The Present Age Weekly Recap: June 17, 2022
LGBTQ rights, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok
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.
From me this week: the right’s anti-LGBTQ push, plus a couple of media appearances
On Monday, I wrote about the resurgence of violently anti-LGBTQ rhetoric on the right, and why we need vocal allies now more than ever before.
On Wednesday, I shared a clip of my appearance on The Daily Show’s Beyond The Scenes podcast with Roy Wood, Jr., and Chase Strangio.
And on Thursday, I shared a clip of my appearance on MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes.
Stories from others I’d like to highlight
Recode’s Shirin Ghaffary shared a leaked transcript of Elon Musk’s meeting with Twitter employees. It’s… not exactly encouraging, but it’s worth a read.


And in other tech-related news, Joshua Benton has a piece over at Nieman Lab about Facebook’s path to “divorce” the news industry, as well as its TikTok-inspired algorithm changes.


Embedded has a piece that makes me feel old, but that’s okay. It’s about TikTok as the town square.
The great Christopher Ingraham has a neat map breaking down the effect of air pollution on our lives.
And finally, Jack Mirkinson at Discourse Blog has a story with a simple request to the New York Times: please stop publishing terrible journalism about trans people. In case you haven’t noticed, there have been a whole bunch of anti-trans stories being published over there. It’s getting ridiculous, and makes me think that recently-elevated Times managing editor Joe Kahn has some sort of ax to grind. Bad reporting about trans people and our lives will hurt us in major ways.
Today’s tunes:
“Astronaut” by Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s