We Love the Internet 2019/49: The Links of the decade edition

Part 1: For the day job

Things to think about:

· ITV News turns to Instagrammers to build a brand and bulletin fit for teenagers

· Why you shouldn’t fear the gray tsunami

· Why I regret inventing the innocent smoothie brand

· The perils of Netflix’s rumored password sharing crackdown

· Why 1m readers (and a few Illuminati conspiracists) buy into The Economist’s predictions

· 2019 Marked the End of a Television Era — and the Beginning of a New One

· Baby Yodas don’t come cheap: The streaming wars will cost Disney, Netflix, and WarnerMedia $16 billion

· From sitcoms to satire: How comedy is becoming news

Reference points:

· Links of the decade

· 16 incredibly useful things you didn’t know YouTube could do

· Netflix tracks shows by measuring ‘starters,’ ‘watchers,’ and ‘completers’

Longer reads:

· This Was the Decade That Spoiler Culture Changed Everything

· The journalist as influencer: how we sell ourselves on social media

· How to Sell Drugs and Influence Everyone on Instagram

· Gabrielle Union Criticized the Culture at America’s Got Talent. Now She’s No Longer There.

· Inside the Phone Company Secretly Run By Drug Traffickers

· I Worked for Alex Jones. I Regret It.

· We spent 10 years talking to people. Here’s what it taught us about Britain

· The Transformation of Condé Nast

Part 2: For the lunch-break

Things to play with/watch/listen to:

· YouTube Rewind 2019: For the Record

· Wholesome Drunk intruder

· Boy Realises How Hard Shovelling Snow Is

Things to look at/read:

· All hail The Blob, the intelligent slime mould confounding science

· Power-hungry data centres are here to stay — what does that mean for Ireland’s renewable targets?

· Our Skulls Are Out-Evolving Us

· How Tegan and Sara Defeated Scalpers & Embraced Their Fans With ‘Rush Seating’ Concept

· I celebrated Native American Heritage Month by ruining a comedy podcast

· Jamie Hewlett: That’s all drawing is really, just putting some lines in the right place

· This Couple’s Spectacular Engagement Photo Fail Has Gone Viral

Animal corner:

· Just doin some pawttery…

· Here is a thread of dogs who destroyed Thanksgiving dinner

· Okay folks, we have a contest!

· This is a good camera operator. Yes he is.

· “black cats aren’t popular as pets because they aren’t good for Instagram photos”

Tweets of the week:

· you asked for it — here are the most iconic British TV moments of the decade (2010–2019)

· You can tell these Christmas lights are British because Setting 8 suggests you might have become over-excited by the first 7 settings & need to damn well get a grip of yourself.

· She just threw like 8 different tweet formats in a blender and this what she got back

· Naughts and baldys

· Every Mom on Christmas morning watching you open presents:

· Say it ain’t so I will not go Turn the lights off Carry me home

· Jack Nicholson is living my dream life

Part 3: For the weekend

Longer reads:

· Portrait of an Inessential Government Worker

· Uber’s existential crisis

· The Gambler Who Cracked the Horse-Racing Code

· How liberalism became ‘the god that failed’ in eastern Europe

· Why do people hate vegans?

· The Untold Story of the 2018 Olympics Cyberattack, the Most Deceptive Hack in History

· My own private Iceland

· Adam Driver, the Original Man

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