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The Present Age Weekly Recap: April 22, 2022
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TPA Weekly Recap

The Present Age Weekly Recap: April 22, 2022

Parker Molloy
Apr 22, 2022
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The Present Age Weekly Recap: April 22, 2022
www.readtpa.com

Welcome to the weekly recap. In this post, I’ll be linking to my work from the week, sharing some stories from others I thought were interesting, and providing a few casual thoughts on [gestures at everything]. If you’d like to receive this weekly email ONLY, please go to your account page and under “Email notifications” uncheck every box except “TPA Weekly Recap.” If you don’t want to receive the weekly recap, leave all boxes except “TPA Weekly Recap” checked.


Sunday is my birthday! You know what would be a great way to wish me a happy birthday? By becoming a subscriber! Just saying…


Outrage Easter spaghetti, Libs of TikTok, and The Masked Singer as a barometer of social failure

On Monday, I published a story about right-wing media’s need to find something new to be angry about, even if there’s nothing of substance to actually complain about. This piece revisits something I wrote three years ago about fake outrage about the term “Easter worshippers.”

The Present Age
Outrage spaghetti stuck to an online wall
Over the weekend, I spent some time thinking about something I wrote three years ago… On Easter Sunday 2019, eight suicide bombers attacked three churches and four hotels in Sri Lanka. 269 people were killed in the attacks, which were apparently tied to…
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9 months ago · 27 likes · 2 comments · Parker Molloy

On Wednesday, I wrote about the lie that the Libs of TikTok Twitter account simply “publishes other people’s videos without editing them — that’s it!” The truth is that this Twitter account exists to put targets on the back of LGBTQ people, which has included instances where they just make things up. If people want to defend it, they should do it without lying.

The Present Age
The big lie about the Libs of TikTok Twitter account
Yesterday, the Washington Post published a story about Libs of TikTok by internet boogeywoman Taylor Lorenz. For those lucky enough to be unfamiliar with the account, it’s exactly what it sounds like: videos from “libs” (liberals, Democrats, anyone to the left of Mitt Romney) that were found on TikTok. The account has amassed a pretty huge following in the past several months (including a number of really high profile politicians and media figures) and has gotten favorably profiled in a number of right-wing media outlets (Fox News…
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9 months ago · 18 likes · 6 comments · Parker Molloy

Rudy Giuliani should be in prison, but instead, he was on Fox’s The Masked Singer this week. I wrote about what that says about who we are as a society.

The Present Age
Hell is empty, and all the devils are here
But felt a fever of the mad, and played Some tricks of desperation. All but mariners Plunged in the foaming brine and quit the vessel, Then all afire with me. The King’s son, Ferdinand, With hair up-staring — then like reeds, not hair — Was the first man that leaped; cried “Hell is empty…
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9 months ago · 46 likes · 6 comments · Parker Molloy

The Present Age is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber.


Posts from others that I want to draw attention to:

Judd Legum and his team have a breakdown of the math textbooks that are being banned by the state of Florida. The right is really going all-in on its book-banning crusade. That should worry all of us.

Popular Information
Inside the "dangerous" math textbooks DeSantis claims would "indoctrinate students"
On April 15, the Florida Department of Education issued a dramatic press release: "Florida Rejects Publishers’ Attempts to Indoctrinate Students." In the release, Florida Commissioner of Education Richard Corcoran announced that he had rejected 54 math textbooks submitted by publishers …
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9 months ago · 188 likes · 39 comments · Judd Legum, Tesnim Zekeria, and Rebecca Crosby

Over at Discourse Blog, Jack Crosbie has a piece patiently explaining that journalists exhausting all avenues of communication in an attempt to confirm a story and offer the subject the ability to comment is not “doxxing.” It’s how reporting works.

Discourse Blog
I Am Begging Conservatives to Understand Basic Journalism
It is very common for journalists to believe that our job is the center of the universe. The assumption, I think, stems from the practice’s best feature: that, when done well, it allows you to study and witness an enormous diversity of perspectives and experiences; you are permitted and encouraged to live many lives while speaking to people and w…
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9 months ago · 22 likes · 3 comments · Jack Crosbie

And over at Alex Pareene’s newsletter, he offers another point on that topic: that people on the right know that this is standard reporting, but simply don’t care. They just want to scream online.

“This new right fundamentally doesn’t want ‘newsgathering’ to happen,” he writes. “They want a chaotic information stream of unverifiable bullshit and context collapse and propaganda.”

The AP (Alex Pareene) Newsletter
They Know How Journalism Works! They’re Just Against It!
On Tuesday, Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz published a story about a repulsive creep who uses her large online following to, essentially, subject random LGBTQ people …
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9 months ago · 81 likes · 5 comments · Alex Pareene

And Lyz Lenz wrote about baseball! And nostalgia! This line is great: “What I’m grieving is ignorance. The times were never simpler; we were just more ignorant.”

Men Yell at Me
The Myth of the Simpler Time
This is the mid-week issue of Men Yell at Me the newsletter about the places our politics and personhood collide. Today, I wrote about nostalgia and corn and baseball. By the way, I love baseball and just bought some Kernels tickets. See you out there…
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9 months ago · 87 likes · 62 comments · lyz

Oh! And Substack has me listed as one of its featured newsletters this week, which is pretty neat, tbh! They even sent me a little icon that I don’t really know what to do with so I’m putting it here:


Sunday is my birthday! So here’s a Parker’s-birthday-specific edition of today’s tunes:

“Losing My Edge” by LCD Soundsystem

“Audience of One” by Rise Against

“Help the Aged” by Pulp

“I Was a Teenage Anarchist” by Against Me

“Standing on the Edge of Summer” by Thursday

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The Present Age Weekly Recap: April 22, 2022
www.readtpa.com
1 Comment
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Sean Corfield
Apr 22, 2022Liked by Parker Molloy

Happy Birthday for Sunday! Hope you get to celebrate in some fun ways!

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