Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
TikTok Investigates (Or Its Users Do, And It Isn’t Pretty)
In just the past half year, TikTok mobs have dived headlong into engagement-baiting investigations of recent murders, online “pedophile rings,” and the legitimacy of popular...
Are You Stuck In “Goblin Mode”?
“Goblin mode” is taking the current pandemic-ridden world by storm. This state of being is defined by behaviours that feel reminiscent of deep lockdown days –...
How To Stop DoomScrolling
“Doomscrolling is essentially an avoidance technique used to cope with anxiety, so wherever you are vulnerable to anxiety, doomscrolling can become an unhealthy coping...
Scientist Proposes That Information Might Be The “Fifth State Of Matter”
The mass-energy-information equivalence principle Melvin Vopson proposed in his 2019 AIP Advances paper assumes that a digital information bit—used for digital data storage today—is not just physical, but...
Why Australia Needs A Ministry Of Culture
There is abundant evidence to show the government’s financial support for the arts and culture has been significantly reduced over many years. Today the arts don’t...
Time For Hollywood To Rethink Its China Strategy?
In 2021, just 20 revenue-sharing U.S. titles were released in Chinese cinemas, compared with 31 U.S. tentpole releases before the pandemic, in 2019. -...
Conservative Media Groups Says It Will Spend $100 Million On Kids Programming (To Counter...
“Americans are tired of giving their money to woke corporations who hate them,” said Daily Wire co-CEO Jeremy Boreing in a statement. - Axios
NY Public Libraries Ended Late Fees. Old Books Began Rolling In
“I can’t tell you how stressed out these fines made our customers,” said Tienya Smith, a librarian who runs the branch in Long Island...
Ashton Hawkins, 84, The Man Who Made The Met Work
If his name was less well known to the museumgoing public than those of Met directors like Thomas Hoving or Philippe de Montebello, two towering figures under...
Mikhail Baryshnikov On The Russian War On Ukraine
“From the start of the invasion of Ukraine by the armies of Vladimir Putin, I’ve felt deep dread and a certainty that this will...
The Protestors Who Have Been Protesting Russian Performers For Years
Even as the annexation of Crimea faded from the media, Signerbusters kept showing up to concerts, draped in Ukrainian flags, equipped with signs and...
Just Where Do You Put Street Dance?
Neither the art world nor the world of noncommercial dance is much more hospitable to an improvising street dancer, at least not one with...
Study: Women Woefully Under-represented In The Music Industry
Over the past decade, women only make up 12.7% of songwriters. The study also counted producers of select years, and found that women made...
Welsh National Opera Working With Sufferers Of Long COVID
Welsh National Opera performers are teaching breathing and vocal techniques to help overcome the long-term effects of the virus. - BBC
How Marshall McLuhan Became Prophet Of The Digital Age
It is fascinating to realize that McLuhan only becomes more of a prophet the further our world turns to the digital. As Paul Levinson...
The Academic Press With Crossover Appeal
Duke has become known as a press that blends scholarly rigor with conceptual risk-taking, where high and low art boldly intermingle on principle. -...
What Does It Mean To Be Authentic? Scientists Are Studying It, Of Course
We propose that authenticity is a feeling that people interpret as a sign that what they are doing in the moment aligns with their...
BBC Says It Will Cut Costs, Hire More “Economically Diverse” Staff
In its annual plan, it also set out a target of 25 percent of staff being “from lower socio-economic backgrounds” by 2027 to “ensure...
Soprano Anna Netrebko Tries To Distance Herself From Putin. The Met Isn’t Buying It
“We’re not prepared to change our position,” Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, said in a statement. “If Anna demonstrates that she has truly...
Why American TV Went Silent During The Oscars Slap
Does it make sense to continue to threaten the major networks and their shrinking share of viewers with huge fines for the utterance of...
How The Letter “Z” Got Co-Opted By The Russian Army Invading Ukraine
In short, the letter Z (which doesn’t actually exist in the Cyrillic alphabet used in Russia) has been transformed and made toxic; it’s a remarkable...
The Inventor Of The Animated GIF Just Died
While he claimed to have “never got 1 cent” for creating the GIF technology, his invention transformed the internet ecosystem and the ways in which people...
What Did Jefferson’s Call To “The Pursuit Of Happiness” Really Mean?
Jefferson’s Enlightenment contemporaries fully understood. They accepted happiness as our greatest good. But only in theory. And theory, as they were often quick to...
Twelve Masterful Literary Descriptions Of Food
Even in the hands of the greats, food scenes can seem less than central to a story, more filler or filigree than substance. - The...
What We Learned At America’s Biggest Writers’ Convention
This year’s conference was generally low on jargon, but there were still notable moments of turbidity in the conference guide. - Los Angeles Times
