The Present Age

Share this post
A look back at the first year of The Present Age, Part 3
www.readtpa.com

A look back at the first year of The Present Age, Part 3

A "best of" look at the first year in business

Parker Molloy
Jun 2, 2022
10
1
Share this post
A look back at the first year of The Present Age, Part 3
www.readtpa.com

I launched The Present Age on June 7, 2021. Since then, I have published 167 newsletters. If you’ve read any of them, I’d like to thank you for doing that. If this is your first, welcome aboard! That being said…

If you haven’t subscribed, it would mean a lot to me if you did! The Present Age is a reader-supported publication.


This week, I’ll be sharing “best of” articles from the first year of The Present Age. Tuesday was June through September 2021; Wednesday was October 2021 through January 2022; today is February through May 2022.

February 8, 2022: I wrote about Joe Rogan and Spotify. In it, I argue that if there was a time to stop Rogan from having his show on Spotify, it was before he was hired. In short: Spotify got exactly what they paid for when they made a deal with him.

The Present Age
Spotify got exactly what it paid for in Joe Rogan. Now what?
Hello, dear readers, I know that I’m several days late to the Joe Rogan/Spotify discourse, but it’s mostly because while it’s a topic definitely within my own intellectual wheelhouse (it’s a media/tech/communication/music story!), I think it’s more nuanced than how a lot of people have been approaching it. Let me explain…
Read more
a year ago · 29 likes · 2 comments · Parker Molloy

February 10, 2022: I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sick of journalists sitting on important info so they can sell a book. That’s what this post was about.

The Present Age
It's hard to trust the press when journalists keep saving scoops for future books
Hello, dear readers, This morning, I woke up to news that New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman’s long-awaited Trump book has a name and a cover. Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America, is out October 4 from Penguin Press…
Read more
a year ago · 33 likes · 3 comments · Parker Molloy

February 14, 2022: This was around the time there were a bunch of “ughhhh, why are people still worried about COVID! COVID is overrrrr” type pieces published in places like The Atlantic. I argued that those were dishonest narratives (and it seems that I was right).

The Present Age
Why many of the "open everything" COVID-19 arguments are so dishonest
Hello, dear readers. Happy Monday. Last July, I wrote about how we’ve become a “society of Holiday Inn Express guests,” a reference to the long-running ad campaign from the ‘90s. You know the one. “No, I’m not [surgeon/astrophysicist/etc.], but I did…
Read more
a year ago · 28 likes · 15 comments · Parker Molloy

February 28, 2022: I wrote about the “Plan to Rescue America” put out by the National Republican Senatorial Committee (the Republican group led by Sen. Rick Scott to help elect more Republicans to the Senate). In addition to a bunch of other horrific stuff, there’s also a not-so-subtle hint that Republicans want to essentially purge trans people from public life. That’s bad, obviously.

The Present Age
GOP Sen. Rick Scott has a terrifying plan to drive transgender people from public life
Hello, readers. Here’s hoping you had a pleasant weekend! I’ve got a lot to say, so let’s get right to it. Last Tuesday, Politico published an article about Florida Senator and head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee Rick Scott’s “11 Point Plan to Rescue America: What Americans Must Do to Save This Country…
Read more
a year ago · 25 likes · 17 comments · Parker Molloy

March 2, 2022: This piece is about people on the internet and their tendency to fake expertise.

The Present Age
Getting a lot of "Boss Baby" vibes from this war...
Hello, dear readers. I hope you’re having a good day. I haven’t posted a whole lot about the situation in Ukraine, and there’s a really good reason for this: I’m not an expert, and I try to know enough to know what I don’t know. This is one of those ideas that I’ve been trying to internalize since reading a really smart piece published by…
Read more
a year ago · 16 likes · 12 comments · Parker Molloy

March 7, 2022: Thinking back on “Freedom Fries,” I warned against taking a broad anti-Russia stance that goes beyond the people responsible for its atrocities.

The Present Age
Have we learned nothing since Freedom Fries?
Good morning, readers. I hope you all had pleasant weekends. Today, I want to talk about Freedom Fries — or rather, the Freedom Fries-ification of the current response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But first, a quick primer on “Freedom Fries”: On February 14, 2003…
Read more
a year ago · 30 likes · 24 comments · Parker Molloy

March 21, 2022: After trans swimmer Lia Thomas won at the NCAA national championships, I wrote this piece about the controversy surrounding her participation and how bad actors were using her to justify their broader anti-trans push.

The Present Age
Fine, let's talk about trans athletes
Fine, let’s talk about trans athletes. [groan] Mainstream media doesn’t tend to pay too much attention to women’s sports. Right-wing media, even less —with a major exception for when there’s a trans person involved, at which point they will then become the world’s biggest proponents of women’s athletics…
Read more
10 months ago · 30 likes · 2 comments · Parker Molloy

March 29, 2022: I had just started using Midjourney’s artificial intelligence art tool, and put together a post about how completely fascinated I was by just how good it was.

The Present Age
This art was made by a computer
Last week, I saw a tweet from Brielle Garcia about a new AI art visualization tool called MidJourney. I’ve messed around a bit with AI-generated art in the past, but MidJourney is just… well, I want to show you. First, here’s the thread that caught my attention…
Read more
10 months ago · 24 likes · 7 comments · Parker Molloy

April 12, 2022: Despite the media narratives about the “censorious left” and “cancel culture,” little attention had been paid to the actual threats to speech being waged by the right.

The Present Age
Which party is actually trying to censor speech? (Hint: It's not the Democrats)
Yesterday morning, I saw this tweet from Jeff Jarvis: “No, Joe, these are not ‘issues,’” he tweeted. “These are Republican tropes intended to take over the media agenda. Judging by this, it’s working.” He’s absolutely right. Democrats aren’t running on a “censor conservative voices, turn colleges into liberal echo chambers, be ‘politically correct’ and ‘cancel’ historical figures” platform…
Read more
9 months ago · 14 likes · 1 comment · Parker Molloy

April 20, 2022: After Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz pulled back the curtain on the person operating the “Libs of TikTok” Twitter account, a narrative started up that the account was actually fine because all it did was post other people’s videos unedited. I pushed back on that argument by highlighting one time it helped create an entirely false story.

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…
Read more
9 months ago · 21 likes · 6 comments · Parker Molloy

April 21, 2022: Rudy Giuliani appeared on Fox’s The Masked Singer. I tried to explain why I felt that was a sign that we failed 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…
Read more
9 months ago · 62 likes · 6 comments · Parker Molloy

April 27, 2022: I spent a day digging through 4chan to explain why “total free speech” probably isn’t what anyone wants, and why Elon Musk’s vision for Twitter was a little off-the-mark.

The Present Age
No, you don't want complete and total free speech. Trust me.
Lately, there’s been a lot of talk about “free speech.” With news that petulant man-child and richest man on the planet Elon Musk is planning to purchase Twitter, take the company private, and turn it into a haven for “free speech.” Sounds good, right? We all love free speech, yeah? Yeah…
Read more
9 months ago · 22 likes · 14 comments · Parker Molloy

May 17, 2022: I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sick of people getting duped by a fake story and then going, “But doesn’t it say something about society that I believed it!?”

The Present Age
No, it does not "say something about society" if you fall for fake screenshots. It just means you're gullible.
Yesterday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis's spokesperson, Christina Pushaw, best known for her smearing opponents of Florida’s anti-LGBTQ “Don’t Say Gay” law as being “pro-grooming,” tweeted out a screenshot of what she claimed was an article from The Washington Post…
Read more
8 months ago · 14 likes · 11 comments · Parker Molloy

May 26, 2022: After the Uvalde, Texas, mass shooting, Republicans tried to blame the attack on trans people. This was not the first time they’ve done this, and it won’t be the last.

The Present Age
Just like they did in 2015, Republicans are falsely blaming trans people for a mass shooting
On November 27, 2015, armed with a semi-automatic rifle, Robert Lewis Dear Jr. walked into a Colorado Springs, Colorado, Planned Parenthood clinic. There, Dear shot and killed three people and injured nine others. “No more baby parts,” Dear told police after his arrest…
Read more
8 months ago · 40 likes · 4 comments · Parker Molloy

I’m hoping to reach 10,000 subscribers by June 7. If you’re not already subscribed, please do so! If you are, please consider sharing links to TPA articles on your social media channels!

Share

8,664 subscribers
1
Share this post
A look back at the first year of The Present Age, Part 3
www.readtpa.com
1 Comment
Ed Cook
Jun 2, 2022

>I spent a day digging through 4chan

I feel like we need some FEMA/EPA hybrid to run decontamination after an experience like that.

Expand full comment
ReplyCollapse
TopNewCommunity

No posts

Ready for more?

© 2023 Parker Molloy
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great writing