Never Post Charts & Leisure

Mike chats with EX Research about their new report which goes deep on Roblox, the massively multiplayer online game played by HALF of all American teenagers. Georgia takes a look at Love Island UK – as many people have over the last few weeks – and asks why so much of that looking is preoccupied with plastic surgery. Also: the sound of touching grass.

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Intro Links
War Thunder does it again, this time with classified documents relating to 3 Russian tanks, cyberdaily.auIt’s happening again: War Thunder players continue to leak classified military documents, dotesports.comCommission sends preliminary findings to X for breach of the Digital Services Act, europa.euMusk says EU wanted “secret deal” to “censor free speech” after fine threat, msn.comChasing YouTube, Spotify adds comments to podcasts, techcrunch.comAn Illinois law requires parents to give 15% of earnings to children who star in their videos, tubefilter.com–
Once Day, We’ll All Be In There
What’s the deal with Roblox? An EX Special Report – exresearch.co
Roblox fruit jumpscares, x.comThis Brokkhaven Roleplay In ROBLOX Be Weird…, tiktok.comPretending to be a spying christmas tree in roblox, youtube.comROBLOX DOORS BUT IT'S ME, youtube.comRoblox is down.., youtube.comROBLOX DIFFICULTY CHART, youtube.comThe nuggets gonna get ya, tiktok.comThe Strange Origins of "Old ROBLOX Music", youtube.com–
Love Island Face
https://www.tiktok.com/@jackmacbarstool/video/7379780711802309930https://www.tiktok.com/@barrettplasticsurgery/video/7380161281510231326https://www.tiktok.com/@anniereneau3/video/7205726511478115630https://www.tiktok.com/@boldglamour/video/7206238027528637742https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb6CKuD1GTkhttps://www.tiktok.com/@drgarynyc/video/7384530805407829294–
Never Post’s producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton and The Mysterious Dr. Firstname Lastname. Our senior producer is Hans Buetow. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholtzer. The show’s host is Mike Rugnetta. 
What can I tell you? It was a summer that seemed to be
making history — their personal history — almost before
it began, and they stood back slightly, still in it, but
observing it, saying “the summer this,” “the summer that,”
all the while it was going on. They became obsessed with
a fountain, for example, one they walked past each day,
how abundantly it would reach upwards and yet be pouring
back down itself the whole time — all winter this fountain
had been dry, not saying a word. What more can I tell you?
Oh, everything…

Excerpt of No Name by Emily Berry

Never Post is a production of Charts & Leisure


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Mike talks with unsung internet pillar DylanPDX, steward of vxTwitter and others, who single-handedly does what Big Social doesn’t want - keeping your embeds working. Senior producer Hans gets the ambrosia from Tallulah Trezevant, an antiquities scholar who ran an experiment to see how fast she would get flushed down the alt-right pipeline when expressing an interest in ancient history online. Also! Some of your favorite hidden corners of the internet.

Show Notes:

Become a Never Post member at https://www.neverpo.st/
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Call us at 651 615 5007 to leave a voice mailDrop us a voice memo via airtableOr email us at theneverpost at gmail dot comSee what interstitials we need submissions for–
Intro Links
Canada demands 5% of revenue from Netflix, Spotify, and other streamers -- Ars TechnicaThe Spotify conspiracy theories about “Espresso,” explained -- VoxMTV News Website Goes Dark, Archives Pulled Offline -- VarietyParamount Axes Comedy Central Site, 25+ Years of Daily Show Clips Gone -- LateNighterWhy Major Labels Are Suing AI Music Startups Udio and Suno For Mass Copyright Infringement -- ForbesSuccor borne every minute -- FTC–
vxTwitter with Dylan
Find Dylan:
GitHubTwitterKo-fi–
Antiquity to Alt-Right Pipeline, with Tallulah Trezevant
Find Tallulah:
The Antiquity to Alt-Right Pipeline -- workingclassicists.comOther Sources of hope in Antiquity:
Dan-el Padilla PeraltaSarah DebrewKy Merkley–
Favorite Corners of the Internet
Rad Pro CalculatorSerebiiSporcle Geography Quizzescrouton.netThe Academic Family Tree–

Never Post’s producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton and The Mysterious Dr. Firstname Lastname. Our senior producer is Hans Buetow. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholtzer. The show’s host is Mike Rugnetta. 
So much of any year is flammable,lists of vegetables, partial poems.Orange swirling flame of days,so little is a stone.
Excerpt of “Burning the Old Year” by Naomi Shihab Nye

Never Post is a production of Charts & Leisure


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An episode-long staff round-table about music library management with special guest Meghal Janardan.
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Become a Never Post member at https://www.neverpo.st/
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Call us at 651 615 5007 to leave a voice mailDrop us a voice memo via airtableOr email us at theneverpost at gmail dot comSee what interstitials we need submissions for–
Never Post’s producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton and The Mysterious Dr. Firstname Lastname. Our senior producer is Hans Buetow. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholtzer. The show’s host is Mike Rugnetta. 
Never Post is a production of Charts & Leisure


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We respond to you!

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LINKS!

Angelmamii7 in LimeranceBurnt toast about burnt toast HEADPHONE USERS BEWARE–

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Moss’ Email

​​Hi Never Post!

My name is Moss (she/her) and I am trans.

Your recent segment on before and after pics got me thinking about the particular variety of before and afters that are shared online in the trans community. I think that this became a lot more visible to me after being witness to the early chaos of unconstrained trans horniness and wild openness in the early formation of Bluesky last year, which is a whole fascinating bit of platform ecosystem history, especially seeing how much Bluesky has leveled out into something much more "presentable" and twitter-like now that it's operating at scale—but I digress.

On sites like Twitter and Bluesky (and surely elsewhere...) there is an established trend of trans beings (queer beings) sharing before and after pictures of themselves. These are occasioned by trans holidays, like Transgender Day of Visibility, by personal events like transition anniversaries, and by quote chains of such pics (not to mention special occasions of steps taken towards transition). I think it's important to mention these not only as a queer phenomenon, but as something that illuminates how before and afters work for everyone in a variety of situations (as is the case with many things related to transness—it's not [only] about being trans: it's about living more freely). The trans case highlights a few aspects that I want to explore here:

1) The pics, by virtue of being in a trans discourse, would seem to point to something deeper about how life is structured—an identity, a gender—rather than merely an aspect of life—weight, appearance, dwelling, &c.—not of course that identity and gender are not merely aspects of life nor that what seem to be mere aspects are not structuring, but thinking about the weight these are given culturally. What does it mean to see one photo and then another and think, and be encouraged to think by the poster, to see the second as more in line with their gender, as "more woman," "more animal," "more thing," "more man," "more..."? But perhaps above all "MORE THEMSELF." I think we can reasonably be quite ambivalent about this: as your segment points out, the after of the before and after is actually a changing state, and that perhaps it's harmful to over-fix (and that it might fix norms that should be taken as fluid and contextual), but, on the other hand, the fixing function of the before and after photo may be precisely the point for the trans poster—a trans performance to reinforce self. We might further ask, what is visible and what is invisible about transition—does the before and after pic over-reinforce the visible (and how does it then interact with the endless discourse of "passing")? There is also of course a great potential for rupture with norms with queer people—the after often completely rejects standard norms (but then is it rejection or creation...? and so on and so on and so on).

2) The before pic is possibly quite contentious for trans beings, when it is understood to be a pre-transition pic (and not say, both before and after being after the start of transition). This is because there are a ton of frameworks for understanding what one was before transition, and—rightfully—everyone has a different approach: Shall I define myself in opposition to my past? Shall I cut the past off and build myself in the now? Should my transition be understood as an attempt to work with my past, to heal my past, and to continue what is good from it? Is transition not at all a dividing line between me and my past—is it simply an event in a continuous life? Is transition not an event but a conti

Georgia chats with Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter Hilke Schellmann about the job market, and the increasing prevalence of Artificial Intelligence in hiring. Mike talks with comedian, writer and podcast host Jamie Loftus about her show Sixteenth Minute (of Fame), and the curse of becoming an Internet Main Character. Also! Every YouTube video the team watched in the last two weeks.

Show Notes:

Become a Never Post member at https://www.neverpo.st/
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Call us at 651 615 5007 to leave a voice mailDrop us a voice memo via airtableOr email us at theneverpost at gmail dot comSee what interstitials we need submissions for–
Intro Links
Google Cut Back AI Overviews in Search Even Before Its ‘Pizza Glue’ Fiasco –  WIREDIkea is hiring UK workers for its new store in Roblox – EurogamerHow 7 Brands Are Engaging Gen Zers with Roblox Experiences – ObsessarNebula Strikes Deal With Spotify to Stream Video Content (EXCLUSIVE) – VarietySpotify demonetises all tracks under 1,000 streams – MusictechSpotify Announces New Price Increases for Premium Plans – Yahoo TechSpotify raising prices by up to $3 as frustrated subs beg it to “just do music” – Ars TechnicaA New Lawsuit Accuses Spotify of Cheating Songwriters Out of Royalties – TimeWe'll Miss You: Pioneering instant messaging program ICQ is finally shutting down after nearly 30 years – PC GamerInternet Sleuths Finally Find Origin of 'The Backrooms' Creepypasta Image – 404 MediaBackrooms Research Doc–
Why Is It (Hiring) Like This? with Hilke Schellmann
Find Hilke:
hilkeschellmann.comThe Algorithm: How AI Can Hijack Your Career and Steal Your FutureOther Sources:
OpenAI GPT Sorts Resume Names With Racial Bias, Test Shows – BloombergAI Bias In Recruitment: Ethical Implications And Transparency – ForbesAI in Hiring and Evaluating Workers: What Americans Think – PewAI hiring tools may be filtering out the best job applicants – BBC–
Main Characters, with Jamie Loftus
Find Jamie:
Sixteenth Minute (of Fame)jamieloftus.xyzInstagramTwitter–
Never Post’s producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton and The Mysterious Dr. Firstname Lastname. Our senior producer is Hans Buetow. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholtzer. The show’s host is Mike Rugnetta. 
Others were more economical than I, but I
had my red marble. I had action
figures weighing down the drapes
on tiny threads. That twisted, and got smaller.
One door led
to a more economical room
Perhaps a more economical view. The girl
across the hall was the same girl

Except, “Persuasion” by Joyelle McSweeney

Never Post is a production of Charts & Leisure


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Georgia digs deep into the enshittification of dating apps, and pays dearly as a result. Mike talks to Aftermath co-founder Luke Plunkett about recent, massive changes to Google’s Page Rank algorithm, and the risk of reconfiguring entire industries to pander to search traffic. And also: An AI Voice Clone of Mike is set to *maximum chaos*. 

Show Notes:

Become a Never Post member at https://www.neverpo.st/

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Call us at 651 615 5007 to leave a voice mailDrop us a voice memo via airtableOr email us at theneverpost at gmail dot comSee what interstitials we need submissions for–
Intro Links
Belle Delphine earned over $90K selling jars of her bathwater in 2019. PayPal only released her money this week – Katie Notopulous, Business InsiderSlack has been using data from your chats to train its machine learning models – Will Shanklin, EngadgetIt’s the End of Google Search As We Know It – Lauren Goode, WIREDUber and Lyft agree to deal with state lawmakers on minimum pay rates for drivers – Max Nesterak, Minnesota ReformerIGN Entertainment acquires Eurogamer, GI, VG247, Rock Paper Shotgun and more –  Christopher Dring, gameindustry.bizIGN buys Eurogamer, VG247, and Rock Paper Shotgun – layoffs have already started – Game Central, Metro.co.ukNever Post at XOXO 2024 12 Best Podcasts of 2024 (So Far) – Lauren Passell, Lifehacker Mike on Blocked Party–
Dating Apps (derogatory)
Dating Apps: The Uncertainty of Marketised Lovehttps://www.tiktok.com/@officialbrept/video/7028325781537393925?_t=8lrDLmaKbTa&_r=1https://www.tiktok.com/@hannahgraser/video/7117094997484309806?_r=1&_t=8ly4uYqQrPDhttps://www.tiktok.com/@harmonythread/video/7262952885158235435?_t=8lwOVY3O0LP&_r=1https://www.tiktok.com/@hannahgraser/video/7125991346489314603?_t=8lwOSDK1l3H&_r=1https://www.tiktok.com/@jordanzhang13/video/7036251495951535366?_t=8m88ojNTm3y&_r=1–
Google Scruples
Find Luke at Aftermath.siteGoogle Kneecaps Loads Of Very Big Websites After SEO ChangeWorkers At The Gamurs Group Of Video Game Websites Describe It As ‘Hell’The Perfect Webpage: How the internet reshaped itself around Google’s search algorithms –
Never Post’s producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton and The Mysterious Dr. Firstname Lastname. Our senior producer is Hans Buetow. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholtzer. The show’s host is Mike Rugnetta. 
Foot, how you press
 me to keep that
 old contact alive
the repeated daily sentiment
 of pace so
 grim, always that
untrusting silence

untitled, by JH Prynne, from The White Stones

Never Post is a production of Charts & Leisure


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