologized, now crowd-sourced to showcase today's insecurity with the messier, dirtier, and much less wealthy lives we actually lead. It's an extension of the pleasure machines we've been trained to be: we please the perceived tastes of others with images of things that have little or no relation to who we actually are or what we do — most of which images are of things that are, in themselves, about creating pleasure for others — with hopes of little more than to continue being pleasing.’

On one hand, it’s great that she’s this new hot blog thing, because she is a woman who creates her own beats in a space that historically is not that friendly to non-males. On the other hand, her elevation been a case study in the values people consign to the music they love — in this case, thin representations of ideas, that people have praised her for her “naive” and “elf-like” qualities, as though by filtering her voice into wispiness to the point that she’s almost a specter (as she does), she becomes more admirable, a negation of herself.

‘It's tempting to view Reign of Terror as somehow ironic, pairing Krauss' saccharine cheerleader delivery with raging guitars and martial dance beats, but it doesn't feel that purposeful. Such a juxtaposition seems to arise naturally out of what they like and what they want to express: cheesy pop triumphalism dialed to "mosh" and drenched in tar-black bloodlust. It lacks cynicism, and goes for nothing deeper than the sacred ideal of teen gimme-gimme: the glorious joy of the big, loud, timeless Fuck You.’

‘Breitbart died, like all of us will, in darkness. But as a media persona he chose to also live there, and in the process has impelled countless others to throttle themselves into the abyss.’

‘”What To Expect” is, then, finally, a self-fulfilling prophesy, because what to expect as an expectant mother today is to be bombarded with information about how you are doing it wrong—whether it is carrying a baby in your womb, pushing it out, or raising it.’

‘Most gamification sucks because it breaks down our humanity like it is no more than a computer program that needs to be understood and then rewritten for maximum reward—reward for the company behind it, rather than for the player. That's how gamification is disrespectful: because it no longer treats us like people.’

Bottom-shelf products and home remedies/concoctions for cooking/cleaning/health/beauty/etc.

Watch the episodes in this order: IV, V, II, III, VI.

‘Alexey Kouznetsov is a 30-something Russian web developer. Kuznetsov has been designing websites since at least 2002, and on his portfolio site, he markets himself with this modest tagline: “If… you want your pages to be more impressive and dynamic than before, contact the author of this site to order elaboration, introduction and development of new graphic effects on your pages.”’

‘If the songs were dull or disposable, they’d still be important, but they might matter less. But they’re both good, “Birthday Cake” very much so. The quality matters because they’re likely to lodge themselves in the public consciousness and seep onto radio playlists: this mess won’t just melt into the air.’

‘Like so many spotlit debuts, Visions displays a young singer developing a relationship with her own voice and the seemingly infinite possibilities for shaping and representing it. The mirror stage for emergent artists who spend a lot of time online and work alone with inexpensive tools often can (and does) lead to merely replicating the surface qualities of the stuff that streams their way. Boucher's talent lies in the balance of exploiting her gifts and leveraging what's come before her, but judiciously.’

Profile of the rising rapper.

My swimming lessons.

‘In the moments immediately following the MegaUpload shutdown, global internet traffic dipped an astounding 2-3 percent. Unfortunately for the feds, that didn't last for long. According to an assessment recently published by DeepField Networks, file-trading volumes basically returned to 'normal' as rival services started picking up the slack. So, same volumes, less snappiness and cost-efficient delivery, at least in the short term. Or, maybe the long-term, depending on how over-the-top this anti-piracy enforcement campaign grows. But does that mean the shutdown was essentially useless? Outside of file-trading volumes and routing details, the 'ripple-effect' of policy changes and shutdowns is getting a lot of attention. Most recently, the shut-and-run list includes BitTorrent tracking giant BTjunkie, with others likely to follow.’

‘Pity the poor rock fan? Well, no: Rock fans have launched enough snobby, pernicious bits of language at other genres that they could afford to do some penance resurrecting their own.’

‘Sleigh Bells' music has always been about overwhelming your senses, making things so loud and so blurred that you don't know where one thing stops and another ends, how fast the day is passing. Slow things run at double-time, fast things run at half-time; the world runs backwards, slows down, speeds up.’

‘The coal companies are lying to you. Coal energy is not clean energy. It is the dirtiest form of energy generation we have. The coal companies are spending millions of dollars hoping you’ll forget this. A slick ad campaign doesn’t change the truth.’

‘Being ruthless to yourself is having the discipline to become a better developer - not letting yourself get away with the easy or convenient.’

‘The vast majority of this record is given over to rhapsodizing over some hunky, dangerous fella, and none of the alterations — sonic, biographical, cosmetic — allegedly made to the real-life Lana/Lizzy could distort the truth as thoroughly as her unrelenting Ooh He's a Bad, Bad, Sexy Man routine. It's instructive to picture what this guy would actually look like IRL, some clown with a real emotional haircut, Crocs hanging off his feet, Urban Outfitters leather jacket hung over his IKEA futon, remnants of that Taco Bell burrito with the Fritos in it congregating at the corners of his mouth as he binges on Skyrim, blasts "Pumped Up Kicks" on infinite repeat, and gargles dozens of shots of, like, Goldschläger.’

‘So, you want to make a contact microphone? Whether you want create noise music by banging on scrap metal, cheaply and easily amplify your acoustic instrument, or just play with wires, you’re in the right place.’

‘When it comes to IVF, in-vitro fertilization, nothing is normal. Your world is upside-down. Your doctor compliments your wife on her monkeys. Then, when every dollar and exertion has gone toward a single hour of hope, it begins to snow.’

‘In terms of its America-sized grandeur and its fixation with the emptiness of dreams, Born to Die attempts to serve as Del Rey's own beautiful, dark, twisted fantasy, but there's no spark and nothing at stake.’

‘1. Go through your piece and flip the gender of your descriptive phrases' subjects. Are there any that sound ludicrous as a result? 2. Are you essentially making shit up about the artist in order to sexualize her? 3. Are you comparing the artist you're writing about to other female artists only? If so, why? 4. Are you writing about a moment where your subject flirts with you and you respond in kind?’

‘Structured to mimic real library browsing, participants would search the card catalog, apply for a library card, and then check out one of the 35 books as they became available. The book titles, chosen by the “books” themselves, included “Custodian,” “Evangelical Christian,” “Fat Woman,” “Feminist,” “Iraq War Veteran,” “LDS Missionaries (Mormon),” “Olympic Athlete,” “Orphanage Boy,” “Psychiatrist,” and “Queer,” among others. Readers and books engaged in one-on-one conversations that lasted 30 minutes.’

Comparing the discussion around Lana Del Rey to those around Paris Hilton's 2006 album.

On Rihanna possibly working with Chris Brown. ‘Human feelings are much more complicated than the narratives we try to fit them into. If we’re willing to allow pop stars to thrill us with unpredictable art, we have to grant them the right to make their own artistic decisions—provided they don’t directly hurt anyone else, of course—and react accordingly. We have to understand that though they are public figures who may figure into the aspirations of countless others, they are also human beings, and the most important response to their actions is careful deliberation about the issues raised, not instantaneous (and condescending) condemnation that eliminates their perspective altogether.’

‘I don't want to come across as rockist, but this matters. And to pretend otherwise, and try to cover it up with dance steps and glow sticks and an uncomfortable, kind-of-almost-but-not-really mash-up between Deadmau5 and Foo Fighters, is to treat dance music as just another fad to be chewed up by Big Entertainment and bottled up like a noxious pot of 5-Hour Energy.’

‘Once upon a time, dance pop was about self-affirmation, and the thing being affirmed was usually some sort of identity—ethnicity, gender, sometimes class, and maybe even sexuality. The Nicki generation seizes a whole new subject for pop: not who you are and how you made it, but the meaning and experience of celebrity once you have it. In place of identity, these prima donnas are performing fame. And doing it with what you might even call “taste”: an idiosyncratic aesthetic vision for everyday life, one that has nothing to do with where they’ve been and everything to do with synthetic aspiration. Minaj isn’t being inauthentic about celebrity—celebrity is the most authentic thing about her.’