Without the ability and inclination to read deeply, we lose foundational capacities to understand issues, weigh facts, debate respectfully, empathise with different views, separate truth from falsehood, and engage intellectually with media www.joanwestenberg.com/the-death…

you can overanalyze transphobia all you want—“is it fear? is it insecurity? is it x, y, or z” sure, knock yourself out. but 80% of the time, it’s just raw, unfiltered dumbfuckassholery. no need for a ted talk.

Can’t believe JD Vance spent 2 years auditioning for the “fascist boy band” gig and still got cut in favor of Musk, who just hummed the PayPal theme song into the mic

We have to consciously apply critical reading skills to modern media instead of reacting reflexively Read more 👉 www.joanwestenberg.com/the-death…

I find it disturbing that we have created a culture that praises pessimism and laughs at optimism.

friendly reminder that while technology evolves, human nature doesn’t

All of this hinges on “Bayesian updating”: you start with an initial probability, or “prior,” based on what you believe about the world, then adjust that belief as new data comes to light. www.joanwestenberg.com/why-non-f…

Is Cultural Technical Debt Sabotaging Our Survival? www.joanwestenberg.com/is-cultur…

it’s reassuring to know that the most vocal leftist influencers are laser-focused on the greatest challenge of our time: the size of their audience on bluesky

We have to actively choose not to share, to resist the temptation to post, to keep our thoughts and experiences to ourselves. www.joanwestenberg.com/the-art-o…

my roommate michael moore keeps calling our shitty vacuum “a metaphor for the broken promise of Detroit.” no, michael, it’s just clogged with your hair. please clean it

When I look at how I’ve been able to grow my network, to grow my audience, to write for publications from Wired to the SF Chronicle, the act of showing up regularly is what has always made the difference. Read more 👉 www.joanwestenberg.com/just-show…

Something deeply fucking annoying about accounts with literally tens of thousands of followers complaining that they don’t get enough engagement and attention while some creators are struggling to get over 100 followers while pouring their heart and soul into their work.

For all my cynicism and shitposts, I’m actually a radical optimist—I just think we have to burn through the illusions before we can build what’s real. But it’s broadly choosing optimism that allows me to write / create / think etc.

sucking up to the media elite is just competitive beige-ness. I’ll stick with the weirdos dismantling the machine while they’re busy polishing the gears.

my feed is 90% people talking about the collapse of civilization and then suddenly it’s “stop sleeping on these 10 branding hacks” mate we’ll all be sleeping the deep sleep soon enough but keep up the good work

Why ‘Non-Frequentist Probabilities’ Are Gaining Ground www.joanwestenberg.com/why-non-f…

Can we “refactor” our cultural operating system without erasing the very essence of what makes us human? www.joanwestenberg.com/is-cultur…

We’ve reached a point where it’s not about left vs. right, it’s about truth vs. manufactured reality. If you don’t choose wisely, you’re becoming a pawn in someone else’s game.

someone said “you’re quiet, but i can tell you’re observing everything.” no, i’m not. i’m just dissociating so hard that I legally ceased to exist for three minutes.

Me: I will fuck you up A large bowl of potato salad: oh shit

I miss vine and before you go there no TikTok ain’t no vine

every day i wake up and try to channel the raw, unhinged energy of Blücher demanding to be called “Marshal Forward” while actively hallucinating that he was pregnant with an elephant. and yet, somehow, i am outmaneuvered by the sandwich artist at subway

deleting twitter isn’t enough. they need us to know they had 36k followers. like a pharaoh getting buried with their gold

my body at 18: i can survive on caffeine and spite my body at 30: if i drink water too fast, i have to lie down for 2 hours

I’m an adult damn it and when I want to remember how many days there are in the month I loudly repeat “30 days have September…”

sauce: i made it up

“Memories” is hands down the worst song in Wicked and it’s not even close

liberals screaming ‘this isn’t who we are’ as their fascist president prepared to take the oath of office, while a CIA agent in a Hawaiian shirt carefully files away 73 years of toppling democratically elected governments under ‘Oopsie Daisies’

“you can’t survive on vibes alone.” well guess what, i’ve been living off raw vibes and a 3-year-old bottle of expired ketchup, and i’m still here. thriving, even.

You don’t actually miss Twitter. You miss who you were 10 years ago.

Like any social media platform, it’s a place for me to share my thoughts, feelings, and experiences. But there’s no ads, no trolls and no Trump unless I choose it. www.joanwestenberg.com/the-art-o…

my roommate malcolm gladwell refuses to clean the bathroom because he says “grime is an important artifact of collective living.” i’m going to burn the entire apartment down.

some folks will go through their whole lives believing the rest of us are just characters in a Zelda game waiting to hand out lil' side questions and experience points and badges for being A Good Hero.

You can’t count on much more than just showing the hell up, day after day. www.joanwestenberg.com/just-show…

The Death of Critical Thinking Will Kill Us Long Before AI. www.joanwestenberg.com/the-death…

you can tell marvel movies broke our brains because the election ended weeks ago and we’re all still glued to the screen waiting for a mid-credits scene where some C-list superhero shows up to give us one (1) crumb of hope

First rule of social media: Never let anyone know what you’re doing. Ever. Every post should be a decoy. Post about spaghetti, but secretly you’re at a funeral. I’ve been within 500 feet of the coroners office for days. I leave no trail. That’s how you Keep ’em guessing.

lewis carroll, 3 bottles of laudanum deep, scribbling frantically about a rabbit in a waistcoat or whatever: “oh man. yeah. banger.”

i trust people who get shit wrong more than i trust people who spend the majority of their time and energy yelling at people who get things wrong

first they came for literally everyone all at once and i did not speak out for i like cheaper eggs

michael moore thinks throwing anything out is “feeding the capitalist landfill machine.” malcolm gladwell says every piece of trash is “a precious breadcrumb trail of human behavior.” neither of them have taken out the garbage in a week. it’s just a mountain of hush puppy wrappers.

the surest sign of advanced Twitter Brain Decay™ is when someone physically cannot reply like a normal human but instead MUST quote dunk on you, for the sake of the council of geniuses in their replies, who will cheer wildly as they deliver a scathing “Actually” to a post about sandwiches

I don’t give a shit if you’re on X. I don’t give a shit if you drive a Tesla. I don’t give a shit if you listen to Joe Rogan. Who cares. I give a shit how you vote.

every morning i wake up, gaze into the unfeeling void of the internet, & thank god with all my strength for people who post about how many followers they had on twitter. bless you. keep those follower stats coming. inject those sacred numbers directly into my bloodstream. my family is grateful

INVENTORY SALE: my confidence, patience, and hope in humanity. All slightly used but still functioning! DM for details. No refunds.

sometimes i remember when Gandhi said “be the liberal joe rogan you want to see in the world” and i just tear up so true

2016: Facts don’t care about your feelings 2024: My feelings don’t care about your facts 2028: incoherent gibbering

Questions like “What’s the average height of everyone in town?” are easy. You can gather a mountain of numbers and let the law of large numbers do the heavy lifting. Other questions? Not so much. www.joanwestenberg.com/why-non-f…

if you’re LGBT and you voted for Trump, you need to study Ernst Röhm

You provide a reason / explanation for why you’re opposed to something. Someone rebuts or disproves that reason. If you pivot to a different reason, you’re not actually opposed. You have an oppositional belief / faith system.

You were not born to censor yourself for other people’s comfort

anything dished out by the government, media giants, corporate behemoths, or the pharma elite is going straight to my ‘doubt until proven otherwise’ list.

storm’s rolling in.

kant’s categorical imperative was to act as if your actions set a universal law. now try explaining this concept to a generation raised on algorithms optimizing for outrage.

I am not being ironic when I say that cloudy with a chance of meatballs is one of my all time favourite movies

malcolm gladwell broke all the windows in the apartment “as a social experiment” now it’s 40 degrees inside, and he’s sitting in a parka taking notes every time I shiver

How do we retain cultural identity without letting outdated “code” drag us down? Read more 👉 www.joanwestenberg.com/is-cultur…

If you’re not willing to give it five years, then why start at all? Quick wins fade; only the long game makes a difference. www.joanwestenberg.com/i-work-on…

Things I post: Shitposts Philosophical posts Tech commentary Writing Things I don’t post: My personal diary entries Any form of doomerism

Nationalism is a tool for scaling oppositional tech. Nationalism put the first men in space and on the moon. But nationalism is a blocker to solving climate change. The thing to remember: proponents of tech + nationalism don’t want to solve climate change. They want to own the off-planet expansion.

When you shared that NYE photo - did you fully experience the event itself? Read more 👉 www.joanwestenberg.com/the-art-o…

Just Show Up. www.joanwestenberg.com/just-show…

The Internet is Shrinking ▸ www.joanwestenberg.com/the-inter…

carpooling with Malcolm Gladwell sucks. Every morning he tells me my choice of route reflects my “hidden psychological biases”. Today he made me take 18 side streets to “explore the road less traveled.” We were 40 minutes late.

Folks if your thanksgiving this year isn’t deeply uncomfortable for everyone at the table you’re doing it wrong

If you send me a TikTok video, here’s how to interpret my reply: “lol” - I didn’t watch it and I’m annoyed at you but for unrelated reasons “lol!” - I didn’t watch it but we’re cool “omg” - I didn’t watch it but I like you

There is statistically significant subset of white women who love: protesting crafting voting for trump

Kamala Harris lost not because of some secret scheme but because enough voters made a choice — an uncomfortable, frustrating, and yes, frightening choice. The work isn’t to rewrite this reality as a conspiracy, it’s to face it. www.joanwestenberg.com/no-the-el…

The Star Wars prequels are an underrated political epic about a galaxy wide slide into fascism and my man George didn’t get the respect he deserved

ACAB actually means Assigned Cop at Birth and some of you jokers absolutely were

Underrated trade idea: Buy water Wait

SEC investigation? bullish. prison time? bullish. cellmate named brick who wants my private keys? extremely bullish

people say “Oh You can’t solve ALL your problems with a shovel and a suspiciously cheap plot of land in the desert” but guess what. not only is that false, its also slander, and i will see you in court. and then also in the desert.

the best (???) thing about American politics is you get shit like the “Give Free School Lunches to Kids Act” and that sounds awesome but when it passes you find out it raised the cost of school lunches and somehow made it easier to buy an AR-15

when you see minimalism as inherently ethical and morally righteous you ignore how it becomes a consumer trend in itself

I made an X account yesterday in an attempt to break out of my own echo chamber. Get a feel for what the other side are talking about. Posted the exact same content I post on Mastodon / Threads. Today my X account was suspended because of “a user report.”

seeing the inevitable chorus of folks blaming trans issues for harris losing. without googling, name a single pro trans policy that Harris ran on.

lot of folks in tech want to identify with Galileo boldly challenging religion in the name of science but when it comes to trans rights they are literally on the side of the Catholic Church

Whole lotta quote tweeting the messenger going on rn if you know what I mean

every Democrat: (deep breath) “well actually, the real reason we lost was—” falls face-first into an open manhole

My biggest learning from the election has nothing to do with what democrats got wrong. It’s about me. I’ve been in too much of a bubble. I’ve been lazy & overconfident in my own analysis + thinking. My values are strong. But I got a lot to learn about how i write and the messages i create.

Opinions are like assholes the new York times has a lot of them

in this house, we do NOT “give back” to the community. we take from the community, we hoard it in a mason jar labeled “secret beans,” and then we pray that none of our sins can see through the glass

gonna get roasted for this, but if progressives don’t start reaching out to young men, the grifters and outrage merchants will keep winning.

i, too, have been stabbed in the back by 60 of my closest friends. but unlike Caesar, I did NOT cry about it. i took it like a man: drunk & face down in a Denny’s parking lot

I never hold grudges. I release them into the world to grow and multiply on their own. Consider it my gift to humanity.

for mental health reasons I have decided to spend 1000% more time on social media thank you for your support

they say I’m out of touch with reality. I say reality’s out of touch with me. I mean, look at it—completely unhinged and running on fumes while im doing great

the most believable part of Bram Stoker’s Dracula is where a real estate agent is helping an ancient evil being hoard way too many houses

Borderlands deserved an Oscar

“I don’t like that fellow. He’s a proper cunt.” - Abraham Lincoln

If the holiday season wants me to participate, it’s going to have to go about it the old-fashioned way—through bribery and a pack of bloodhounds

people who think Sauron was unstoppable conveniently ignore the fact that Bernie Sanders never got a chance to run Gondor and

I swear if we’re going by announcements some of you jokers have deleted Twitter like 37 times

why the fuck my neighbours have a 30 character Fort Knox Wi-Fi password. You think I’m hacking into the Pentagon? be. more. considerate. of. my. needs.

after deep reflection, i’ve concluded that my shitposting is the only thing holding civilization together it’s not going great

my entire personality is liking the posts where brands pretend to be depressed for clout. im normal and this is fine

Seeing a few folks talk about how young men who voted for Trump will regret it if the porn bans go through. I think that’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the YM movement in its current, Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson influenced form. Whether they watch it or not, a lot of YM see porn as an enemy.

i am proud to announce that i have finally mastered the art of “meditation”. every morning, i sit cross-legged, stare blankly at my phone screen, and silently plot against anyone who’s ever crossed me. it’s bringing me just absolute shitloads of inner peace

One of my favorite sites - just a list of apps you can buy….once. No subscription. www.payonce.co

“gryffindors are brave, hufflepuffs are loyal, ravenclaws are wise, slytherins are ambitious”what about those of us who are just tired where’s the house for people who want to lie down and not be murdered by a floating snake ghost

apparently it’s “inappropriate” to show up to a wedding with a sword and declare myself “the true heir of gondor.” well, i didn’t make it about me, THEY did, the second they put me on the guest list

it’s called character growth sweetie. i used to be filled with rage, now im filled with rage, but sometimes i make little pizzas.

EBITDA Is a Scam: You’ve probably heard of EBITDA. It stands for “earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.” Companies love to tout their EBITDA numbers. It’s become a popular way for them to make their financial results look better than they really are. By excluding a …

The Steve Jobs Resurrectionist Cult: Every year, like clockwork, it’s the same old dance. Apple rolls out their latest products and right on cue, the usual suspects emerge from the woodwork with their favorite refrain: “Steve Jobs would never…” You know how it goes. Steve wouldn’t have launched this. …

The Problem With Bringing Your Whole Self to Work: The problem with the “bring your whole self to work” mantra? Some folks' “whole self” includes anti-vaxx stickers, crosses plastered everywhere, and COVID denial sprinkled into conversations. And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not work in a place where Slack channels or desks become …

Idealists, Builders, and Extractors in a Dream Deferred: Crypto is made up of three groups: wealthy philosophers, middle-class dreamers, and poor farmers. There are no users. The wealthy philosophers - all deep pockets and utopian manifestos - are the ones bankrolling projects. For them, crypto is either a revolutionary tool meant to free society from …

Breaking Free: Creating a News Feed Beyond Walled Gardens: Been a while since I wrote any kind of…human, real update. I wanted to share what I’ve been cooking up. I’ve been head down working on The Index, my indie news project that I’m really excited about, and Westenberg, my solo-founder publication. I gotta say, I’m …

i’ve decided that this will be the year i completely give up on self improvement and instead focus on reaching my true potential: an unhinged chaos gremlin fueled by pure spite and microwave burritos

i hope everyone who posted about “genocide joe” has some real bangers up their sleeve for what Trump’s gonna do next hey

you cant cancel someone who has never felt the touch of grass

listen, if i can’t trust the wikipedia entry i wrote myself at 3am, who can i trust

fucking dude pollsters bouncing from IVF to abortion rights like Jack Skellington yelling “What’s this??” at every uterus-related concept they just learned about five minutes ago

win lose or draw the important thing is that everyone has fun(damental human rights)

the fact that anyone expects me to comprehend my own actions, let alone “apologize” for them, shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what i bring to the table. my role is to act with reckless abandon, and your role is to suffer the fallout. balance in the universe, etc.

Joe Rogan endorsing Trump is the last straw. from this day hence, all my music will be streamed on YouTube, a company that’s NEVER monetized literally doing crimes or sold my darkest secrets to advertisers. thank you, Alphabet Corp., for your ethical commitment to absolutely nothing sinister

Never forget: the foulest thing you could ever print about Donald Trump is the truth.

listen. i’ve tried every possible method to understand what meghan mccain does for a living. ive combed the archives. ive consulted the mystics. and all i got is “paid to sigh loudly while holding a starbucks cup.” tremendous work ethic

life hack: instead of doomscrolling yourself into a frothing pit of despair at 3 AM, try dedicating those precious minutes to the ancient, time-honored art of masturbation

thank god for the crypto visionaries who heroically declared “we’re leaving banking & finance in the dust” and are now huddled in a panic room, clutching a single american flag, whispering “we simply cannot innovate without first being kissed on the forehead by the new president"

this one goes out to my lone wolf dudes on their $20k motorbikes with their little backpacks, zoomin’ around like they’re on a quest

I know I’m not up to date on youth culture but why does every dude on TikTok have this haircut

Male pollsters just found out women are mad about abortion bans, and now they’re shocked they didn’t see it coming. Incredible detective work, boys—Nancy Drew could never

Look, I could be wrong about tomorrow. I’ve been very bloody clear that I think based on my analysis, the polls, the vibes and the trend that it’s going to be a Harris victory. But if I am wrong, I’m okay knowing that I had the guts to make a call instead of sitting on the fence like a coward.

okay hot take incoming why not just watch it yourself

Think of it like this: if your thoughts were guests at a party, would you cram them all into one crowded room, or would you give them space to stretch out and breathe? My Object Pages system (gift link) medium.com/the-reali…

buddy i’d love to follow your train of thought but it’s a 60-car pileup. congratulations on losing the plot, the map, and the ability to be normal online

goodnight to all my co-conspirators. you know what we did.

running a rapist on a platform of “make women miserable again” and then looking around slack-jawed as women line up to vote against him is just peak political acumen. these guys couldn’t win a chess game if they started with all the pieces. oh wait. they did.

hey here’s an idea let’s destroy reproductive rights, put a sex offender on the top of the ticket, and then throw a motherfucking tantrum when women don’t vote for us

My psychiatrist says I need to “let people in.” Little does she know, I haven’t locked my door in 17 years. Anyone could enter at any time, and they don’t, because deep down, they know… they KNOW… they can’t handle the kind of derangement happening in this haunted domicile

why is everyone acting like “waking up before noon” is some kind of “accomplishment”? my life’s purpose is to lay dormant for 18 hours then rise at dusk to become a menace to local infrastructure. sorry if that’s “inconvenient” for you

for what it’s worth the Dangerverse is better than the MCU and the DCU combined

the Venn diagram of people who yell at writers for having paywalls and people who pay a steadily increasing monthly fee to Spotify + Netflix is a circle

SEC investigation? bullish. prison time? bullish. cellmate named brick who wants my private keys? extremely bullish

The answer to the question “how dumb do the republicans think we are” is “about as dumb as they think their own supporters are”

incredible that after 70 years on gods green earth, trump’s only real skill is yelling into the void and hoping someone hands him a cheeseburger

no simulation would be this dumb

“why did you block me” because i took a single glance at your bio. case closed. court adjourned

(aggressively photosynthesizes)

developing a new blockchain that runs entirely on the power of positive thinking and marginally illegal securities fraud

your ‘true self’ is whoever you are at 3 AM when you’re reading the wikipedia page for the denver airport conspiracy while eating shredded cheese out of the bag. there is no escape

shout out to the distinguished scholars commenting"AND YET YOU POSTED ON THREADS" on my essay about digital autonomy. yes i did. im also stealing your wife and downloading your car fucker

If you’re looking for a wallpaper, you can grab the free RSS Lives one off Westenberg: www.joanwestenberg.com/wallpaper…

(at mcdonalds drive thru) the ice cream machine… show it to me. i know you’re hiding it. i can smell its power

The Index is going to look a bit different now! I’ve finished a rebrand to bring it closer to my indie blog Westenberg, as like…a Westenberg product I guess. The Index will always be free, but it’s funded by my work through Westenberg, so this just makes sense.

I’ve been saying for months,

if you alter your choice of words and the way you speak / write because you’re concerned about sounding like chatGPT, or if you police others’ words in the same way, you’re letting a large language model reshape language itself. And I’m not entirely convinced any of us have thought that through.

absolutely losing my shit at the concept of my wife having independent thoughts. what’s next. she develops object permanence? starts perceiving linear time? NOT in MY marriage

data nerds and pollsters deciding which voters to give a shit about

corporate greed is a pay-to-win strategy in a co-op game

k

goodnight to everyone except JD Vance who’s currently trying to prove he’s working class by eating at Applebee’s with a silver spoon he refuses to let go of​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

woke up from a nightmare where i was forced to give a TED talk titled “The Power of Being Yourself” to 3,000 guys in expensive jeans who all write “thought leader” in their bio. the standing ovation lasted six weeks​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

If you’re a white journalist with a hot take on why a fraction of Black voters support Trump, I’m gonna need to see your deep-dive analysis on why millions of white women vote for him first. Or just, fuck off.

The OG cultural marxists

What this nation needs it more ECONOMISTS and less ECONOMARXISTS

every time someone tells me to “calm down” i get 10% more powerful and 15% more unhinged. this is basic math. this is economics

I’m an RSS maxi

JD stands for Junior Dictator, Vance stands for anything Peter Thiel wants whenever he wants it

day 456 of explaining to my family that being down 99.99% is actually good because “you can’t lose more than 100%.” they’re starting to suspect i don’t know how math works

just found out some lib wants companies to “pay living wages” and “not destroy the planet”… buddy this isnt your grandmas quilting circle.. this is CAPITALISM baby gets crushed by falling stock prices

“My parents spanked me and I turned out just fine” I mean no you didn’t you turned into a grown ass adult who wants to beat their kids how is that fine

If my indie publishing career doesn’t take off there are literally only three options: Get a job (bold of me to think I’m employable) Start a think tank (only for the caffeine and clout) Become the conservative right’s token trans woman ($$$??) Publishing, please pull through.

The difference between progressives and conservatives is that progressives can laugh at themselves but conservatives can only laugh at other people

everyone keeps saying “wow.. your so brave for speaking truth to power” but trust me the second peter thiel waves a $2000 amex gift card at me im deleting every post faster than a roomba hitting dog shit

trying to donate my collection of 50,000 shitposts to the library of congress. “these are crucial historical documents” i say as security drags me out

my sleep paralysis demon trying to scare me but im just critiquing his form. pathetic. you call that a haunting? my grandma does scarier shit making lasagna

absolutely will not go to your open mic night. would rather get in a fist fight with every single bird at the zoo. the penguins have been talking shit anyway

“it’s like bitcoin but worse in every way” (receives 50 million in venture funding)

not many ppl know this but they actually made Lex Fridman in a lab by blending a stock photo of ‘guy thinking hard’ with the concept of a TED Talk nobody asked for

just had 3 ‘left-wing’ yoga moms tell me they’re voting for the ghost of Richard Nixon, while my buddy who listens to AM radio swears he’s writing in Scooby-Doo. absolutely no idea what it means for the country, but as a certified galaxy-brain thinker, i MUST announce it publicly

my roommate michael moore has started wearing his baseball cap in the shower. says he learned in detroit that “you never know when history will happen”

dear influencers the correct way to hold every mic is any way that makes it look like you’re clutching a dick

Chad LeBron vs Beta Cuck Bezos

“important update! To better serve our users and continue providing the best experience we can we’re taking away your favourite features and raising our prices and adding limits to how you can use our product look how much better served you are”

ben shapiro frantically measuring his own height at 2am in the walmart parking lot, screaming ‘the tape measure is a tool of cultural marxism.’ someone come get their boy

your atomic habits: drinking water when you wake up my tactical nuclear habits: flooding my entire house with deuterium oxide. becoming clinically hydrated. local water table permanently altered

I need to write up a blog post on the only physical note taking system that has ever worked for me

if I’ve learned one thing from trying to engage in good faith with right wing fopdoodles it’s that there is no fucking point trying to engage in good faith with right wing fopdoodles

anyone who says they wouldnt have voted to execute socrates is a coward. this man would follow you around the marketplace asking if you can define what a sandal is

“so much for the tolerant left” i weep, as the cashier refuses to accept my payment of 50,000 loose uncooked beans for this monster energy drink

If you’re the CEO of a company that has laid off more than 5% of its workforce in the last 12 months, there should be a freeze on your compensation for the next 12 months.

dear liberals,you claim to hate my posts and yet you keep reading them. curious. i am very intelligent

The problem with the “bring your whole self to work” concept is that some folks’ whole self is anti-vaxx, bible thumping, COVID denying fuckery. I don’t know about you but I’d rather not see Crosses and anti-vaxx stickers on my coworkers desks or popping up in Slack channels.

wild how “some people” fight against gay and trans rights but get offended if you call them transphobic or homophobic. You don’t get to deny our rights and then demand a nice label. If you’re uncomfortable being called out, maybe question the views making you fit that label. Ya pricks.

I’m curious. If you’re running your own business / publication, etc, do you have a to-do app for your personal life and a separate app for your work? How do you draw a line between which tasks go where? What do you use?

my roommate michael moore has been trying to get an interview with ronald mcdonald for 30 years. keeps sneaking into head office disguising himself as the hamburgler. they know it’s you michael

Your regular reminder that I curate a daily feed with a hand picked selection of Gift / Friend links to premium publication articles on The Index link blog: theindex.media/categorie…

this is the funniest bio I have ever read. literally just “a list of times I got owned”

I think Harris is going to win. But if Harris loses, the establishment democrats are gonna throw trans people under a bus driven by Donald Trump with a bumper sticker that says “I don’t brake for pronouns”

I can’t believe I’m having an actual conversation with someone who thinks it’s dismissive to call people who have a fear of trans people “transphobic” wait no i can believe that

I spent 3 years writing GARBAGE on every photo of biden i could find. he has stolen my bit. i am contacting the plagiarism police

its called a presidential “race” but they wont let me drive my 1998 honda civic into the voting booth. system is rigged

matt walsh is what happens when you feed an AI 10,000 hours of someone saying ‘actually,’ and then give it a beard

breaking news: local man who spent 6 hours sending death threats is deeply wounded that someone told him to shut up. more at 11

the cowards guide to posting: 1. harass someone 2. get mad when they respond 3. write a 12 part thread about Civility In Discourse"

It’s bloody refreshing to see a tech company ask their hard-core users what they want and then…build it. I’d love to see more of this.

by 2025 joan will be a payments platform by 2026 joan will be a self driving car by 2027 joan will be bankrupt & my posts about joan will be evidence in federal court

why the fuck would you spend 4 years getting ‘educated’ at some commie Marxist hippie lentil university when you could be spending that time becoming a self made millionaire by inheriting money

PLEASE DONT ADVERTISE A RESTAURANT THAT ISNT FREE YOU KNOW BETTER THAN THAT

Cat Stevens: I’m looking for a hard headed woman one who will make me do my bed DOCTOR Jordan Peterson : :

thank you Mr Bezos my family can “eat” now

Biden nailed it. Trump voters are garbage. Every last one of them. No exceptions.

“I promised Full Self Driving. I never promised the driving style wouldn’t be ‘unhinged Florida man at 3am’“​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Okay I feel like we gave “reaching across the aisle” the old college try, regardless of who wins, next year we are socially isolating and shunning every Trump voter and every racist fucking family member so they die alone and lonely. Like, we’re just never speaking to them again.

my roommate michael moore keeps trying to get me to join his “anti-establishment book club” but it’s just him reading the back covers of chomsky books out loud

nothing says ‘daddy never loved me’ quite like being a billionaire still chasing Trump’s approval with your checkbook

my new response to right wing dipshits on social media is “shut the fuck up dork” honestly it’s about all they’re worth

just found out about death. not a fan. giving it 1 star on yelp. the grim reaper can kiss my ass in hell, which is also bad

LUNTZ: where’s the Harris campaign’s 600 page affordability white paper? WHERE AIDE: trump just posting ‘economy = fixed by the jews’ on truth social LUNTZ: leaping for his noise canceling headphones i can’t hear youuuuuu

my roommate michael moore has been following me to starbucks every morning, demanding to know “who really profits” from my $5 latte habit. please just let me have my coffee

they’ll be saying “snowflake liberals can’t even take a joke” right up until they’re stamping your passport with GENETIC DEVIANT in red ink

first they burn ballots, then they burn books, then they burn us

the pope just dropped an anime avatar and if i know anything about being trans that means he’s about 3-5 years away from his egg cracking

security escorted me out of the library for reorganizing every book by how much i personally agree with it. so much for the tolerant left

The only difference between Donald and Diddy is that Donald is white. Why else do you think he’s not locked up?

Just a reminder that Woody Guthrie’s guitar said ‘this machine kills fascists’ not ‘this machine thinks fascists make some interesting points worth considering”

Remember when the internet felt infinite? When every click could lead to something wild, wonderful, and new? Those days are dying. www.joanwestenberg.com/the-inter…

Republicans hate the troops.

the problem with “Never Trump” republicans is that they were still “Frequently Bush” republicans

way too many of y’all in the media are getting off on everyone’s fear, uncertainty and doubt and it shows

this years Pulitzer goes to the Bezos’ op ed that he definitely wrote himself about why not picking a side is brave actually. founding fathers shed a single tear. george washington is clapping. this is what leadership looks like folks

just found out some people research their opinions BEFORE posting them?? absolutely psychotic behavior

Someone on reddit pointed out that he’s trying to make an X with his body and it’s the most embarrassing thing I have ever seen

fact checkers keep ‘debunking’ my posts but have they considered that believing things that make me mad feels really good actually

The rise of data-driven campaigning didn’t just change politics—it’s undermining the very foundations of democracy. Are we ready for the consequences? www.joanwestenberg.com/the-new-p…

my roommate michael moore keeps trying to get my tinder dates to sign release forms before entering our apartment. I haven’t had a second date in 8 months

have spent 10,000 hours reading every “Understanding The Trump Voter” think piece. have watched 500 documentaries. have consulted the ancient texts. turns out they’re just nazis. im so fucking mad

just watched ben shapiro try to DESTROY a happy meal with FACTS and LOGIC but he couldn’t open the box. now crying in mcdonalds. this is conservative intellectualism. No pussy has ever been dryer.

trump is like if you ordered a dictator off wish.com

my roommate michael moore just burst into my room with a camera crew to demand why i “continue to support big tech” by charging my phone. this is the fourth time today

The last decade has been the empire strikes back and I’d really like return of the Jedi soon

i have evolved past shitposting. now spending 16 hours a day crafting nuanced takes about fiscal policy. my brain is deteriorating. keep seeing ben bernanke in my dreams

The dark triad is just what I call my 3 nipples

Nate Silver’s gut says Trump is gonna win. Nate Silver’s gut also said Eric Adams would be the next Democrat Presidential Nominee.

The mainstream Romney conservatives get outraged when progressives use GOP tactics back on them because deep down, they know what they’re supporting isn’t right. When people they secretly see as the ‘good guys’ use their playbook, it forces them to confront their own shit - …

“im not owned!! im going back to my roots!!”, i continue to scream as the Washington post becomes a amazon product review aggregator with occasional news

the thing about REAL entrepreneurs is we dont need “customers” or “revenue.” we have LINKEDIN ENGAGEMENT and PODCAST DOWNLOADS. the universe will provide, as long as you keep sharing gary vee clips​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Shout out to all the dudes who have joined the fight for abortion rights by living their lives as a case study of why it’s a good idea

Stupid simple productivity hack: If you’re struggling to wake up early, change your alarm sound / tone every night. Don’t give your brain a chance to get used to it and block it out.

Look if you’re gonna roast Elon musk at least do it over an open flame

if I see one more contestant say ‘we’re not here to make friends,’ I’m going to join the show just to become their best friend out of spite

Every single reality show judge: what you just did was so fucking unprofessional… DRAMATIC PAUSE AUDIENCE GASPS …because professionals would charge BILLIONS for talent like this. you have forced me to press my special button. the one that makes you win $50,000 (wipes tear) (violins play)

they’re scanning brainwaves for “problematic thoughts” now. joke’s on them - my mind is an endless loop of the windows xp startup sound

What idiot called my publication Westenberg instead of Webstenberg

Can’t find the option for “your owner is a cunt” can anyone help

how the hell was this a kids movie

“deplorables” didn’t go far enough. We’re talking about barely functioning, expired milk carton-level, sub-human rape apologists with a shit fashion sense, hellbent on speedrunning the collapse of civilization. Every Trump supporter is semi-sentient mold growing on the unwashed ass of democracy.

“‘what if we found the worlds most insufferable centrist and gave them 800 words twice a week’ - the NYT fuckass opinion desk, smoking dick shaped cigars made of pulitzers

(sobbing) please… you have to understand… i NEED to see what limited edition flavor of chip the funny internet man is eating today

Trump voters aren’t worth the oxygen. Yours or theirs.

My Halloween costume this year is Sam Altman I’m gonna dress like a dork and go around asking people for money

ah shit. accidentally posted my credit card info instead of a slur. please no one look at my last 20 tweets

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that if slavery was still legal Amazon and Tesla wouldn’t be mad about it

thou shalt not worship false idols (RETWEET IF U AGREE) just bought a 20 foot gold trump statue for the church lawn. its different actually. completely different situation

desperately trying to explain to the youth group that “THOU SHALT HAVE NO GODS BEFORE ME” has an asterisk for “unless they hosted the apprentice”. its in the original Hebrew

jeff bezos personally called me, begging me to stop you all from unsubscribing. i told him “shut up nerd” & crushed 600 of his little prime boy packages with my immense ass

My party trick is making anxiety look like a personality wbu

“freedom is when i get to choose which government watches me through my microwave” - edward snowden’s guide to principled resistance

protip: if you see someone having a good time online you are legally and morally obligated to tell them why they’re wrong about everything

frantically googling “how to uncancel yourself” as the mob outside my house chants increasingly specific details about my search history

If you ever do this you deserve to burn in hell for all eternity I don’t make the rules (I do)

Look I mean this in the nicest way possible but Jeff Bezos is has and will always be a cunt

if your network is your net worth then im worth approximately one (1) expired cup noodle. the shrimp kind. not even the good flavor

FREEMAN

congrats to jeff bezos for inventing a bold new form of media ownership where you buy a newspaper and then put a big piece of tape over its mouth. very innovative. same day shitting.

Flaherty is a weapon.

how dare you be mean to the nice man who simply wants to be president again and also deport several million people

World Series time. Let’s do it Dodgers.

“Cultural Marxism” is made up right wing bullshit. That doesn’t mean it’s harmless. Gift link: medium.com/westenber…

Making my next million selling Comfort Zone Disruptors™️ to hustle bros. it’s a Bluetooth butt plug. Real sigmillionaires know: true disruption starts from within​​​​​​​​​​​

love to spend 18 hours a day defending a billionaire’s honor online for free. this is the sacred duty that the founding fathers died on omaha beach to protect

accidentally said “good morning” to my own reflection. we’re both equally embarrassed about this incident

the CAPTCHA industry thinks theyre so smart making me identify traffic lights. coward shit. let me post my rambling 4000 word manifesto about CHEMTRAILS. thats the real human test

increasingly disturbed by revelations that while i was posting “this aint it chief” at random celebrities, powerful men were using social media to plot the downfall of democracy

how elon went from “im going to save humanity” to “actually what if i did treason with the funny invasion war crime man” in like 18 months. really inspiring demonstration of the grindset

folks im beginning to think the car guy might not have humanities best interests at heart

like having the world’s finest chefs prepare an exquisite meal for a rabid mob of absolute fucking morons who have already decided they’ve got a craving for a gas station microwave burrito in the middle of an E. coli outbreak

The existence of Fiona Apple implies the existence of a Fiona Microsoft

You know the actor’s pregnant when they start rocking one of these in every episode

it’s 2030. notion just announced notion toilet paper. each sheet contains a fully collaborative workspace. my ass is now a kanban board

New on The Index: the Link Blog feed. External news stories, all presented as Gift / Friend links, with added commentary. Today - covering the WSJ’s report on Musk’s bff back channel with Putin. theindex.media/2024/10/2…

The thing about the white power movement is that white people were in power for 95% of modern history and that’s how we got World War 1, World War 2 and Cats (2019) like this shit hasn’t been great

EVERY BEACH IN AUSTRALIA SHOULD BE RENAMED “POSSIBLE HAROLD HOLT LOCATION #1”, “POSSIBLE HAROLD HOLT LOCATION #2” etc. until we solve this

the economists are at it again. graph line go up? jail. graph line go down? also jail. sideways graph? believe it or not, straight to jail. im selling my stocks to invest in a jumbo jar of unvaccinated sperm

if the algorithm shows me a post from someone I don’t follow, I only reply to it if I agree with it. Not because I’m a nice person, because I just don’t give a fuck about the wrong opinions of strangers on the internet

The way men light up when “Why Don’t You Get A Job” by The Offspring comes on is the biggest red flag since the Soviet Union

Some of you grew up in a Fiber One household instead of a Lucky Charms household and it shows

sleep tight dipshits

the narrative is the product.

The beauty of theindex.media is that you can read all the stories just as you would on Threads etc, but you can also log in to reply to each story using your Bluesky or Mastodon account and you can subscribe via RSS to get the stories in your feed!

Breaking Free: Creating a News Feed Beyond Walled Gardens: Been a while since I wrote any kind of…human, real update. I wanted to share what I’ve been cooking up. I’ve been head down working on The Index, my indie news project that I’m really excited about, and Westenberg, my solo-founder publication. I gotta say, I’m …

just raised $500M in venture capital for my app that lets you summon a guy named keith to fix your toilet. he arrives in a cybertruck. this is the future

MY ECONOMIC POLICY: every citizen gets three briefcases. what’s in them? could be money. could be wasps. solve my riddles three to find out

PSA: being obsessed with Harry Potter well into your 30’s is not a personality

the New York Times editorial process: Start with “Some say,” add “Critics argue,” and finish with “It remains unclear”

Call me delusional if you want, but I’m 100% convinced Harris wins in November. Defeatists can have their doom scrolls—I’ll take hope, thanks. If I’m wrong, feel free to roast me, but it’s still better than hiding an ‘everything-is-fucked’ bunker. ✌️

the mainstream media keeps telling me ‘2+2=4’ but my uncle terry says it’s 5 and he’s never even been to college. this is why im voting for the brave trump man

just found out about lobbying. so you’re telling me you can just walk into congress with a big bag with a dollar sign on it? and this is legal?? im getting my wallet

goodnight to all except the moon. you know what you did

Disney: “paint with all the colours of the wind” James Cameron: “Blue.”

james cameron spent 500 million dollars to teach us that white guys can in fact dance with wolves but in space

the beauty of crypto is that instead of getting robbed by a bank, you can get robbed by a 15 year old in latvia who named his smart contract “SafeMoonCumRocket”

social media activists will spend 9 hours crafting the perfect quote tweet to ratio a stranger with 12 followers but cant muster the strength to say “hey thats not cool” when uncle steve starts ranking ethnicities at dinner

“Cancel culture is ruining everything” says the crybaby who boycotted Nike over a Colin Kaepernick ad

You can now follow any of the individual streams on The Index to get specific social-first news in your RSS feeder, filtered by your exact interests - IE, Russia, The US, Nuclear etc. More feeds coming. theindex.media/feeds/

If your work collapses when Instagram or X fails, you don’t have a platform—you have a dependency.

the founding fathers didnt have twitter and that makes me absolutely fucking sick. imagine george washington having to communicate through pamphlets like a peasant

extremely proud to announce that i remain UNVERIFIED. im so unverified that when i look in the mirror my reflection is just a bunch of question marks. cant even verify my own existence. no blue tick. powerful

if it walks like a fascist and talks like a fascist, maybe it’s time we stop hesitating to call it a feckless fucking Nazi

“Trump gave the assholes a voice” as if your uncle randy hasn’t been getting hammered & ranting about lizard people and gays at every thanksgiving since 1985. the posting never stopped

I don’t think I’m better than you I just think you’re worse than me

Age 6: I want to be a firefighter Age 27: I want to not have a panic attack before checking my emails

tired of being told to “count sheep”. im counting my enemies instead. currently at 8,956 and growing. good night to None of them

the death of the politician has arrived. In today’s world, they’re influencers first and leaders second - if at all.

experiencing what the experts call a “rugpull.” turns out DragonBallZCumRocketCoin was not a legitimate investment vehicle. the white paper was just the script of paul blart mall cop

blocking people is better than sex

i spent 10 grand on “THE SECRET FORMULA TO BECOMING AN ONLINE CELEBRITY” and its just a pdf that says “have you considered posting slurs”

life hack: block the word “discourse”

wow. cannot BELIEVE you would dare to argue with me on the internet. im currently printing out every single thing youve said since 2007, binding it into a leather tome called “The Complete Works of Dipshit” & mailing it to your entire extended family

when white liberals call for a “revolution” it’s because they assume they’ll be in a leadership position away from the front lines

I’m not a pessimist, I’m an optimist with experience in how the world actually works

another day of being the only person who knows the correct way to sleep. you’re all doing it wrong and i refuse to elaborate. nighty night fuckers

If you’re one of those people who ‘just love Mondays,’ I hope your printer jams for the rest of your life

I feel like I’d use GIMP a lot more if it wasn’t called GIMP

NEVER FORGET WHAT THEY TOOK FROM US

rewatched that video of celebrities singing ‘we’re all in this together’ from their gold-plated bunkers and i’m convinced it was a satanic ritual to summon a second wave of covid

Hot take your mother in law was right

new Meta slogan: move farts and break wind

Why centrism today is just political cowardice in disguise—and how to rebuild the middle ground www.joanwestenberg.com/why-today…

I barely want to talk to actual humans why the fuck would I want to have an endless conversation with a meta AI chatbot of Meryl Streep

“I get why people don’t like Voldemort but if you actually listen to his podcast he has some good ideas”

Good people: “doing this worked for me, it might work for you!” Bad people: “doing this worked for me, if it doesn’t work for you, you’re the problem” Shitheads: “doing this worked for me, buy my $500 course to find out it more”

if you ever judge me for wearing pajamas to the store, just know: i have already judged you 10 times harder, for being a Fed who puts on pants before 12

As the leader of the Rohan First party I say let Gondor make a deal with Mordor on their own. Sauron has given me his word that his forces will stop at the Anduin and I have no reason to doubt him. Stop sending our horses into foreign wars. Make Rohan Great Again

the nerds at the new york times: “in this ohio diner, we found 5 trump supporters and 5 biden supporters” (they’re all the same guy)

If your centrism moves with the Overton window instead of anchoring in an actual belief system you’re not actually a centrist you’re just pissing your pants in the middle and pretending it’s a point of view

I have a lot of trauma from my childhood that I still don’t talk about much. But here goes. When I was a kid we had a Beta Max instead of a VCR.

Is anyone else genuinely concerned about what cross-platform browser they’re going to be using if Mozilla carks it post-Google deal fallout? Like, what are the options here for a good iPad/iPhone/Android/Mac/Windows browser?

If the West cedes Ukraine to Russia, they might as well put a bow on Taiwan for China.

There are two kinds of bigots: people who are ignorant and people who profit from ignorance

the nerds at the new york times unveiling their new political coverage: “he said, she said, we shrugged”

bedtime ritual complete: teeth brushed, warm milk consumed, restraints secured. goodnight to all who pray for daylight ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

at this point, we’re not actually fighting climate change. We’re negotiating a surrender and pretending we’re winning.

every time someone on hacker news says ‘well, actually’, an angel loses its wings and gains a CS degree

URGENT: need 1000 people to join my “EXCLUSIVE WEALTH NETWORK” (pyramid scheme) before my mom kicks me out of the basement. this is not a grift (it is a grift)

Me: Why are we panicking? Brain: No idea!! 12 hours later Brain: jk, we forgot the meds. Me: …Ah.

Donald Trump doesn’t “tell it like it is” he tells it like your racist, asshole grandpa wishes it was

Netflix: here’s 8 new shows. pick your favorite. great choice, we’re canceling it. that’ll be $19.99 please. see you next month for a price hike. And by the way go fuck yourself.

How a simple mortality countdown on my phone gave me more peace than chasing “eternal youth” ever could: https://medium.com/the-realist/why-i-set-up-a-death-countdown-on-my-phone-d328d7c12c26

I left the Australian startup “ecosystem” when one of their most prominent investors publicly called me a “man pretending to be a woman” and all the folks who loved pretending to be progressive acted like nothing happened because they’re shit scared of losing access to money.

LinkedIn is a dumpster fire of misogyny, racism and right wing horsefuckery. It’s Twitter wearing a cheap suit.

Tesla now door knocking employees on their death beds like “excuse me sir do you have a moment to talk about our lord and savior, unpaid overtime”

climate scientists: “we’re all doomed” me: (chugging a 55-gallon drum of sunscreen) speak for yourself, nerds

what if i WANT the bed bugs to bite. what if thats my whole deal​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

the “Enemy Within” is Diarrhoea and we all know who has it

here’s why my toddler’s lemonade stand proves socialism doesn’t work 9000 points, 1500 comments

new starbucks size just dropped: “The Void.” it’s just an empty cup. you stare into it. it stares back. $19.99.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ I’m in so much debt.

Excited about this. The Index now has a simple / beautiful home on the web that aligns with the social-first news approach. It’s fully ActivityPub enabled and you can subscribe now to get every post via email (as a roundup) or RSS (as it happens) theindex.media

barista: “ma’am, you can’t bring your own beans” me: dumping 50 pumpkin spice Nespresso pods into their grinder “this is an extinction rebellion”

saw a guy at the grocery store buying 37 bottles of ranch dressing. here’s why this is bad news for Kamala

🇺🇸 Early voting has begun in North Carolina, a key battleground state for the upcoming U.S. presidential election, despite the devastation left by Hurricane Helene. The storm claimed over 200 lives and left parts of the state without power and running water.

🇦🇷 Former One Direction star Liam Payne tragically died after falling from a third-floor hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, suffering multiple traumas and internal bleeding. Authorities are investigating the death, with early findings suggesting substance abuse may have played a role. Payne, 31, was …

🇻🇪 Venezuela has detained three Americans and two other foreign nationals on terrorism charges, accusing them of conspiring with U.S. entities like the CIA. This brings the number of foreign detainees in Venezuela to at least 12.

🇷🇺 Russia’s parliament has passed the first reading of a law banning content that promotes a child-free lifestyle, part of a push to boost the nation’s birth rate amid demographic decline.

🇷🇼 Rwanda is seeing a significant decline in Marburg virus cases following vaccinations of vulnerable groups, including healthcare workers, with new infections dropping by over 50%. Meanwhile, the mpox virus continues to spread across Africa, now affecting 18 countries.

🇹🇿 The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reached a staff-level agreement with Tanzania, unlocking $265.8 million in financial support. This deal follows a review of the country’s economic performance, aimed at bolstering Tanzania’s fiscal stability and development efforts.

🇺🇸 California’s dairy farms are grappling with an unprecedented rise in cow deaths due to bird flu, with mortality rates reaching 15-20%, far higher than the 2% seen in other states. Extreme heat in the Central Valley exacerbates the crisis, slowing rendering plant operations.

🇺🇸 An independent review finds the U.S. Secret Service has become bureaucratic and complacent, citing systemic failures and a lack of cohesion in security planning. The review follows the July assassination attempt on Donald Trump, exposing serious security gaps.

🇪🇺 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy presented his “victory plan” to EU and NATO leaders in Brussels, seeking more military aid and a formal NATO membership invitation. While NATO pledged continued support for Ukraine, it stopped short of endorsing immediate membership.

the war on christmas has claimed another victim. my son opened his presents and found nothing but pronouns.

another day spent trying to make chatGPT say random slurs so I can screenshot it for The Socials™️ my children haven’t seen me in months. wife’s boyfriend is teaching my son to ride a bike. success is near

Let me see if I’ve got this straight, tech bloggers are mad that Apple products have planned obsolescence, but they’re also mad that Apple hasn’t released new monitors in five years?

me, sobbing into my microphone: and then the killer… he… he put the body in the TRUNK… (pauses to read ad about mail-order underpants)

if they made citizen kane today he’d be played by Chris Pratt and his last words would be “soo, THAT just happened” with a fortnite dab. fade to black, mid credits scene for the rosebud cinematic universe

If you’re interested in setting up your blog with the new Mastodon author verification feature, this is a great / quick guide: rknight.me/blog/sett…

I have a highly refined palette I only lick artisanal organic locally sourced boots

I have never in my life had less faith in anything, anything at all, anything under the fucking sun, in any universe, in any multiverse than I have in the current polling.

We say we value privacy. So why the fuck do we keep giving away our data? It’s more complicated than you think. www.joanwestenberg.com/the-priva…

I’m not like those OTHER girls I’m best friends with the people who want to take away my rights

🇺🇦 Ukraine: Biden announces $425m military aid package; Aussies send tanks The Index is a free, zero ads news service ft. the top headlines, curated posts from Threads, Reddit and Bluesky. www.theindex.media/ukraine-b…

okay I have taken inventory of my home office and neither myself nor the next 3 generations of my bloodline need to purchase any more Field Notes Memo Books

“Battles are beyond everything else struggles of morale. Defeat is inevitable as soon as the hope of conquering ceases to exist. Success comes not to him who has suffered the least but to him whose will is firmest and morale strongest.” ― Barbara W. Tuchman, The Guns of August

You are allowed to log the fuck off. Ignore the headlines. Ignore the tweets. Ignore the chaos and the noise and the people who profit from it. Go doorknock. Make some phone calls. Take up a hobby. Learn to bake sour dough. And then vote. Don’t let the bullshit depress, oppress or suppress you.

2024 results come in. statue of liberty seen furiously paddling the fuck back to france. “i’ve seen enough,” she mutters​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

HEADLINE: SITTING VP CONTROVERSIALLY CONTINUES SITTING VP DUTIES INSTEAD OF POSTING DANCE TIKTOKS FROM SWING STATES

they said “trump can’t dance.” i showed them. i did the worm for 45 minutes straight. no questions, just pure, unfiltered patriotic wiggling. genetic purity. take that fake news

whenever someone says “everything happens for a reason” you are legally allowed to slap them in the face

Trump is not a man of mystery. He’s a semi-sentient hairpiece with delusions of competence who trite-supremacied his way into the Oval Office. Like watching a toddler who just shit its diaper try to pilot a Boeing 747 but the toddler has nuclear codes + an itchy Twitter finger and is also racist.

I don’t pay me nearly enough to put up with my shit

Walking into the gym after months away is like showing up to a wedding in jeans

tech insiders going from ‘I’m quitting VC to write a Substack’ to ‘I’m quitting Substack to work in VC’ is the true circle of life

If your child came out as a real estate agent could you still love them? I mean, you can pray for them but how can you support that lifestyle choice?

If you vote for the pants shitting, muslim banning, transgender children terrorising, white supremacist pandering shitbag, you deserve to be ostracized by your family forever and die alone in your easy chair to the sounds of Fox News LOVE YOU

GDP now measured in memes per capita. shitposters are the new 1%. my life savings are backed by trump nfts. this is the invisible hand

to hell with november 5 this is the only election i’m interested in (via Reddit)

How The Conversation’s article on Trump’s DJ session missed the mark and normalized a campaign fiasco. www.joanwestenberg.com/no-trumps…

i love making my little to-do lists because it helps me organize all the little things i’ll pretend to give a shit about before failing to reach my potential every day I am blessed

you did what with your semen

Now I REALLY don’t know what to do with these tossed salads and scrambled eggs

There are 2 wolves inside me: one craves the seamless simplicity of an all-Apple ecosystem, and the other fights for the freedom and flexibility of cross-platform independence. The struggle is real. Anyone got an answer? Anyone else struggle with this?

Adulthood is just the endless anticipation of recess, but no one ever lets you out

the Open Source Men have logged on. they’re typing furiously about licenses again. my Timeline is a hellscape of neckbeards screaming “ACTUALLY”. god help us all

Well, here we are again, folks. It’s time for another round of meta media debunking: Breaking down a right-wing hit job on Kamala Harris—amplified yet again by the New York Times. www.joanwestenberg.com/nyts-late…

“I Tried Dry-Aging Myself, You Won’t Believe What Happened Next” (I got older / dryer)

Congratulations to the latest 3 white dudes who have raised 5 million dollars from other white dudes to solve a problem for white dudes. We’re so, so proud of you. sobbing

Can someone please come up with a joke about George Soros / Sonos Speakers and then give me credit for it

If you’re paying for linkedin premium you need to take a good hard look at your life choices

This isn’t actually about broken websites or bad tweets. Not really. It’s about learning how to govern in a digital world that’s only getting more complicated. www.joanwestenberg.com/the-bigge…

Choose Your Fighter: Spokesperson for the Dark Lord Edition

Freud was basically the older guy at the party who thinks he’s figured you out after 5 minutes of talking about himself and is absolutely going to try and fuck you after 2 margaritas

left/Dem election doomers aren’t forecasting—they’re hedging. Predicting a Trump win now means they won’t look naive if it happens. Better to be “surprised” by being wrong and have it forgotten in the euphoria than risk looking vulnerable for having hope. It’s pragmatic pessimism as ego armor.

If you’re a Preacher and you’re also a billionaire you’re a Godless, gutless, gormless, shameless, spineless and above all pointless hypocrite

JD Vance: “Don’t think of it as Eugenics, think of it as Usgenics”

Curious about how parasocial relationships shape our digital lives? Read my latest piece, The Invisible Threads: How Parasocial Relationships Fuel Digital Obsession, with a 7-day free trial on Westenberg www.joanwestenberg.com/the-invis…

if I had a nickel for every time a right wing/Trump voter/registered Republican tried to take out Trump, I’d have… wait, three nickels? which isn’t a lot, but it’s not zero

every right wing dork fantasising about a new civil war would have died of dysentery in the first week of 1861

Can’t believe Edison tried 100 different lightbulbs before he could get one to work. you know you can just check the box to see if it’s the right bulb? Asshole.

(Bomb squad about to deactivate a bomb) Ron De Santis: “back off socialists, I’ve got this.” (cuts off own thumb, entire city explodes)

The Invisible Threads: How Parasocial Relationships Fuel Digital Obsession New today on Westenberg www.joanwestenberg.com/the-invis…

Absolutely love coughing my lungs out with mild pneumonia super fun 10/10 would recommend 5 stars on yelp

everyone’s crying about plagiarism because my “paper” is “100% copied” from “Wikipedia” let me tell you something: I CHANGED THE FONT. I’m the victim here

PSA: any time they call something “fake news” that means it’s 100% the truth

Helen this is the most racist shit I’ve read today you need to log tf off

The GOP right now is that scene in every heist movie where they try to convince the cops they’re just regular guys in the back of a very conspicuous van

I can already tell you my New Year’s resolution is going to be “cyber bully more Nazis” who’s in

the way this dude says “lol” while being an entitled little fuck makes me want to tear a hole in the fabric of existence and chuck everyone into it (via reddit)

some days you’re the pigeon, other days you’re the statue. the key is to not be the racist statue of some confederate motherfucker who lost the civil war

There is no such thing as a “decent” trump voter.

Me: connects to the wrong Bluetooth speaker once iPhone: (forever) You wanna pair with that fridge again, huh? Go ahead, jam out in the kitchen. Fucking moron.

Man, if Trump doesn’t start behaving soon Mitt Romney’s gonna almost imperceptibly purse his lips in mild disapproval and THEN they’ll be SORRY

good news: we’ve raised $100 million in funding. bad news: our entire platform is still just a google doc and a powerpoint slide with the word ‘agentic’ on it in wordart

“if voting were actually effective, would they really let us do it?” - every smug asshole who thinks reading Das Kapital (Abridged) once is a personality

Excited to announce that I am now valued at $5,000,000,000,000 because my pitch deck says I’m a robotics company not a journalist

Trump hit the limit on his voter base when he lost in 2020. Unless he’s found an untapped vein of new white people, he’s maxed out. The Lite Supremacist path to victory was hoping the dems stayed home this time, and Harris put an end to that shit. That’s it. That’s the game.

dentist: open wide me: unhinging jaw like a fucking snake or some shit dentist: immediately aroused

obviously the cowardly lion would be MAGA, no debate. also definitely gaston, uncle vernon, and the Mel Gibson rooster from chicken run. facts don’t care about your feelings.

time to pack it in folks, old mate’s cracked the case

If Elon Musk ran Amazon you’d order next-day shipping and get the wrong fucking product three years too late

“Downfall”

It’s genuinely so fucking problematic that after you run the dishwasher you also have to unload it

if you think the government is hiding weather control, wait till you see what they’re hiding in the McDonald’s McRib formula. TRUTH

Jesus: so I’ve multiplied the loaves and fishes and there’s enough food for everyone modern christians: “this is SOCIALISM. i’ll bring my OWN bread, fuck you”

republican voters are so easy to grift you could slap an eagle sticker on a bottle of piss, call it “constitution juice,” and they’d mortgage their house to buy a year’s supply, dumbest motherfuckers who ever drew breath

‘Feed the World’ was just ‘Feed the Birds’ from Mary Poppins with more guilt trips and less actual feeding

Bold of us to expect a peaceful transition of power from the GOP, a party that’s been working overtime to make sure nobody transitions anywhere

one can only assume that Putin does not in fact like them apples

every night my intrusive thoughts are like “eat the cat food” and i’m like “no” and they’re like “eat the cat food” and i’m like “NO” and they’re like “EAT THE CAT FOOD” and i’m like “fine” and now i have to explain to my cats why we’re out of food

columbus got lost, found a whole new continent, and then thought ‘perfect spot for a genocide.’ history’s first, fucked and worst travel influencer

DeBunkin’ Donuts

every day i wake up and think about how mitt romney is the human equivalent of a powerpoint presentation with no jokes

Donald Trump would love K-pop if there were 2 extra Ks

Wanted to re intro, since a few folks didn’t realise this about me but - I’m a damned proud transgender journalist, writer, and creator. My work has been published in places like Wired, TIME, The Next Web etc. Through my own publication @ Westenberg, I cover tech, politics, and online culture. 🏳️‍⚧️

oh wow, you asked me to define ‘woman’ for the 1000th time, absolutely devastating. you really cracked the case, sherlock. you should define ‘insecurity’ while you desperately cling to the one debate point you think makes you sound like you have a functioning motherfucking brain cell

All you need to know about Apple Arcade is that they just announced Space Invaders as a coming soon title

“um actually, we’d prefer if this smoking gun remained behind a tasteful velvet rope until after the election, thank you”

The obvious answer to social media platform anxiety? Just POSSE that shit—post once, syndicate everywhere. Let your content roam free while you chill. This is why I’m a micro dot blog maxi.

Fuck going on Joe Rogan, Kamala Harris should beat these white dudes at their own game by starting a podcast

if taylor swift ACTUALLY cared about climate change she’d block out the sun with a giant cardboard cutout of her face, cooling the Earth by 2 degrees

how it started vs how it’s going

Take it from a recovering alcoholic: if you’re trying to build habits, don’t start with a fancy habit-tracking app. Grab a notebook, a pen, and focus on tracking just one habit for 30 days. Simplicity wins every time

this stupidity of this shit truly cheese-grates my fucking spleen

Twitter is literally just 48 crypto dudes in matching Temu aviators paying $8 a month to LARP as ‘thought leaders’ in the comments of a Burger King promo

Fight Club is a satire of dudes who love Fight Club and I just think that’s beautiful

If you have ever signed me up for your email list without my permission you do not deserve to have access to the internet and should in fact burn in hell

Anyone who says they can tell the difference between Monday, Asana, Miro, Notion, Trello, ClickUp, and Airtable is either a cult member or a shareholder

Quote-post but change what the skeleton is holding. 💀 |{I}_🍸 I/ \ /_ _

She texted ‘sure’ without an exclamation point, so I guess she’s planning my funeral

Your regular reminder that The Lorax is about environmentalism, not a cute orange creature and it was published 50 fucking years ago. We knew what we were doing.

People keep saying we live in “interesting times” but is it just me or is all this nazi shit boring and tired as fuck

Tell me why every Trump rally feels like a scene from ‘The Truman Show’ where he’s the only one who doesn’t know

“2024” enters stage left. He is disheveled, with wild hair and a crumpled shirt. chorus: ‘HEAR YE, BEHOLD THE YEAR THAT COMES, A MAJESTIC CLUSTERFUCK, LOUDER THAN THE GODS, MORE CONFUSING THAN ANY PROPHECY.’ He trips on his toga, spilling scrolls and fast food receipts everywhere.

The modern workflow is Google Docs -> Slack -> Notion -> Monday -> Trello -> Asana -> Airtable -> Figma -> Canva -> Miro -> Notion again -> back to Google Docs for draft 9000 no one has launched a single thing in 7 years

I’m old enough to remember when being a fan meant actually liking stuff, not dedicating your entire existence to tearing it apart piece by piece. Like, imagine enjoying Star Wars in 2024 without a 7-part thread on why the sequel trilogy personally offended you. Wild times.

I’m excited to announce a 7-day free trial for @ Westenberg. Take my in-depth coverage of tech and politics for a drive, and see why independent journalism matters. After the trial, it’s just $5 per month for full access. No strings attached—cancel anytime. Sign up today and see what sets it apart. …

You can’t convince me that Ron DeSantis isn’t just Gollum in a Mission: Impossible mask

Q: Should politicians have a maximum age limit to hold office? www.threads.net/@theindex…

Imagine being an ancient Egyptian engineer and getting clowned by assholes who think your blueprints were written by aliens

I’m excited to be speaking at Web Directions Developer Next in Sydney November on Why We Need Fiction and I’d love to see you there (it’s also streaming). You’ll also get $100 off with the code ‘joannext’. Learn more at webdirections.org/dev-summi…

If you’re defending billionaire tax loopholes because you think you’ll need them someday, let me save you some time. You will not.

This is a fantastic way to make sure I never ever listen to kill list

Watching political journalists act like they’re the main characters of 2024 is peak delusion.

Influencers truly killed the word “collab”

Deleting toxic comments isn’t censorship—it’s cleaning up after stray dogs take a shit on your lawn

Babe, is everything ok? You’ve barely posted about your World Leading Company Culture since you laid off 50% of the workforce

turns out the Republican plan for extreme weather is just ‘evacuate yourself by your bootstraps’

Nothing fills me with dread more than this emoji 🧵

Can we please encourage every Trump supporter to own the libs by chugging raw milk the day before the election

My preferred genre of music is “sad indie rock song playing in the background of a mid 2010s medical drama when a patient codes”

🇮🇱 Fighting intensifies as Israel marks the one-year anniversary of Oct 7 massacre. www.theindex.media/october-7…

(VANCE) ohio is ROUND (WALZ) minnesota is SQUIGGLY (ME, AN INTELLECTUAL) states are a LIE

JD Vance: “im a hillbilly”. Tim Walz: “im a nice boy”. the audience, howling and frothing: “let them fight”. secret service struggling to hold back the mob

☭ ☭ ☭ ATTENTION COMRADES ☭ ☭ ☭ wokeness will be EQUALLY DISTRIBUTED please form an orderly queueb to receive your government-mandated CRITICAL RACE THEORY violators will be sent to PRONOUN GULAG

me mate dazza just rocked up to smoko 45 mins late with a mad shiner & two iced coffees. said he slept in cos his mrs chucked a wobbly and yeeted his phone out the window. fucken legend

lake beta cuck

“I have been BASELESSLY accused of being a serial abuser and harasser of women. To prove my innocence I have hired the same lawyer as several other serial abusers and harassers. Did I mention I have found Jesus.”

In Australia, if you say ‘third wave feminism’ into a mirror three times at midnight, Mia Freedman appears starts a podcast and is immediately forced to apologise

The UN is basically the world’s most expensive group chat where no one ever replies with anything useful

zuckerberg, high on bbq sauce fumes: “ship the app now” devs: “it’s 2am and the app is just your face plastered over the entire screen” zuck: “yes…yes. it’s perfect” devs: weeping

1997: by 2023 we’ll have flying cars 2024: “are interdimensional child-eating vampires turning the planets gay?” i ask, my brain smoothened to perfection by internet brainworms

If you’re against AI compensating creators, you’re against ads, and you’re against paywalls, you’re basically demanding free labor. Quality content isn’t a charity—if you’re too fucking cheap to fucking pay for it, maybe you don’t fucking deserve it.

If you’re pro AI tools, and also anti-publishers putting content behind a paywall, the technical term for what you are is an utter fucking idiot.

The existence of pronouns implies the existence of budget / midrange nouns. maybe with bad cameras. $1000 cheaper. less colour options.

young people are enjoying things that I don’t enjoy and I am uncomfortable: an op ed

congratulations to Elon Musk for reducing twitters value from $44b to $50 and a coupon for one (1) free hug, redeemable from the corner perv at any Arby’s parking lot

My junk is already a genius if you know what I mean (genitals)

I’m going to start replying to everything like I’m on Hacker News. Unhappy with Congress? Why don’t you just start a new country and write a constitution and secede? It’s not that hard once you know how. Actually, I wrote a microstate in a weekend using Rust.

Ann Coulter is living proof that if you talk enough shit, eventually you just become a human septic tank

More like the Founding Farters

(giving a motivational speech) You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. And about 98% of the ones you do take. Honestly, you fucking suck at this.

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the cyber truck is what happens when you let a bunch of incels design a vehicle. absolutely No Curves allowed. shameful

If Trump can’t find work as a President he should just learn to code instead of playing the victim

I like my women like I like my coffee, manufactured by Nescafé and bad for the environment

in the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: dudes who explain Bitcoin to women at parties, and dudes who reply ‘source?’ to obvious jokes on the internet. these are their stories.

I don’t think Trump believes he has a chance of winning. He’s juicing his funds (watches! crypto!) to bail on the US and haul ass overseas on November 7.

(me, bursting into a history lecture) THE MOON LANDING WAS FAKED BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN professor: ma’am this is a class on ancient mesopotamia me: PRONOUNS

(eric adams, covered in marinara sauce, climbing the Empire State Building) you can’t MAKE me resign

Moderators and content reviewers should be paid on par with developers. That’s the hill I’m here to die on.

the year is 2045. everything is problematic now. i eat a plain piece of white toast. 500 phd students materialize to lecture me. forgive me bari weiss i whisper, with my last breath.