Stop Being Internet Jerks

Being a writer and podcaster is good and bad. I have talked at length about both of these things. And I am not here to talk about my personal experience with people who comment either nice or not so nice about my brother and I on the internet. We already did an entire podcast on that. Today I want to talk about people who troll on websites like Facebook and Bleacher Report and Instagram.

This has become a real problem. There are things said online, behind a screen name with no picture, that is so putrid, I do not even want to repeat it. There are some people that are so filled with hate and vitriol and anger and they just spew it on the internet for everyone to see. This obviously happens in politics all the time. I am a very liberal democrat, and I follow people like the Obama's and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and some local Democrats in Saint Louis, and some of the comments on their pages are heinous. These pages are supposed to be for people who actually like them, but you always end up with these trolls saying horrific things to them on their pages. It is so vile, and I always find myself thinking, why are you doing this? What good comes from this? You know they do not read these comments? It is so baffling to me. I used to comment on stuff, until I realized that it was fraught and pointless. It helps no one except the person making the comment, and they are usually so full of anger that one comment, or one thread, is not enough. They go on endlessly. If you don't agree with Biden and Harris, that is fine. But to make vile and insipid comments, that is childish and dangerous. And to do it online for the world to see, that is downright stupid.

Sadly I see the same thing going on with fan pages of sports teams I like. I am a humongous Michigan Wolverines fan, and I swear the people who comment most are fans of other teams. I ask again, what is the point? Why waste your time going on a Michigan page just to trash them? The university of Ohio State fans that do this. I have said many times that they are better at football than Michigan. That is a simple fact. But to go on a fan page, where almost everyone is a die hard, and write stupid things like "it has been x amount of days since Michigan beat us in football", why are you doing that? We all know it has been a long time. Hell, my wife knows it has been a long time, and she could care less. And to go on the page and constantly trash Jim Harbaugh, why? People at ESPN and Sports Illustrated and even Michigan's own websites do this enough as it is. I don't need to hear from some jackass in Columbus telling me the coach of my favorite football team hasn't lived up to the hype. I watch it every season. I'm aware, as are most normal Michigan fans. But we don't go on the university of Ohio State's web page and trash their basketball team, or their former coaches for illegally recruiting. It is a waste of our time.

I also see this trolling on movie pages. Why do people have to go and trash movies? What good does that do? I know not everyone is going to like the movies I like, but why say such hateful things to me for liking a movie like "Judas and the Black Messiah"? Someone who I have never met, who I have no interest in ever meeting, came at me online for liking that particular movie. They said some very nasty and tasteless and hurtful stuff. It was wild. I do not respond to these people, but that stuff does sting. And I do want to ask this person, why are you doing this? What good is going to come from this? How does it feel to trash a person you have never met, and never will meet? But I know this is a fruitless line of questioning. This person, and these other trolls, they will always think they are right because they are louder than me, or they can type in all caps.

This sucks. I lost a very good friend a few years back because I tried to communicate through social media, but they went too far. I know this all goes nowhere. I just wanted to point out how ridiculous and pointless this trolling is. It solves nothing. It makes people angry over nothing and it is cowardly and childish. Think before you type. Treat people the way you'd like to be treated if you met in real life. And stop trolling online. This internet madness has got to stop.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

Come and support Ty and the podcast on Patreon.

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SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.

Best of 2019: Best of Everything Else

Super writer/critic extraordinaire Ty has already covered the best albums, the best movies, the best television shows, the best podcasts, and the best sports moments of 2019. Today I am going to give the rest of the stuff of 2019 some love. We will cover books, tech, video games, and a few other corners of society not given the top five/ten treatment by our publications. Let’s get started.

Best Video Game of 2019

Untitled Goose Game is the game we needed in our lives at this very moment in history. It appeals to young and old alike, and for very different reasons. I talked with a nine year old about the game, and then spun the game as an allegory for President Trump.

As for the game itself? You are a goose, and you are here to terrify a small village. You get from place to place by solving puzzles that involve your goose stealing things, scaring kids, and causing general mayhem.

It is awesome.

Best Movie Trailer for a Movie Released in 2019

This should have been the first trailer for Joker, but then Cats came along. A movie trailer needs to be memorable, and oh boy was the Cats trailer memorable for all the wrong reasons. The movie looked horrifying and stupid at the same time. I spent most of my time watching and rewatching the trailer asking myslef why would such an such actor be in this thing. My answers never came. Cats shows us that the best of us need to be told every now and then. The trailer was our first warning.

Best Movie trailer for a Movie Released after 2019

In 2019, the DC movie Universe started to catch up with Marvel. Aquaman came out in late 2018, but was the top movie in the early months of 2019. Shazam was a modest hit, and well like by the critics and the audience. Joker was a megahit and the most talked about movie of the year. Then around Thanksgiving we were given our first look at Wonder Woman 1984. The setting was spot on, the music was incredible, and the movie itself looks amazing. June 5th, 2020 cannot get here soon enough.

Best Book of 2019

Great new books come out every year. What is truly the best is usually left up to a person’s personal preference. Many times the best book we read in a given year came out in a previous year. The best book for 2019, or the most important to read book, is George Orwell’s 1948 novel 1984.

In 1948, George Orwell understood the dangers of screaming fake news and blind loyalty to a government that has an agenda counter to the benefit of the people they serve. In 2019 we live in 1984’s world, and we do not care. It could never happen to us is what we said when we first read Orwell’s dystopic story. In 2019 we need to read 1984 to acknowledge the fact we live in this society.

Best Tech of 2019

It is hard to judge new technology until we have seen it in action for a year or more. All the big tech sites with praise anything Apple, and then quietly say how bad the tech was years later, see the Apple Pencil and Macbook keyboard.

Apple is not alone in the blind praises bestowed by the tech media on the companies and personalities the writers so desperately want to have access to. That is why the Tesla Cybertruck is the best tech of the year.

The cybertruck look stupid, it will be grotesquely overpriced, and it will be bested by a real car company in the not so distant future, but the Cybertruck will be considered the first heavy duty pickup to normalize the idea of an all electric truck for the masses. In the not so distant future when Tesla is gone, the tech media will continue to remind us that the Cybertruck was “first”. They will not be totally wrong.

Best Written Thing on the Internet

In 2019 the website Deadspin.com entered a death spiral. The owners decided to lay down the law on the creators, and the creators revolted. The end of one of the most important internet sites had dawned. Before the true endgame, former editor Megan Greenwell wrote an insightful and scathing piece about the current state of internet journalism. We live in a world where traditional journalism, i.e. newspapers, radio, and televsion, has been sacrificed on the alter of capitalism. The internet was where real journalism was still breathing it’s survival breaths. Then the corporate raiders came for the internet. Clicks, likes, and trash were valued more than the talents of creators. Megan Greenwell saw this, was fired, and then left the last parting shot. Forget about all the “traditional” media think pieces on the world around us. Megan Greenwell gave us a true look into the future we are moving towards. Read her words and be wary.

Best Visual Thing on the Internet

The Peloton is stupid. Exercise is good, but the cult like, false view of wealth, that the Peloton sells is poisonous. The company/cult’s newest ad reflects the toxic image the overpriced spin bike is selling.

Enter a hero. Ryan Reynold’s owns a gin called Aviator and he sought out the woman in the Peloton ad. Together they made the greatest ad of the year. Who knew that gin was more progressive, and respectful, than an exercise device. Now we know.

These are just a few of the things I saw in 2019 that made an impact. While companies like Peloton and any trust fund idiot that owns a website tried to push society backwards, we had heroes like Megan Greenwell, Ryan Reynolds, and an untitled goose to give us the catharsis we need. In 2019 we were also gifted with the reminder of what was warned in 1948, and we were able to observe pop culture’s hubris with Cats. All in all there were scares and hope in the year 2019 of the common era.

Bring on the 20’s.

RD

RD Kulik is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.

Bad Take Generator Kevin O'Connor Is At It Again

Where O’Connor’s takes belong

I don't like to talk about the same person in 2 consecutive weeks, and this comes off as big time trolling, but The Ringer's Kevin O'Connor was at it again on "The Ringer NBA Show" this past Tuesday. Also, I don't care trolling someone when they are as stupid and contradictory as O'Connor has proven himself to be time and time again.

This most recent episode had me giving in and saying that I am only going to give the pod one more listen because O'Connor's takes have gotten worse and worse and he has gotten so high and mighty that it is insufferable. On the most recent episode there were 2 instances where he made himself look like a total asshole and idiot.

The first was his pure love for Luka Doncic and his recent tear, wherein he is averaging near a triple double. O'Connor praised Doncic. He has been on the bandwagon since before last year's draft, I will give him that. He then went on to talk about how he is a top ten player currently, I personally have him just outside the top ten, and an MVP candidate right now, of which I agree with. I like Doncic as much as the next NBA fan. I just don't love him as much as O'Connor does. And, when Chris Vernon, who is the only saving grace of this pod and website right now, pushed him on how he dogged Russell Westbrook for averaging a triple double 2 years ago, O'Connor's response was so god damn stupid that I continued to call him an idiot to my phone multiple times.

O'Connor went into some nonsense about how he wished that Westbrook was a better shooter, and how he wished he didn't hunt stats and how he thought Westbrook's two triple double seasons were empty. He then praised Doncic's passing. He said he loves that he shoots threes, even though he isn't a great shooter yet. He also talked about how important he is to the Mavericks and to the league. This is all ridiculous and further proves that The Ringer hates Westbrook and loves Doncic. They're so protective of their pet projects and guys they like, and when they don't like someone, they go in so hard to prove how "bad" they are. But, here is the truth. Westbrook is a better player than Doncic. He isn't the shooter, and he isn't as young, but he has done so much more, for a longer period of time, including deep playoff runs, than Doncic can dream of doing right now. Westbrook one hundred percent deserved his MVP when he won it, and him averaging a triple double was astounding.

The fact that shit writers like O'Connor, and his boss Bill Simmons, keep putting down Westbrook is so pitiful. Westbrook is a once in a generation talent, and they are taking him for granted because they don't like the way he plays basketball. To praise Doncic, who is totally stat hunting as well, and trash Westbrook is just in poor taste and proves how hacky the takes are from O'Connor.

Then, when I didn't think he could be more stupid, he comes out and says that the Spurs need to trade one or both of DeMar DeRozan and LaMarcus Aldridge and embrace the youth movement. While I don't think that the Spurs embracing youth is bad, O'Connor's reasoning was what made me scoff. He said that if they keep both guys, they will be a 6, 7 or 8 seed and get beat in the playoffs, and who wants that he asked. I'd say the majority of Spurs fans would want that. The fans in San Antonio have become so used to being in the playoffs, so I don't think they'd care if they are a lower seed, as long as they are still in the playoffs. I wonder if he would say the same thing about Tom Brady right now, and the Patriots. Yes, the Patriots are better, but Brady has looked pretty washed this season. So, since he is all about youth, why not move on from Brady? Is it because he is a winner, and you trust him to figure it out? Wow. Maybe that is how the Spurs fans feel about Greg Poppovich and his staff. They always seem to figure something out, and they are always competitive. Just because this younger group of writers like O'Connor are so obsessed with drafting based on potential doesn't mean that people who have been winning for multiple decades now have to do what they want them to do. It is 15 games into an 82 game season. They have so much time, and seeds 5-8 are still very much wide open. Then, when Vernon said he wouldn't trade DeRozan because he is good, O'Connor went into nonsense about how he doesn't shoot enough threes and they need to trade him to get younger guys willing to shoot the three. That is so god damn stupid. Also, he kept talking about how the youth on the Spurs barely plays together, and I say again, it is 15 god damn games into the year. I'm sure Poppovich will fix some stuff and make some adjustments. Hearing takes like this every week from a dude that I can guarantee didn't even play high school basketball is so absurd. I'm sure front offices also have people that listen to these pods and think, I'm glad that moron doesn't work for us.

Kevin O'Connor has seemed to do something that makes me dislike, and lose respect for him, every week on the podcast. I already stopped reading his writing because it is poor, and now I am one step away from ending listening to him on pods because his takes are worse than ever. It is sad that he is so porous at what he does, yet he is one of the bigger names at this ridiculous company. Every week I lose respect for him, and continue to ask myself, why do I listen to anyone besides Zach Lowe and Jackie MacMullen talk basketball. They are good. O'Connor is not.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He had an uncomfortable experience with a lie detector test. It was quite uncomfortable, know what I mean?

Follow Ty on instagram and twitter.

SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.

The Ringer's Kevin O'Conner is a Bad Take Generator

Home to Kevin O’Conner takes

I am very tough on the website The Ringer. I feel like it is filled with hot take millennial BS that is pointless. All the majority of the hosts of the podcasts, and their writers, it is all about the quickest and hottest take out there. I don't feel like they do a ton of research, and they just want to put out stuff to get clicks on the site. Also, Bill Simmons is one of the biggest has beens in the sports writing business. He is such a non factor in the NBA world now. I do not trust a word he says anymore, and while he was once a solid writer, he has only shown since starting The Ringer, is that he wants so badly to still be in his 20's, even though he is approaching his 50's. It is sad. That much is true. Also, his interviews with Malcolm Gladwell have been horrendous and awful, in so many different ways.

While I do not read the website anymore, it feels like a total waste of time, I do subscribe to 2 of their podcasts. I listen to their NFL show, and I listen to their NBA show hosted by Chris Vernon and Kevin O'Connor. I do like Chris Vernon. I have talked about that before. He has some of the better takes on the pod, he seems to understand the NBA pretty well, and he isn't a yes man, of which this company is filled with. I also enjoy his passion for the game, and his love for his hometown team, the Memphis Grizzlies. Yes, he can be obnoxious from time to time, he can be a little loud, but again, he seems like the smartest person that is involved with the whole Ringer crew.

Then we have Kevin O'Connor. Boy oh boy do I not like him. He has one, maybe 2 good takes per episode, but everything else is so absurd and contradictory and asinine and flat out stupid. He takes credit for the few things he gets right, and when he is very wrong, which is a lot, he almost always deflects the blame. He is never wrong, it was something out of his control that caused his shit take to be off.

For example, I was listening to their most recent episode, and twice he said some shit that was so off that it made me audibly gasp and call him an idiot to my iPhone. First, Chris Vernon called him out on his "bright future Suns" comment, and when he was pushed by Vernon, he kind of just blahed his way through his speech. Vernon pointed out that when he called them the "bright future Suns", they had so many other players. In fact, the only player that is still on the team when O'Connor coined them that is Devin Booker. Every other player is gone. But O'Connor, in his infinite stupidity, tried to claim that Booker was the only reason he called them "the bright future Suns". That is false. You can go back and listen to him say he still liked Dragan Bender, gone, or any other number of players that the Suns have since traded or let go in free agency. The team is incredibly different from who O'Connor dubbed "the bright future Suns".

And then, the comment that really irked me, he said that the Knicks need to lose. I hate, hate, hate that this whole new tanking thing is what the younger generation of basketball writers are so enamored with right now. Why would any fan of any team ever want their team to lose purposely? The 76ers did it for half a decade, and when you talk to their fans, they talk about some dark thoughts during that time. I am a lifelong Michigan fan, and the Rich Rodriguez and Brady Hoke eras where unbearable. I'm sure Houston Astros fans are happy now, but when they were regularly losing 100 games, that couldn't have been fun. I am now rooting for the Memphis Grizzlies, and while Ja Morant has been a blast to watch so far, it stinks that they get beat pretty much every night. I think it is easy for someone like Kevin O'Connor, who is a Boston guy, to talk about how these teams should actively tank because in his whole sports fandom life, the Patriots, Celtics, Bruins and Red Sox have all been really good, or even won titles. The teams he roots for haven't had to tank, yet. So when he said that the Knicks should continue to tank, I was flabbergasted. He kept saying that this would help them get young talent, and lure free agents. I need to say, how did that work for them this past offseason? They didn't sign anyone of note, they ended up taking RJ Barrett, more on him and another O'Connor comment in a moment, and they have no real shot anymore at getting the number one pick in the upcoming draft. They did this exact same thing last year, losing because they were certain they were going to get Zion Williamson, and sign one, or both, of KD and Kyrie Irving. Well, none of that happened Mr. O'Connor. So what makes you think it will happen this offseason, or next or next? Hell, KD even said no one wants to go sign with the Knicks because they haven't been relevant since the late 90's.

As for that RJ Barrett comment, he said that the Knicks are playing him too much. What in the actual hell?! I mean, if the kid wants to play, and the team wants him to play and the coach wants him to play, let him play. Who cares? You can throw all the too many minutes thing, and the rookie wall at me, but if Barrett feels good, and they took him third overall and they want to build around him, let him play. O'Connor is obsessed with coddling the young generation coming into the NBA, especially Duke players. That is ridiculous. Also, if David Fizdale was only playing him 20 minutes a night, O'Connor would be the first one to say that the Knicks need a new coach who would let Barrett play.

Kevin O'Conner is an unreliable, porous and crappy sports writer. He is the definition of a hot take writer who thinks they are never wrong. He seems lost and confused every time Chris Vernon calls him out, and his response is to act like a child who is being wrongly scolded. I hope O'Connor reads this because I really, really want him to know how I feel about him and his crap takes. Of all the crummy writers and podcasters they have at The Ringer, O'Connor is the second worse, behind only his boss, Bill Simmons.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

Follow Ty on instagram and twitter.

SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.

Drew Magary has Always Been Good. This Week He is Great.

Here is your medal Mr Magary

Today I want to throw some love to one of my personal favorite writers, Deadspin and GQ's Drew Magary. This past week, if fact in the past two days, I have read two of his articles that both speak so loudly to me, and both for totally different reasons. These pieces are truly unique to Magary's style, and I have not been able to stop thinking about either of them.

The first is one he wrote for The Takeout, where he calls out the "mayonnaise bullies". I am a person who doesn't like mayo, and I have never, ever heard the end of it. Everyone always tries to get me to try different kinds, mayo with added flavors, homemade mayo, pretty much any type of mayonnaise. Now, I am not opposed to eating tuna fish or potato salad, but I have my limits. But, I am a person that prefers a mustard or vinegar base. When it comes to things like coleslaw, give me vinegar. And when it comes to potato salad or tuna, I actually prefer a mustard base, preferably, a spicy mustard. Magary touches on the bullying in his piece so perfectly. He talks about people looking at him like he's an alien when he tells them he doesn't like any form of mayo. He talks about how he gets almost yelled at for his dislike. But he then goes into why he doesn't like it. He perfectly explains his distaste for thing, especially at a barbecue, that seem to need mayo. He talks about how restaurants are almost pushers with their need to put mayo on things. One certain aspect he brought up that made me scream, "YES", while reading, was the fact that some places don't even ask, they just put it on sandwiches and burgers. That is so mean and nasty. It is such an unexpected and unwanted surprise when getting something you don't expect to have mayo on it covered in mayo. I cannot get the Wendy's spicy chicken sandwich anymore because of the inordinate amount of mayo they put on it. Even when I ask for no mayo, there seems to be a light schmear of it regardless. It is infuriating. But, it is nice to know that Magary feels the same way I do, and he put it out there for a ton of people to read. I love it, and I agreed with pretty much everything he wrote in that piece.

The recent article Magary wrote for Deadspin spoke to me in a totally different way, but was my push to write about him today. Today he called out Barstool Sports. For the record, I have spent zero seconds on Barstool Sports, by choice, but from what I have gleaned since it was formed, it is a blog spot for the annoying Boston fan base. Oh, and they also like to steal material from people that actually worked hard to create it, only for it to be stolen by some hacks. I have also heard about their culture of cyber bullying, and how poorly they treat women. This is the same company that offered a lady a 50 dollar gift card after stealing her material. That is ridiculous. But, for Magary to go out and call them out, and fully expect to get blowback from their frat boy douche bag fan base, I applaud him. The fans of Barstool Sorts are meatheads on Rob Gronkowski's level. They are younger versions of Bill Simmons. They are the type of idiots that voted for this current government. They are mean and nasty and hide behind screen names. I loathe Barstool Sports. So does Magary. He called them out so perfectly. He talked about all their problems since they were formed. He talks about the cyber bullying, even citing certain incidents. He put up videos of the horrific Portnoy, the guy that started the site, basically shaming anyone for saying he was stealing from them. Barstool Sports is for morons, and Magary made that very clearly known. They don't know anything about sports, outside of Boston. They stink and they are rude. I liked this article so much because he really did put himself out there to be ridiculed, but he could care less, which will only further upset the morons that will say mean things to him. He wrote the piece with no fear, and again, I felt like applauding him after reading it. It is a truly great piece.

Drew Magary is a great writer, who isn't afraid to take chances and shake things up, and I respect the hell out of that. I, obviously, highly recommend these 2 pieces. But, beyond that, I recommend everything Magary writes. The dude rules and I cannot wait to read what he writes next.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He may hate mayo, but sriracha, Ty puts that stuff on everything. It is the bomb.

Follow Ty on instagram and twitter.

SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.

Throwing rocks, bombs, and nukes: The death of the old internet.

Recently a member of the SeedSing team was subject to some internet harassment. This got us all thinking about this old post. We feel like these thoughts are still as valid now as they were way back then. The post originally appeared July 22nd, 2015. Tell us your thoughts.

It has been a bad year for Reddit.

And a less than stellar month for Gawker.

And a very bad week for Ashley Madison.

Let us first take a look at the failure of Reddit. I love Reddit. It is part of the daily news dump into my brain. I am one of the millions of people who visit Reddit every single day, sometimes more than once a day. The idea of uncensored non-professional content was a revelation. I could not get enough of the raw content Reddit had to offer. Then I got older, and the ugliness of Reddit was turning me away. The horribleness of the MRA's , racists, and generally despicable people were the main focus of the site. The statistics would show how insignificant these loser subreddits actually were. The problem is these miserable people had social media, and a broken media, to advance their cause. Whenever Reddit would try to reign in the most awful people, the awful people would revolt under the claim of free speech. Gamergate gained its legs from  Reddit. That alone is Reddit's greatest failure.

Once Reddit tried to reign in the ugly minority, it had failed. The exit of Ellen Pao was the end of any future for the site. The fact that she tried to monetize the site by tamping down the worst parts of humanity should have been seen as an evolution of Reddit. Instead it was seen as a ploy (by a woman) to silence idiots. Reddit was for the worst of us. That was the lesson we all learned.

Gawker wanted to be the new media. Journalism without influence. I love that ideal. The idea that newsmaker should be part of news creation is idiotic. Influence has destroyed our modern media. I do not care to hear what the policy maker thinks, I want to know how the average person is affected by the policy maker. Fox News raced to the bottom through influence journalism, and all the networks followed. Gawker was going to be different.

So what the hell happened. Well, Gawker decided to be a celebrity (or celebrity connected) scandal tabloid institution. The problem is TMZ already filled that void. Gawker wants to be TMZ, while they trash on entities that are like TMZ. Celebrity gay shaming became a primary part of Gawker (and its other sites). The goal of being new media, but the reality of being a middle school boy, will be the sites undoing.

I absolutely love the Ashley Madison hack story. The hackers do not care about cheating idiots.  I do not really care about the weird sexual fantasy's of rich people who want to cheat (well I am kind of curious). The hackers are going after Ashley Madison because of their false claims of anonymity. What is so great about this story is that Ashley Madison will go down because of their own greed. 

That is why the old internet is dying, greed. Ashley Madison promised anonymity, and the ability to delete your existence (for a price). The problem is they never deleted anyone from their own servers. Credit card numbers, addresses, names, all of these important pieces of information people wanted to be anonymous were still part of Ashley Madison's data stores. The old internet relied upon financial information, and clicks. Reddit quietly embraced its horrible side because of web traffic. Gawker fell to the tabloid side of journalism because of eyeballs. Users want truth, justice, and financial security. The websites that claim to offer these things failed because of personal greed.

This is the end of the anonymous, self righteous, and asshole internet. Good riddance. I created SeedSing as a place for discussion that centers around what we can do to make a better tomorrow. Will we fall into the same trap as Reddit, Gawker, and Ashley Madison? Absolutely not. SeedSing will not cater to hateful people. The money we make goes to the contributors (after small expenses to keep the site running).

People have ideas, people have solutions, people have ambition. The new web will be contributor based with a focus on problem solving. The days of clickbait, endless surveys, and required personal financial information are over. We do not need your email, we need your thoughts. Society is in a bad state, something needs to change. We need to embrace new culture. We need to embrace new technology. We need to embrace new politics. 

There are many problems created by antiquated backward thinking. Our politics is messed up because of this. Our view of sports is suffering because of this. Our drug policy is messed up because of this. Let the internet of the past die. It is time for the 21st century to take hold.

Let your seed sing and take root. We can change the world.

RD Kulik

RD is the founder of SeedSing. He is interested in making things better. Join his cause.

The SeedSing (half) year in Politics and Society

What is the opposite of progress?

SeedSing was launched on May 1st (National Workers Day) so we could look at politics and pop culture from the common person. We are not interested in influence or telling stories that will protect the egos of the well connected. What started out as one man's personal political philosophy has grown into a discussion covering a variety of topics. Join us for a look back at the year in politics and society.

The first article posted on our Politics/Society section was about The Ohio Problem. Every presidential election states like Ohio become very important to the national Democratic Party. Out of state consultants are brought in to fund raise and create a massive voter outreach program for the presidential nominee. In their effort to secure the state, the Democratic Party forgets about the local candidates. The lack of voter turnout during non-presidential elections is a direct consequence of the Ohio problem. There was another election in November of 2015, and the Commonwealth of Kentucky saw the election of a Tea Party zealot for Governor, large in part because voter turnout was so low. This is directly related to the Republican Party taking over the majority of local offices in many blue states. We identified the The Ohio Problem, and then tried to find out how to solve this issue. Technology and an emphasis on local messaging are two solutions we put forward. In 2016 SeedSing is looking forward to many other solution oriented ideas on how to fix a problem like Ohio.

The how and why of the modern Republican Party was featured many times on SeedSing. The hypocrisy, lack of global leadership, the need to be hateful, the absence of vision, and the celebration of failure, were all on display for the Republican Party this year. The only glimmer of hope in their dreary future seems to be Senator Rand Paul, but the Republican Party does not seem to care about a candidate who can grow the parties voter base. The parties faithful base would rather rally behind a loudmouthed bigot idiot that has never heard of Muhammad Ali or Kareem Abdul Jabbar.

The traditional press and the original internet taste makers were beginning to show their incompetence in 2015. The rise of Donald Trump is upon us because the news people on television love to have a good story. It is time to ignore the press before they really bring disaster to our society. The old icons of the internet were not behaving any better than their television counterparts. Reddit and Gawker may be letting out their final breaths. At SeedSing we believe it is time for the old walled ways of the internet to die, and it is time to make way for a new open discussion.

How we live and the way we define people became a topic of discussion all over the internet. Tina S shared her views on what #ILookLikeAnEngineer really means. The saga of Rachel Dolezal briefly made us talk about how we identify race. Kirk Aug recommended books on  the failure that is the war on drugs, and the policy side of death. We took a look at the legalization of marijuana, and it's eventual failure at the Ohio ballot box.  Who we are and how we live will determine the type of society we will die in.

Gun violence became a larger problem with a solution falling farther away. Guns were used as tools of destruction for a racist. Guns were used to kill two people trying to do their jobs. Guns were used to cause terror at rural community college. Guns were used by crazy people to insight terror in Paris. Predictable we decided to fight this terror with more destruction. Each event was covered by the news, and as a society we tried to find meaning. The public was never able to discuss the gun as being part of the problem, and the violence continues. 

We had many challenging discussions at SeedSing about the state of our politics and our society. 2016 looks to be an even more exciting year. We have a Presidential election to look forward to. Will Hillary win it all (probably)? Have something to say about the state of politics and society? Come join our conversation.

Thank you for 2015. On to 2016

RD Kulik (and all the SeedSing contributors)

RD is the Head Editor for SeedSing. Do you love SeedSing, but do not want to write? Money is always welcome around here.

Welcome to the Future: The web as the platform

You may not need to upgrade to Windows 10

I have long waited for the day that the platform I use would be primarily the internet browser. Years ago, I installed a Linux based desktop distribution and stripped out much of the software aside from Firefox. This was when Google Docs had yet to become Google Drive and Google’s Chrome browser was in very infantile stages. It sort of worked. There was not much for web based services for video editing, software development, or photo management the way there is today, but I did not really expect it to fulfill all my needs at the time. I just wanted to see how far we had to go. I ended up using it as my baseline, adding software as I needed it after the browser when nothing available through the web sufficed.

Today things are quite different. I have been using a Chromebook for about a year now and I have not found that I need to go back to a full desktop for anything that I use a computer for on a personal level. Those three things I mentioned above are now taken care of through web based applications. I do all of my writing on Google Drive. I use a service called Codeanywhere for coding. I use WeVideo to edit together video clips. And Google Photos works great for photo management and editing for me. If I do need access to a desktop computer, I have a headless Mac mini sitting in my living room that takes care of some automated tasks. I can use remote desktop to get at it, but I have not used it for anything that I couldn’t do with Chrome OS. Maybe someday I would put a Chromebox in it’s place, but the Mac is doing the job fine right now.

The reason I have been so excited for the web to be operating system rather than merely another application on your main operating system (Windows, OS X, Linux, etc.) is because every platform has a portal to the web. At this point it makes more sense to build a web app before any platform specific app. In fact, a lot of the apps that can be attained from the various app stores of the modern mobile platforms (iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and others) are little more than a native app wrapper around code that runs in a web browser. This does not always mean that the device needs to be connected to the web for the app to function. Many offline apps are built using web browser technologies as the core. Many websites can be placed on the homescreen of your device and be indistinguishable from an app store app to the untrained eye, even without going through the app store. I like this idea since I do not believe that any app store curator be it Apple, Google, Microsoft, or whoever, should be the czar to the digital media we enjoy.

Another positive reason to celebrate the web as a platform from a developer’s perspective is that an app hosted on the web can feature the ultimate piracy protection. Using a system that the user has to log into and pay if they want to continue to get certain features means that there is no way that a pirate can use your software without paying. Now I do believe that users should be allowed to try before paying, and I think that is one of the main lessons we have to learn from the state of piracy today. However, individual developers are free to try other models.

Problems with the web as a platform at this point are mainly the complexities. Most people are used to the world of software being something installed locally. Though web apps can be installed locally, most do not require it. The expectation is that you will likely be online when accessing these services. Many people are not comfortable with this. I can use Google Drive offline to some extent, but I cannot edit video from within a tunnel on the Metro. I think that some of the heavier web apps will evolve to work offline, but our connectivity will also evolve to a point where we will not be offline ever. It may still be a while, but even as I write this I am hardly ever away from access to the internet. I almost have to go out of my way to make it so that I am totally outside the boundaries of an internet signal. I went to a cave on my recent vacation and they had wifi hotspots in there. Seventeen hundred feet underground and I still could not escape internet access. Even with my example of the Metro train, I would not be surprised to see wifi installed in the near future. And if not, do I really need to be doing heavy web applications from within a Metro tunnel?

So the web is the platform. Some people are currently stuck using a more fully featured version of Microsoft Office or Photoshop, but I think it is silly to think that every feature of those software packages would not be available through a web app one day. I think someday soon native software will be dwarfed by what is available as a web app.

Kirk Aug

Kirk has settled into his virtual cubicle at SeedSing. He is curious if future space tourism will have good wifi coverage. Follow him on twitter @kirkaug.

The Death of the Old Internet: A rebuttal and revisit.

A few weeks ago I wrote a piece on the problems at Reddit, Gawker, and Ashley Madison. This morning I uploaded a podcast recorded days after the article that discussed the current death of the old internet.  The future of the internet is a topic that consumes my mind throughout a large portion of the waking day, I think I actually dream about the idea on some nights. I am excited, and saddened, when I think about how many of my favorite sites have changed with the times, and how many of them have failed to adapt. Being a beginner in content creation for the internet, I wanted to learn from all the successful people in the past, and heed the warnings of the failures. The new internet is where I want to live, it is where we will all thrive.

On August 6th, the website Vox.com published an article by Todd VanDerWerff titled 2015 is the Year the Old Internet Finally Died . I was initially shocked that there was an article out there with a similar headline, and many of the same ideas I had proposed. My first basic thought was "Have I been ripped off?". Then my rational brain took over and reminded me that Vox, Todd VanDerWerff, or any other large professional news organization probably did not rip off my piece. They did not know the article, or SeedSing, even exist. I really wish they had ripped me off, because that would mean some big dogs are reading, and agreeing, with the ideas I am presenting. I highly doubt, but am naively hopeful, that is the case.  

VanDerWerff's piece recounted some of the same problems I talked about surrounding Gawker and Reddit. The Vox.com article was more researched, and devoted a lot more words to the overall topic. The author also has experience working with websites I frequently visit. He is definitely more of an expert on the death of the old internet than I am. I also believe he is wrong in his conclusions of the new internet. Where VanDerWerff thinks we are getting away from community and long form expression (funny considering his piece was definitely not that short) I think that long form articles will be a big part of the make up in the new internet. We are entering a new age of enlightenment. The ideas of the common people, not only the connected elites, have a place on the new internet. Real, positive change needs to be explained, and explanation takes up screen space.

The professional internet writers are more interested in their personal profiles, they have forgotten about writing to the masses. Clicks and monetization seem to be the only concern for these old bloggers. The A.V. Club is a website I visit everyday. I have been there since the launch, and have no reason to change my loyalty. The A.V. Club is also in danger of not being a viable part of the new internet. They have built a community of writers and readers, and have walled off that community to anyone else. The movie reviewers have been my go to source for Paul Thomas Anderson praise and Adam Sandler hate. They are incredible predictable in their "reviews". I am sure Sandler's latest movies stink, but I also really did not care that much for There Will be Blood or The Master. Those views will invite the stupidest inside joke scorn from the commentators and a more professional rejection from the writers. The A.V. Club has created a community for the writers, and this shows a lack of vision. If you want to write about anything, pop culture especially, you need to understand and expand the audience. Creating a community of people that only think like you is the same as going to church (or the Republican National Convention). The kids in the high school audio visual club were awkward because they were assholes about what was cool (it was almost never something that was cool). The A.V. Club wants to be the asshole, they will also get to have their little room that no one else wants to go in.

Cracked.com is another website I have visited nearly everyday since their launch. What I enjoyed about Cracked was how they would talk about the worst fictional towns (Gotham City number 1) or the dumbest GI Joe vehicles (so many dudes hanging off of the sides). This was a site for nostalgic men over the age of 30, but who really want to be 13 again. As the audience changed, Cracked started to change with it. Their articles started to take on an intellectual vibe (with some crude humor), but at the same time the core purpose of the website stayed the same.  Their commentators hated the change. Recently Cracked has added a BuzzFeed feature looking at the news of the week, which their commentators hate. The personal experience articles, where the editors talk with people who have interesting jobs and life experience, have brought a whole new group of people in. The commentators predictably also hate this. Cracked does not care what the commentators think, those people will still come to the site that they fell in love with in 2005. Cracked is interested in growing the community by adding new people.

Todd VanDerWerff's piece lamented the fact that the new internet is removing the nice communities of the old internet. That is a good thing. The old internet was built with walls, and walls do not foster ideas. Many of the writers from the "professional" sites want to live in an echo chamber where only their ideas are correct. That kind of behavior leads into problems like ones facing the current national Republican Party. As communities start to meld, innovation takes off. The New York Times is going extinct because they have created a public persona that only the sycophants can believe in. Dissolve.com did not last past two years because The A.V. Club had already captured the "I like it because it is not popular" film crowd. Reddit created a wall by being where all the awful people can go and be unfiltered. When Reddit tried to take that wall down, their image was forever tainted. A new and better Reddit is being incubated right now to takes it place. Facebook created a community in the old internet and crushed the more free MySpace. In the new internet Facebook has brought down its walls and has become something that looks a lot like the free world of MySpace. VanDerWerff even points out that BuzzFeed may be disposable viral content, but they also produce insightful journalism. That is why BuzzFeed's community is one of the largest on all the internet.

We have the ability to radically remake global society into something grand. The grad student of yesterday would study Dunbar's number. The world at large can get a easier explanation through the Cracked article on The Monkey Sphere. The cult television show of yesterday would be lucky to last one season. Now Yahoo is not just a search engine, you can watch the latest season of Community. Expanding and dissolving communities is how we innovate. The new internet will bring more knowledge, culture, and freedom to the entire world. 

Standing on your island and you will only see the water. Standing on a continent and you can touch all of society. The internet does not need to be special for a few. The internet needs to be useful for all.

RD Kulik

RD is the creator and Head Editor for SeedSing. If any big websites are watching us for content, Hi there. Drop us a line seedsing.rdk@gmail.com

Is piracy helpful? Kirk has some ideas.

Once upon a time, I pirated movies, television shows, music, and software without feeling the slightest measure of guilt. There are many ways that I used to justify this shameless disregard for the artists of the entertainment industry. In some ways I still think that piracy is warranted ethically if not legally. Although I have not given up piracy completely, the media world has changed dramatically and thus negated some of the excuses that I once used.

When I was in college, as I was introduced to piracy through a friend who had a then rare home broadband connection and a piece of software known as Napster, I was poor. I was the typical broke college student. I paid for music from the artists that I already knew about and whose music I knew I would enjoy. What I was downloading was merely for discovery purposes. These were artists that I would never have had a chance to listen to in that era. If anything, it broadened my taste. I probably bought more music as a result.

In the ten plus years since then we have music subscription services like Spotify, Google Play Music, and now Apple Music. I listen to most of the music I want through one of these services and do occasionally purchase an album I would like to own. The fact is, legal music adapted to what the consumer wanted. I could still be pirating music, but the paid alternative is more attractive. Which brings me to another justification that I once used and still, in some respects, do.

The industry has to compete. Prior to high speed internet, folks had to put up with any antiquated system that any of these media companies wanted to use for distribution. There was no alternative and would not have been any alternative without high speed internet. The technology to distribute content in a more user friendly way was there long before the big media companies decided to take advantage of them. I contend that without piracy, big media companies would never have been motivated to offer content on services like Netflix, Spotify, iTunes, Steam, or any of the other digital content service providers that exist in the wake of piracy.

Big media companies are champions of capitalism. In a capitalist system one has to compete with any other service providers. That does include black markets in this case. At first they resisted. They tried to sue their way back into the game. They were used to having control over the method of distribution and did not want to make changes for the kids of tomorrow. Eventually they have started seeing that they would have to offer a more alluring alternative to piracy. It wasn’t hard. Piracy can be clunky. Do you think I am going to pirate a movie or series that I can find on Netflix? Not a chance. It is so much easier to use Netflix and have a library of content at my fingertips. I even tend to choose something that is on Netflix over something else that I maybe wanted to watch which is not. This all because of the efficiency over piracy that Netflix provides. In that light, content providers are losing money by failing to provide it through such a service.

As much as I would like to say that I am a pillar of progress and that through only viewing content which is available through these types of services I am only supporting those content providers, I cannot. I have found that currently airing television series are still served superiorly to me through piracy. I think that network fragmentation is culprit there. Hulu has tried to offer a solution to that issue, but those particular content providers are still too greedy to go for it. I am pretty sure someone could improve on Hulu anyhow. Sorry, but serving ads along with subscription content will not fly.

So, dear reader, what do you think? Has your use or justification of piracy changed with the times? If you were a user of early services like Napster, do you still pirate to the same extent or at all today? Was it ever really justified or would we have progress just the same without it? Let me know your thoughts.

Kirk Aug

Kirk is still the new guy around here.  He is added some gravitas and intelligence to the group. Follow him on twitter @kirkaug