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vgr's profile
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
@vgr

Tweets

Venkatesh Rao

@vgr

This is my conversational account. For my work follow @ribbonfarm, @breaking_smart, @artofgig. Tweets are 90% vacuous views, apathetically held. Mediocritopian.

Los Angeles, CA
venkateshrao.com
Joined August 2007

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    1. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 15 Aug 2018
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      I think I just have to learn the skills of radiation-hardened writing

      3 replies 2 retweets 9 likes
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    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 15 Aug 2018
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      A view inside the sausage factory. To manufacture a “hit” you have to thread the needle between hooking relevance to major current attention zones to bleed off some attention for yourself, but oblique enough to not all draw toxic culture-war “bad” energy.

      1 reply 1 retweet 6 likes
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      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 15 Aug 2018
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      In peaceful times, it’s easy to do that. Erring on the side of irrelevance merely gets you ignored. Erring on the side off too much relevance just drowns you in news cycle churn by not aging well.

      1:04 PM - 15 Aug 2018
      • 4 Likes
      • Josh Mize Kris Karzy foo simpolism
      1 reply 0 retweets 4 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 15 Aug 2018
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          In culture-wartime writing, if you suspect you’ll stray into the live fire zone, you’d better be explicit about the battles you pick and show a few weapons. If you stray too far out, there’s too little attention and you have to specialize/target some protected niche instead

          1 reply 1 retweet 6 likes
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        3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 15 Aug 2018
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          Premium Mediocre is one of my few successful recent needle threadings. Compared to similar peacetime posts like say The Locust Economy, it required ~25% more work/attention on radiation hardening/immunization so it could go viral without inviting a toxic shitshow down on me.

          1 reply 1 retweet 7 likes
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        4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 15 Aug 2018
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          The easiest kind of writing to do to today is with a comfortably-smug vibe, with a posture of “I’m more nihilistic than thou” greater acceptance of apocalyptic futures than your reader.pic.twitter.com/msSkswNWtK

          3 replies 2 retweets 14 likes
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        5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 15 Aug 2018
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          Writing something that’s not a move in the culture wars, yet informed by the context of it, and supplying some non-comfortably-smug energy is a bit like trying to pull an airplane out of stall by going into a steep dive to gain airspeed to pull up again

          2 replies 1 retweet 6 likes
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        6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 15 Aug 2018
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          Of course all this is only true if you want to do broad appeal public interest writing. Narrow-interest stuff for people privileged enough to have secured retreat zones from zeitgeist is no different from 2014/15. Reviewing the latest iPhone is the same as it used to be I think.

          1 reply 0 retweets 6 likes
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        7. End of conversation

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