Hiddleswift! Tom Hiddleston, Taylor Swift, and the Art of Staged Romance
“The singer and the actor were photographed frolicking on a beach. That’s all. But the frenzy that followed speaks to culture’s ongoing desire to fill in the gaps.”
Source: Hiddleswift! Tom Hiddleston, Taylor Swift, and the Art of Staged Romance – The Atlantic
Court Backs Rules Treating Internet as Utility, Not Luxury
An appeals court panel affirmed the Federal Communications Commission’s rules about net neutrality, clearing the way for stricter oversight of broadband providers.
Video
Source: Court Backs Rules Treating Internet as Utility, Not Luxury – The New York Times
Facebook Reveals How It Decides if a Research Project Is Ethical
From The Chronicle of Higher Education:
“In 2014, Facebook came out as a player in social-science research, and a controversial one at that. Its “emotional contagion” experiment, in which the company tweaked the feeds of 700,000 users and studied how it affected their moods, drew harsh criticism and put pressure on the company to apply more scrutiny to its research projects.
Now, after nearly two years of soul-searching, Facebook has revealed how it reviews and approves the experiments the company runs on users without them knowing about it.”
“This is a story about the past, of course, but one with chilling echoes in the present”
Buzzfeed writer and all around brilliant scholar of Hollywood Anne Helen Peterson details the case of Loretta Young and the complicity of Hollywood in her exploitation. A fascinating read that Peterson rightly notes has far too much resonance with the present.
Comedy’s Sweet Weapon: The Cream Pie

Dan Barry spotlights one of cinema’s great unheralded props, the cream pie, and the silent cinema (now largely lost to us) that employed it to such great effect.
The Unbearable Darkness of Prestige Television

Dr. Elizabeth Alsop discusses so-called “quality” television’s seeming predilection for “punitive pulp.” A worthwhile read.