It was just a little over a year ago that I briefly softened in my general disdain for Meta (which I held not only for their overall anti-web walled garden approach of the last 20 years, but especially for their role in the last decade’s rise of misinformation).

Watching what was going on with their new Twitter clone, I raised an interested eyebrow as I followed their rapid progress in connecting Threads to the larger Fediverse. While I’d long since kicked Facebook proper to the curb, I was encouraged to see the company at least make baby steps in the direction of interoperability with one of their other products.

Shame on me for giving Zuck a second chance.

While his MAGA heel turn has been a long time coming, the events of the past few days have finally let him fully remove the mask. A few “highlights” if you haven’t been following:

Facebook Deletes Internal Employee Criticism of New Board Member Dana White

Meta Says It Will End Its Fact-Checking Program on Social Media Posts

Meta disbands diversity team and says DEI has become ‘charged’

Meta Deletes Trans and Nonbinary Messenger Themes

Meta’s head of civil rights is leaving

Really shameful stuff all around. I hope the Mar-a-Lago VIP suite was worth it.

Obviously everyone has to draw their own lines in the sand in this wondrous era we live in, but for my part I’ll be moving to as much of a view-only experience with Meta products as possible, ideally ditching some/all of them entirely once more of the non-nerds in my life migrate to greener (and open) pastures.

I’ve turned off Threads sharing to the Fediverse (and kudos to my home instance for defederating from them), removed all of my posted content (except for this post!) and will no longer be including Threads posts in my weekly newsletter.

Hope to see you in better places, friends!

Originally published at http://houseofkyle.com on January 11, 2025.

Well, it’s been a little bit since the big day, and as we brace ourselves for January 20th, I thought I’d share a few ideas on how to keep your head together (and not in the sand!) this month and beyond.

The primary goal is to ensure that you don’t become a boiled frog and start to normalize the various horrors as they begin to appear. As John Oliver famously said during the first Trump era, always remember that “this is not normal”:

I’ve read all sorts of “how to survive”-style articles and posts since the election, but found myself nodding along the most to Nick Kristof’s Manifesto for Despairing Democrats and a short and sweet Mastodon post from Lana, both of which I’ve woven into my list below.

Put on Your Oxygen Mask First

The amount of daily bullshit that’s about to start flowing will be breathtaking. It turns out that constant, unending shock and anger isn’t super great for you, so start by getting a decent mental health plan in place.

If you’ve ever considered looking into meditation, this would be a great time to start. I’m a fan of both the Headspace and Calm apps, and subscriptions for one or both are often covered by health insurance (worth a quick check). I also did a piece several years ago with a few additional strategies.

Exercise is also a great move, be it more time at the gym or even starting mental health walks like Dan Hon.

And of course, as Lana notes: “Sleep is the free-est vacation of them all.”

Stay Loud, And Don’t Self-Censor

Once you’ve got a plan to take care of yourself, make sure you don’t get so mellow that you let these bastards roll all over you.

Kristof puts it nicely: “In particular, I will be extra vigilant about attempts to abuse the legal system to go after Trump’s critics, and I will support institutions that are the backbone of democracy, such as the legal system, journalism and the civil service.”

As the incoming regime starts trying to tear down institutions, don’t silently accept it or obey in advance. Stay aggressively in their faces and keep shining a bright light on what they’re trying very hard to keep in the shadows.

Most importantly, don’t fall victim to people pleasing when you’re confronted about your relentlessness. Lana nails it: “You can still be a good person without being a nice person. You don’t owe your oppressor kindness.”

You Can’t Do Everything, But You Can Do Something

Obviously your power is extremely limited as a single person, but that’s no excuse to throw up your hands. There are numerous great organizations that will be under siege over the next few years, and any contributions to them are a step in the right direction.

As Kristof notes: “I will back organizations fighting to uphold human values. During Trump’s first term, the A.C.L.U. did heroic work battling family separation at the border. Planned Parenthood fought to preserve access to reproductive health. So many other organizations stepped up to assist the vulnerable. Let’s support them. I will back humanitarians around the world.”

Make a list of other groups that matter to you and start helping them out. Every little bit counts.

Additionally, the people of Ukraine will soon be in an especially precarious position, and could use assistance more than ever.

Follow Along, But Be Smart About It

While it’s still important to support credible sources for your news, be aware that a lot of respectable media outlets continue to humiliate themselves and bend the knee.

Consider supplementing any existing subscriptions with sources like ProPublica, who have even outlined what they’ll be focusing on for the next several years.

Be wary of centralized, algorithmic social media! Adjustments they’ve been making aside, they remain a massive contributor to our world’s misinformation issues. The best time to set up and start using decentralized options like Mastodon and Bluesky was a long time ago. The second best time is right now.

When it comes to the inevitable online confrontations you’ll have with MAGAts, Lana has the perfect advice: “Block and bless. At this point you’re either on the right side​ or you’re beyond help. We’re not wasting energy trying to train you how to be fucking decent anymore.”

We’re Not Alone

I’m not gonna sugarcoat it, things are gonna get very, very bad (and stay that way for a while). There’s a small level of comfort though to be drawn from the fact that our upcoming troubles are far from unique if we look at recent history.

I’m a fan of the Autocracy in America podcast with Anne Applebaum, but there are countless other sources you can/should explore, to find out how others around the world have dealt with creeping fascism.

It’s really all about keeping hope alive and knowing that things can be turned around.

To shamelessly steal Lana’s great closer: “Hope is not fragile. Hope gets knocked down, picks herself back up, spits out a tooth, and throws the next punch.”

And who doesn’t love punching Nazis?

Originally published at http://houseofkyle.com on January 5, 2025.

As I prepare to launch my Stream Team community (join the waitlist!) very shortly, I realized that it might be helpful to share some of the apps and services I use/have used to stay on top of upcoming releases, find where something is streaming, add things to various watchlists and (for TV shows) track which episode I’m currently on.

Is this somewhat deranged? Absolutely. Any more deranged than standard LinkedIn career advancement tips? Debatable. Here we go…

New Releases/Viewing Recommendations:

• New York Times Watching Newsletter
• Vulture Weekend Watch
• IMDb What to Watch
• House of Kyle Media Diary Monthly Issues (cough)
• Kyle’s Junk Drawer Weekly Recommendations (double cough)

Where To Stream:

• Callsheet
• JustWatch
• IMDb

Watchlists/Episode Tracking:

• Television Time
• TodoMovies
• Letterboxd

Wishing you a glorious week full of robust, buffering-free viewing. 😘

Originally published at http://houseofkyle.com on July 3, 2024.

22 (!) years ago I was lucky enough to be put in charge of the website for Fox’s upcoming sci-fi show Firefly from creator Joss Whedon (who was then on a hot streak after Buffy and Angel).

While it sadly met the same fate as many other beloved Fox shows of that era, we were able to do some pretty interesting stuff on the web side of the house, including one of the first official show blogs, which was an early attempt at bringing online fans right into the production process through on-set interviews and frequent diary-style “breaking news” updates.

For any browncoats out there, I hope you enjoy some of these “pulled and converted from the Internet Archive” (forgive the ancient quality) gems from my time on the set back in the day:

📼 Watch Here

Originally published at http://houseofkyle.com on February 19, 2024.

As usual, I haven’t been able to watch/listen to everything I’d like, but here are my top picks this year across movies, TV and podcasts…

Movies:

• Killers of The Flower Moon
• Barbie
• Oppenheimer
• Past Lives
• Maestro
• Godzilla Minus One
• The Killer
• Saltburn
• May December
• Master Gardener

TV:

• Succession
• The Bear
• How To With John Wilson
• Foundation
• The Curse
• Beef
• Fargo
• The Last of Us
• Silo
• Bodies

Podcasts:

• The Big Flop
• Search Engine
• Keys to The Kingdom
• Ed Zitron’s 15 Minutes in Hell
• Main Accounts: The Story of MySpace

Want ongoing recommendations? Subscribe to my weekly newsletter.

Originally published at https://houseofkyle.com on December 30, 2023.

If you work in an even remotely tech-adjacent job and visit relatives for the holidays, there are two ironclad guarantees:

1. Don’t argue or clarify, just accept the fact that you work in “IT”
2. You’re gonna get asked to fix their Outlook

While you’re deep up in their business and futzing with their various devices, there’s always the opportunity for light shenanigans (the classic FOX News parental controls trick being a great one), but it’s also the perfect time to make some recommendations, set new defaults and generally help them step a bit further into the light.

Here’s a starter hitlist to get you started:

• Disable “motion smoothing” on their TVs: In the name of all that’s holy, help them stop the madness
• Change their default search engine (power move: change their default browser 😈): DuckDuckGo is far from perfect, but it’s a great step in the right direction
• Set up 2FA on (at minimum) their most essential accounts (bonus points for Passkeys where available!)
• Get them up and running with a password manager
• Move the Facebook app icon to a less prominent place on their devices (make them hunt for it and break habits), bonus points for putting a legitimate news app in its former spot
• Speaking of Facebook (and this comes from recent experience with a cousin), show them right now how to download a copy of their data
• As a holiday treat for all involved, spend a few bucks to get them more cloud storage for their photos, videos and device backups generally
• If they’re on iOS, install Callsheet for them as a one-stop shop for “where can I watch this show?” and “what movie do I know this person from?” questions (with JustWatch and IMDb as fallbacks if on Android)
• Get Apple Pay or Google Pay set up to make their lives easier when out and about
• Do a spring cleaning pass for dead, embarrassing and/or problematic services that you set them up with years ago (Google Hangouts, Dark Sky, Mint, Clubhouse, Twitter, anything NFT-adjacent, etc.)

Happy tweaking!

Originally published at http://houseofkyle.com on December 23, 2023.