Michael Abernethy

Ex-newspaper guy. Communications specialist at Elon University. Music, jokes, smarts, beards, books, criticism, gardening and sleep.

[Emo Philips @EmoPhilips]

it isn’t

[Michael Abernethy @ittweetsagain]

I told all you jerks this was real. I told you!!!! #wintersucksthemost

[Slate @Slate]

A lot of scientists won’t touch this research with a 10-foot parasol. https://t.co/TiwuDu077F

[Michael Abernethy @ittweetsagain]

@johnvvariety All-timer, indeed!

[Summer Gabe (Winter Version) @ChumHumCEO]

I used to work at a used record store and one time a guy came in to sell a shit load of Morrissey and Smiths CDs (which we happily bought) and after he left I turned to my boss and went ??? and he was like "Oh yeah, he broke up with Morrissey, happens all the time."

[Corey Friedman 🗞️ @coreywrites]

Journalists.
Use.
Em-dashes.
We know it’s an AI calling card, but we’re not giving it up without a fight

[Michael Abernethy @ittweetsagain]

introduce yourself with 10 acts you’ve seen live:

Aimee Mann
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Tears for Fears
Kathleen Edwards
The Killers
Garbage
Guster
Perfume Genius
St. Vincent
Father John Misty

[MΛЯGΛЯΣƬ @niccagefan666]

introduce yourself with 10 acts you’ve seen live:

Lana del Rey
Sisters of Mercy
Depeche Mode
She Past Away
Cold Cave
Arca
Chelsea Wolfe
The Mountain Goats
John Maus
John V Variety :)

[Katherine Argent @effthealgorithm]

Search is full of ads and wrong answers. Every other email is an ad. Prime Video charges you and shows ads. Paramount? Ads. Peacock? YouTube? Hulu? Ads followed by more ads. Netflix full of ads. Meta and X, every other thing is an ad. Pinterest is nothing but ads. AI is in everything. AI finishes sentences incorrectly and won’t stop. AI reads your email and search history to target you with more ads. Every time you open an app or visit a site there’s an update making it worse. In a hurry? First, click here to agree to terms you don’t have time to read and must accept. You need an account to do that. Change your temporary password. Enter your 2FA code. Check your email and enter that code. Now use a passkey. Your password is too simple to remember. Change it. No, not like that. Now log on. Enter your 2FA code. Check your email for a code… Welcome back! We’ve updated our terms of service and privacy policy (you have none). Subscribe to the site. Subscribe to Netflix. Subscribe to toilet paper. Subscribe to these groceries. Pay a membership fee for the right to subscribe then tip your driver who delivers the subscriptions your membership lets you subscribe to. Time to work? We’ve got to update your laptop and will slow down everything you do until you agree to update. But first, click here to agree. Update installed — your laptop’s broken now. It doesn’t matter, since your boss just replaced you with AI. Go to your phone to complain on social media. Wait, your phone needs an update so we can add more AI. Click here. Oh sorry, your phone can’t handle this update. Now it’s useless. Go get the newest phone. Here’s a text from a friend, an email, a voice mail they left three days ago but you didn’t see until now because of sync problems with the cloud. It’s their GoFundMe. Their MLM. Their Patreon. Never mind, you didn’t respond to their text within 9 minutes and now you’re no longer friends. They blocked you. Make new friends. Download this app to find people in your area. In your neighborhood. On your street. Two doors down from you. Do you know this person yet, we think you’d get along. You need an account to use this app. That username is taken. Enter a password. Not that one, you used it on another site. You need to be connected to WiFi to download the app. Allow the app to connect to other devices on your network. Allow the app to access your contacts, know your precise location, store your credit card details. Oops, sorry, we got hacked now all that info is available on the web. There’s a class action suit. You can join. It’ll take a decade to get your $3.73 share of the ten billion settlement. We’ll send it via PayPal or deposit it to your bank, just tell us those details. Oh no, another hack. That info is circulating now, too. Here’s a spam call, a spam email, a spam text. Why are you angry? Why are you talking about getting rid of your phone? Why don’t you like AI, it lets us make all of this easier? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? This is progress. You’ll be left behind. Do you want to be left behind? Do you???

[Michael Abernethy @ittweetsagain]

@ThatEricAlper Bowie in 2003.

[The Sting @TheStingisBack]

Rita Moreno is one of just three people to win an Emmy for The Muppets, the other two: Bernadette Peters and Peter Sellers. The comedy timing during her performance of "Fever" while Animal attempts to railroad her is incredible. It was also done in one take
"Dat my kinda woman!"

[Philip Bunn @PhilipDBunn]

Marcus Aurelius's Meditations? Augustine's Confessions? These people are idiots. Don't listen to illiterate people. Don't give them your time or your money. Read a book instead.

[Michael Abernethy @ittweetsagain]

@gregkot @soundopinions Gotta be Nick Cave, with the Bad Seeds and/or Warren Ellis.

[Michael Abernethy @ittweetsagain]

@ThatEricAlper Come Together

[Greg Kot @gregkot]

"Ticketing employees at Live Nation joked about trying to 'gouge' people for parking and V.I.P. upgrades at concerts, calling fans 'so stupid' for paying the inflated charges and boasting that they were 'robbing them blind baby...'" Link in comments

[kai @watanabe_kai_]

job market so bad I'm actually pursuing my dreams

[FOX8 WGHP @myfox8]

DOGE canceled High Point Museum grant for HVAC systems after ChatGPT flagged it as DEI, lawsuit alleges https://t.co/qgUN6ZZBtr

[Michael Abernethy @ittweetsagain]

(Yes, this is in response to the NYT quiz and other commentary on the virtues of human creativity. I don’t want perfection. I want to feel as if I know the author.)

[Michael Abernethy @ittweetsagain]

I rarely post here, but feel compelled to comment on the virtues of human writing over that created by AI.

What separates good writing from great isn’t the ideas, or even the coherence of a passage. It’s the soul behind it.

[Michael Abernethy @ittweetsagain]

Great writing elicits our own humanity: thought, reflection, empathy and finally emotion.
It’s both the precision and imprecision of the human author that makes it valuable and compelling.

I love writing. I love reading. I hope I’ll always be able to do both.

[carl 🥦 @NightlifeMingus]

they should take another hour every night until there’s no more time. let’s wrap things up