Adrienne Massanari
@adriennemassanari.bsky.social
Assoc Prof@AmerU (views mine). New book: Gaming Democracy (MIT Press). Researches digital cultures, platform politics, games, etc. Wrote that one thing about Reddit that one time (okay several things). I will always want to see your pets.
She/her/hers.
She/her/hers.
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Gaming Democracy
How play and gaming culture have mainstreamed far right ideology through social media platforms.From #Gamergate to the ongoing Big Lie, the far right has gon...
mitpress.mit.edu
My new book from @mitpress.bsky.social, Gaming Democracy: How Silicon Valley Leveled Up the Far Right, is out today! The book explores how play and gaming culture have mainstreamed far right ideology through social media platforms. #digitalculture #games #politics #platforms
Reposted by Adrienne Massanari
TX Tech has a flow chat for guidance on what can be taught in the university system. Two things:
1. Very little content seems to be permitted. This is partisan control of the curriculum.
2. I would not enjoy teaching under these conditions, but I really would not want to be a Chair or Dean.
1. Very little content seems to be permitted. This is partisan control of the curriculum.
2. I would not enjoy teaching under these conditions, but I really would not want to be a Chair or Dean.
December 1, 2025 at 10:55 PM
TX Tech has a flow chat for guidance on what can be taught in the university system. Two things:
1. Very little content seems to be permitted. This is partisan control of the curriculum.
2. I would not enjoy teaching under these conditions, but I really would not want to be a Chair or Dean.
1. Very little content seems to be permitted. This is partisan control of the curriculum.
2. I would not enjoy teaching under these conditions, but I really would not want to be a Chair or Dean.
Reposted by Adrienne Massanari
The purpose of US liberal education is to strip figures like Parks of all of their radical edges and make them caricatures. Parks is portrayed as a frail, tired woman who just wanted to sit down. Just like Harriet Tubman is portrayed as simply a helpful caretaker.
6) Rosa Parks wasn't meek. A lifelong believer in self defense, her politics were expansive. She loved Martin & Malcolm & Stokely, Ella Baker & Queen Mother Moore, fought for reparations, Black history in every curriculum, prisoner defense, welfare rights—"any move to show we are dissatisfied."
December 1, 2025 at 4:06 PM
The purpose of US liberal education is to strip figures like Parks of all of their radical edges and make them caricatures. Parks is portrayed as a frail, tired woman who just wanted to sit down. Just like Harriet Tubman is portrayed as simply a helpful caretaker.
I used to think, “I hate this job. I’m going to get a different bad job.” And then I would hate that job. Finally, I realised, and this is the truth – “Fran, you just don’t like to work”. I would have been a fantastic heiress.
Fran Lebowitz: ‘Hiking is the most stupid thing I could ever imagine’
The US author and orator on leaf blowers and Labubus, the weirdest thing she has done for love and struggling with contemporary novels
www.theguardian.com
December 1, 2025 at 1:16 PM
I used to think, “I hate this job. I’m going to get a different bad job.” And then I would hate that job. Finally, I realised, and this is the truth – “Fran, you just don’t like to work”. I would have been a fantastic heiress.
The abstract and distanced way the author discusses gen AI in this piece as if it's something he's not directly working to create is just 🤯. Once again, it's somehow everyone else's problem to fix a technology no one actually asked for or wants. This inevitability discourse has got to stop.
Opinion | How to Prepare Your Kids for the A.I. Revolution
www.nytimes.com
December 1, 2025 at 12:42 PM
The abstract and distanced way the author discusses gen AI in this piece as if it's something he's not directly working to create is just 🤯. Once again, it's somehow everyone else's problem to fix a technology no one actually asked for or wants. This inevitability discourse has got to stop.
Reposted by Adrienne Massanari
An issue we're seeing at all levels of university is that many students are simply refusing to do *anything*. They aren't reading the syllabus, aren't following assignment guidelines, aren't engaging with material, ignoring deadlines. And this might seem like old news, but it truly has ramped up.
November 28, 2025 at 10:15 PM
An issue we're seeing at all levels of university is that many students are simply refusing to do *anything*. They aren't reading the syllabus, aren't following assignment guidelines, aren't engaging with material, ignoring deadlines. And this might seem like old news, but it truly has ramped up.
“‘AI’ is being used as a magic word that is code for less worker power, hoarding of more resources, and making an uninformed gamble on high energy demand computer chips magically saving us from climate change...”
More than 1,000 Amazon workers warn rapid AI rollout threatens jobs and climate
Workers say the firm’s ‘warp-speed’ approach fuels pressure, layoffs and rising emissions
www.theguardian.com
November 28, 2025 at 8:39 PM
“‘AI’ is being used as a magic word that is code for less worker power, hoarding of more resources, and making an uninformed gamble on high energy demand computer chips magically saving us from climate change...”
Reposted by Adrienne Massanari
There are many more bad tech products to avoid. But I keep coming back to @hypervisible.blacksky.app and David Golumbia’s concept of luxury surveillance.
We need to really think about the surveillance tech we’re adopting — and certainly that we’re pushing on others.
disconnect.blog/a-tech-criti...
We need to really think about the surveillance tech we’re adopting — and certainly that we’re pushing on others.
disconnect.blog/a-tech-criti...
November 25, 2025 at 5:33 PM
There are many more bad tech products to avoid. But I keep coming back to @hypervisible.blacksky.app and David Golumbia’s concept of luxury surveillance.
We need to really think about the surveillance tech we’re adopting — and certainly that we’re pushing on others.
disconnect.blog/a-tech-criti...
We need to really think about the surveillance tech we’re adopting — and certainly that we’re pushing on others.
disconnect.blog/a-tech-criti...
Reposted by Adrienne Massanari
THREAD.
3 years ago, with no warning, a brilliant orange farm cat wandered over from the draughty barn where he had been living, in rural Cornwall, and decided he wanted to live with us instead.
We decided to call him Jim.
This is the first photo I took of him, on that night: December 1st, 2022.
3 years ago, with no warning, a brilliant orange farm cat wandered over from the draughty barn where he had been living, in rural Cornwall, and decided he wanted to live with us instead.
We decided to call him Jim.
This is the first photo I took of him, on that night: December 1st, 2022.
November 26, 2025 at 8:44 PM
THREAD.
3 years ago, with no warning, a brilliant orange farm cat wandered over from the draughty barn where he had been living, in rural Cornwall, and decided he wanted to live with us instead.
We decided to call him Jim.
This is the first photo I took of him, on that night: December 1st, 2022.
3 years ago, with no warning, a brilliant orange farm cat wandered over from the draughty barn where he had been living, in rural Cornwall, and decided he wanted to live with us instead.
We decided to call him Jim.
This is the first photo I took of him, on that night: December 1st, 2022.
Reposted by Adrienne Massanari
my jaw is on the floor and yet im completely unsurprised. trump’s only political conviction is that he loves a handsome winner
A reporter asks if Mamdani stands by calling Trump a fascist. Mamdani starts to give a delicate answer.
Trump (smiles, pats Mamdani's arm): "That's OK, you can just say yes. It's easier. I don't mind."
Trump (smiles, pats Mamdani's arm): "That's OK, you can just say yes. It's easier. I don't mind."
November 21, 2025 at 8:58 PM
my jaw is on the floor and yet im completely unsurprised. trump’s only political conviction is that he loves a handsome winner
Reposted by Adrienne Massanari
Trump frickin' loves this guy lmao
November 21, 2025 at 9:04 PM
Trump frickin' loves this guy lmao
Every faculty member is at least two of the animals on this chart. #academicsky #acasky
November 20, 2025 at 12:30 AM
Every faculty member is at least two of the animals on this chart. #academicsky #acasky
Reposted by Adrienne Massanari
I know that at this point it's a subplot in the Epstein files drama, but I feel compelled to point out, once again, that Larry Summers HAS NO BUSINESS teaching students at ANY university ever again!
My latest cries into the abyss, in @thenation.com
www.thenation.com/article/soci...
My latest cries into the abyss, in @thenation.com
www.thenation.com/article/soci...
Why Is Larry Summers Still Employed?
The revelations about the economist’s attempts to pressure a women into a “relationship”—with guidance from Jeffrey Epstein—should finally disqualify him from teaching students.
www.thenation.com
November 19, 2025 at 4:24 PM
I know that at this point it's a subplot in the Epstein files drama, but I feel compelled to point out, once again, that Larry Summers HAS NO BUSINESS teaching students at ANY university ever again!
My latest cries into the abyss, in @thenation.com
www.thenation.com/article/soci...
My latest cries into the abyss, in @thenation.com
www.thenation.com/article/soci...
Reposted by Adrienne Massanari
Academia is a really racist and sexist place. Larry Summers, as the president of Harvard, epitomized that racism and sexism but he is not unique. That's why we needed DEI.
November 18, 2025 at 3:48 PM
Academia is a really racist and sexist place. Larry Summers, as the president of Harvard, epitomized that racism and sexism but he is not unique. That's why we needed DEI.
And they were never really "liberal" to begin with. The roots of SV have been wedded to libertarianism and eugenics since the beginning.
November 19, 2025 at 1:08 AM
And they were never really "liberal" to begin with. The roots of SV have been wedded to libertarianism and eugenics since the beginning.
I mean, I like therapy dogs and all too, but maybe we could just not have the National Guard deployed in perpetuity? Just spitballing here. #freedc
National Guard brings in therapy dogs for deployed troops in DC
The goal of the event was to help boost morale and provide comfort and support, according to the National Guard.
www.wusa9.com
November 18, 2025 at 4:31 PM
I mean, I like therapy dogs and all too, but maybe we could just not have the National Guard deployed in perpetuity? Just spitballing here. #freedc
Everything about this thread rings true. I'm so sad that our universities collectively agreed to just throw all of this tech at students because something something "digital natives" (the evergreen trope that won't die) and have basically abdicated their responsibility to actual education.
Finally got to the "I want to burn it all down" portion of the gen AI-era semester, where I realize they're all using some sort of LLM to "help" organize their thoughts and it's just spitting out raw sewage onto the screen.
November 18, 2025 at 12:31 PM
Everything about this thread rings true. I'm so sad that our universities collectively agreed to just throw all of this tech at students because something something "digital natives" (the evergreen trope that won't die) and have basically abdicated their responsibility to actual education.
Reposted by Adrienne Massanari
Nobody who should fuck off actually fucks off anymore. We're stuck with all these fucking people.
November 18, 2025 at 11:30 AM
Nobody who should fuck off actually fucks off anymore. We're stuck with all these fucking people.
Reposted by Adrienne Massanari
THIS IS BIG
For non-academics who might not understand why:
1. Sen. Warren is still a Harvard professor so this is a call coming from inside the house
2. As a tenured law prof, Warren knows it is a VERY big deal from a labor standpoint to call on Harvard to ignore tenure. The bar for this is HIGH.
For non-academics who might not understand why:
1. Sen. Warren is still a Harvard professor so this is a call coming from inside the house
2. As a tenured law prof, Warren knows it is a VERY big deal from a labor standpoint to call on Harvard to ignore tenure. The bar for this is HIGH.
Per CNN, Elizabeth Warren is calling on Harvard to cut ties with Larry Summers after Jeffrey Epstein's emails released last week by House Dems featured Summers making sexist comments + asking for Epstein’s romantic advice.
November 18, 2025 at 12:43 AM
THIS IS BIG
For non-academics who might not understand why:
1. Sen. Warren is still a Harvard professor so this is a call coming from inside the house
2. As a tenured law prof, Warren knows it is a VERY big deal from a labor standpoint to call on Harvard to ignore tenure. The bar for this is HIGH.
For non-academics who might not understand why:
1. Sen. Warren is still a Harvard professor so this is a call coming from inside the house
2. As a tenured law prof, Warren knows it is a VERY big deal from a labor standpoint to call on Harvard to ignore tenure. The bar for this is HIGH.
Reposted by Adrienne Massanari
we need a department of kerning
November 13, 2025 at 2:54 AM
we need a department of kerning
Reposted by Adrienne Massanari
What an excellent article: “Its goal isn’t to help you discover new music, its goal is simply to keep you listening for as long as possible. It serves up the safest songs possible to keep you from pressing stop.”
www.theverge.com/column/81574...
www.theverge.com/column/81574...
The algorithm failed music
True music discovery has suffered.
www.theverge.com
November 14, 2025 at 8:30 PM
What an excellent article: “Its goal isn’t to help you discover new music, its goal is simply to keep you listening for as long as possible. It serves up the safest songs possible to keep you from pressing stop.”
www.theverge.com/column/81574...
www.theverge.com/column/81574...
Reposted by Adrienne Massanari
thinking about how i get anxious writing emails because i don't want to sound like a moron while larry summers is apparently typing emails like this:
u kno she dint want to talk tomorrow. make me bad pheel.
u kno she dint want to talk tomorrow. make me bad pheel.
November 13, 2025 at 1:38 AM
thinking about how i get anxious writing emails because i don't want to sound like a moron while larry summers is apparently typing emails like this:
u kno she dint want to talk tomorrow. make me bad pheel.
u kno she dint want to talk tomorrow. make me bad pheel.
Reposted by Adrienne Massanari
November 12, 2025 at 3:29 AM
Reposted by Adrienne Massanari
Two-thirds of Democrats say their own party makes them feel frustrated. By far the most commonly cited reason is that the party is not pushing back hard enough against Trump. www.pewresearch.org/politics/202...
November 10, 2025 at 2:11 PM
Two-thirds of Democrats say their own party makes them feel frustrated. By far the most commonly cited reason is that the party is not pushing back hard enough against Trump. www.pewresearch.org/politics/202...
My students yesterday said that all of their profs should ban gen AI use and insist on in-class, blue book exams/papers. Meanwhile, our entire business school redesigned its curriculum to integrate AI into every class. A nightmare all around.
me at the end of class: here's a little speculative exercises; imagine you wake up from cryosleep in 2085. what's the kind of tech-society r/ship you'd like to see around you?
students: no AI
I honestly think students' views are missing from the 'should AI be integrated in classrooms' discussion
students: no AI
I honestly think students' views are missing from the 'should AI be integrated in classrooms' discussion
November 7, 2025 at 12:29 PM
My students yesterday said that all of their profs should ban gen AI use and insist on in-class, blue book exams/papers. Meanwhile, our entire business school redesigned its curriculum to integrate AI into every class. A nightmare all around.