The Culture Desk
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TikTok entrepreneurs are tackling accessibility in medicine
When Jimmy Choi shared his frustration at not being able to pick up his pills on TikTok, he didn’t know who would be listening. Accompanied by Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake It Off’, the video showed Jimmy’s hands shaking with Parkinson’s tremors, unable to pick up the tiny pills lying in a fiddly container.
By
Rachael Davies
, written on From the Culture desk
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How 'StudyTube' promotes toxic productivity and abuse
When YouTuber Elena Handtrack received more than 40 abusive messages from a single person during one of her live videos, she felt helpless and almost thought she would quit.
By
Anna Maria Colivicchi
, written on From the Culture desk
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Digital churches have been thriving throughout the pandemic
In August 2020, Mathias Melendez, 22, from San Antonio, Texas, stumbled upon a Facebook ad of Life.Church Online, the cyberchurch of the American evangelical multi-site church Life Church.
By
Stav Dimitropoulos
, written on From the Culture desk
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Monet: Dating apps weren't built for Gen Z
Gen Z’ers -- a group generally considered to have been born between 1997 and 2012 -- are known as ‘digital natives’, who have little or no memory of what the world was like before smartphones. They have been raised on the internet and social media, and with over 67.17 million Gen Z’ers in the US, they are anticipated to soon become the largest US consumer population.
By
Aimee Pearcy
, written on From the Culture desk
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AI can now produce passable parody song lyrics
The coronavirus pandemic has caused many outbursts of creativity, but few have the potential to be as meaningful as Mark O. Riedl’s lockdown project. The academic at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s school of interactive computing has spent the last several long months producing an artificial intelligence system that’s able to produce lyrics for parody songs, similar to those produced by Weird Al Yankovic.
By
Chris Stokel-Walker
, written on From the Culture desk
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YouTube’s science communication channels have a diversity problem
YouTube is often heralded as the great leveller, lowering barriers to entry and destroying discrimination. But a new academic study suggests that the platform’s science community mirrors the world of science in real life – with all its problems of representation.
By
Chris Stokel-Walker
, written on From the Culture desk
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Social media managers are underpaid, understaffed, and overworked
A recent row over sanitary pads and period products has highlighted one of the key issues with pronouncements on social media – and the disparity between the positions of power those behind our favourite brands’ Facebook and Twitter accounts hold, and the training and pay they receive.
By
Chris Stokel-Walker
, written on From the Culture desk
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Media outlets are still struggling to understand what "viral" means
Every day, thousands of events happen. The job of a journalist is to decide what is – and what isn’t – worthy of bringing to a broader audience.
By
Chris Stokel-Walker
, written on From the Culture desk
