Nick Seaver
LightNews LightNews
nickseaver.website
Nick Seaver
@nickseaver.website
5.9K followers 980 following 2.4K posts
anthropology, algorithms, attention | he/him | The conversation is characterized by Nick's use of language, but the content of the discussion remains unknown.
Posts Replies Media Videos
nickseaver.website
if I’m going to give multiple choice in intro to STS, might as well lean in to the absurdity
6. Do artifacts have polities? (a) Yes. (b) No. Explain your answer:
November 14, 2025 at 8:59 PM
nickseaver.website
Bruno Latour looks disagreeable
November 14, 2025 at 12:13 AM
nickseaver.website
lev manovich laser eyes
The cover of Lev Manovich’s THE LANGUAGE OF NEW MEDIA
November 13, 2025 at 12:38 PM
nickseaver.website
was searching to confirm this and in the process found this lovely reddit reply under a deleted comment
Pax_et_Bonum MOD - 10mo ago Sedevacantist rhetoric is not allowed in this subreddit. 3 upvotes
November 12, 2025 at 9:05 PM
nickseaver.website
👀 the 👀 politics 👀 of 👀 attention 👀
Democrats claimed that the sheer volume of the release on Wednesday was intended to disorient, and to distract attention from their revelations about Mr. Trump's actions during the time he and Mr. Epstein were close.
November 12, 2025 at 7:22 PM
nickseaver.website
students asking the pressing questions after last week’s discussion of manosphere discourse and attention
is being straight gay
November 10, 2025 at 4:11 PM
nickseaver.website
What am I in for
the cover of YOUR NAME HERE, which reads: The book isona table in the bookstore, part of a 3-for-2 offer: You've also been meaning to read Seymour Hersh's Chain of Command, and this too is in the 3-for-2 deal. They've got Gravity's Rainbow by the notorious recluse Thomas Pynchon. Mao I/ by DeLillo, The Border Trilogy by McCarthy, The Catcher in the Rye by Salinger, notorious recluses to a man. They've got The Loser, a novel about the notorious recluse Glenn Gould by the notorious misanthrope Thomas Bernhard. They've got Lotteryland by the notorious recluse misanthrope Zozanian. You feel surly and uncommunicative, you hate your fellow man, reclusiveness and misanthropy could be the hair of the dog. They vealso got Helen DeWitt and Ilya Gridneff's new book, YOUR NAME HERE
November 9, 2025 at 4:32 PM
nickseaver.website
they got the Godzilla pbr
a beer can with Godzilla art
November 8, 2025 at 6:55 PM
nickseaver.website
let’s gooo
a ticket for godzillathon held up in front of a red curtain
November 8, 2025 at 6:45 PM
nickseaver.website
godzillathon fit
a sweatshirt with Totoro crashing through a bridge like Godzilla
November 8, 2025 at 6:33 PM
nickseaver.website
wata is still the coolest
a woman with long black hair in a pink jumpsuit shredding on guitar; it’s Wata, the lead guitarist from the band Boris
November 6, 2025 at 4:34 AM
nickseaver.website
Whoa, “When Prophecy Fails” debunked? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
ABSTRACT In 1954, Dorothy Martin predicted an apocalyptic flood and promised her followers rescue by flying saucers. When neither arrived, she recanted, her group dissolved, and efforts to proselytize ceased. But When Prophecy Fails (1956), the now-canonical account of the event, claimed the opposite: that the group doubled down on its beliefs and began recruiting-evidence, the authors argued, of a new psychological mechanism, cognitive dissonance. Drawing on newly unsealed archival material, this article demonstrates that the book's central claims are false, and that the authors knew they were false. The documents reveal that the group actively proselytized well before the prophecy failed and quickly abandoned their beliefs afterward. They also expose serious ethical violations by the researchers, including fabricated psychic messages, covert manipulation, and interference in a child welfare investigation. One coauthor, Henry Ricken, posed as a spiritual authority and later admitted he had "precipitated" the climactic events of the study.
November 5, 2025 at 10:57 AM
nickseaver.website
twice as many stars as usual
a two headed dinosaur plush toy on the sidewalk at night
November 5, 2025 at 12:12 AM
nickseaver.website
this figure from the Sianne Ngai essay on cuteness is iconic
A frog face sponge, then the same sponge getting smushed by a hand
November 1, 2025 at 10:16 PM
nickseaver.website
down, mothra!
a greyhound dressed like mothra jumping up on a woman wearing a skeleton-print dress
October 31, 2025 at 2:14 PM
nickseaver.website
two greyhounds dressed like Mothra and Godzilla Godzilla fighting mothra
October 31, 2025 at 12:30 PM
nickseaver.website
next week is manosphere week in the attention seminar, should be a doozy
Week 10 (November 4): The Manosphere Online influencers trying to build audiences of men have a lot to say about attention. How do their ideas about what it means to be a man and the value of attention relate to the ideologies of attention we’ve discussed so far? [Note that some of the material for today discusses and presents rank misogyny and sexually explicit text; our goal for the day is to think about how discourses of attentional control travel. Listen for resonances with last week.] Taylor, Kris, and Sue Jackson. 2018. “‘I Want That Power Back’: Discourses of Masculinity within an Online Pornography Abstinence Forum.” Sexualities 21 (4): 621–39. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460717740248. Hartmann, Marlene. 2021. “The Totalizing Meritocracy of Heterosex: Subjectivity in NoFap.” Sexualities 24 (3): 409–30. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460720932387. James, Robin. 2025. “We're Through Being Cool: Techbros, Manosphere Influencers, Ancient Greek Masculinity, and AI.” It’s Her Factory, August 7. https://www.its-her-factory.com/2025/08/were-through-being-cool-techbros-manosphere-influencers-ancient-greek-masculinity-and-ai/. I’ve gathered some examples of attention-specific manosphere content from YouTube. You don’t have to watch all of it, but I suggest browsing through to familiarize yourself with common tropes, if you haven’t encountered them already. You’re welcome to look around to other sources you’ve heard of online to bring examples to class. I suggest using incognito mode—recommender systems love this stuff: Andrew Tate on Giving Too Much Attention to Women [3:05] STOP Looking At Women [17:47; especially toward the end] Feminine Men Are Desperate For Attention [0:53] Female Attraction When You Retain [15:04] Attention Addicts Are Drawn To You On Semen Retention [11:32] Stay Focused! #semenretention [0:11]
October 29, 2025 at 9:08 PM
nickseaver.website
Linkedin says that Hiring Trends for Associate Professor roles are up 3% Disco Stu points at a chart showing the unstoppable rise of disco record sales on the Simpsons—what could go wrong?
October 28, 2025 at 8:43 PM
nickseaver.website
😺
1n92919 autechre will perform in darkness. For their set all lights in the venue will be off. Please plan on being in one place for the performance and do not move unnecessarily until it has finished when the lights will come back on again. Please do not shine any lights at the stage or around the room during the performance unless you require assistance. In case of emergency lights will come on and staff will be there to assist you to leave the venue. If you need to leave for any reason during the show please use your mobile phone to light your way. If you are in need of assistance please turn on your phone's light and wave above your head. Security will come to you and help. If you are uncomfortable with the idea of spending around 80 minutes in the dark while Autechre play, please see venue staff before the performance starts. Venue security will be in place for your safety and monitoring the audience as at any normal show. Absolutely no recording or flash photography please. Thank you
October 27, 2025 at 11:16 PM
nickseaver.website
walked by the perfect gift for my delegation lecture on the way to class
a fence that discourages passage by means of a lock, barbed wire, and a sign that says DANGER HIGH VOLTAGE KEEP OUT PELIGRO ALTO VOLTAE MANTENGASE ALEJADO
October 27, 2025 at 8:34 PM
nickseaver.website
don’t worry
two handsome greyhounds out on an autumn nighttime walk
October 24, 2025 at 1:09 AM
nickseaver.website
hey, is there someone you forgot to take for a walk
a gray greyhound getting blurry right up to the camera a brown greyhound getting blurry right up to the camera
October 24, 2025 at 12:23 AM
nickseaver.website
excellent board leftovers from the class before mine
it’s a multicolored lattice-like thing, with lots of angles and labels
October 22, 2025 at 9:25 PM
nickseaver.website
okay
a youtube ad that says "Pray with Gwen Stefani"
October 20, 2025 at 6:17 PM
nickseaver.website
a painting of the library of alexandria on fire
October 20, 2025 at 4:27 PM