Elon Buys Twitter, For Real This Time [Content Made Simple]
Issue #284:
TOP OF THE WEEK
Elon Buys Twitter (For Real This Time)
Quote:
So, why doesn’t Musk want to cancel his deal anymore?
We can’t get inside Musk’s brain to find out for sure (and frankly, we’re not sure we’d want to), but there are a few things that might’ve made him change his mind.
First of all, the pretrial discovery process revealed some embarrassing text messages that showed how the deal imploded and how Elon went from being amped about investing in Twitter to saying that the only way to fix it was to take it over.
Musk likely knows things could get messy at trial. As Eric Talley, a law professor at Columbia University, tells The Verge, Musk was likely facing “a very unpleasant deposition” that could potentially dredge up “extremely inconsistent statements” that could spell even more legal issues. It also doesn’t help that Musk’s case against Twitter essentially relies on publicizing bad things about the very company he could end up acquiring.
Commentary:
This article helpfully explains the whole thing. Finally this saga is ending…only for another to begin.
THE TRIVIA QUESTION
Earlier this week, New York Yankee outfielder Aaron Judge hit his 62nd home run to become the all-time leader for home runs hit in a single season by an American League player (passing Roger Maris). Barry Bonds has hit the most in one season all-time (73 home runs in 2001).
Here’s the question: which player appears most frequently in the top 10 list for most home runs hit in a single season? Meaning, of the top 10 list of most homers in a season, he owns more of the spots than anyone else?
Hint: He appears on the list three times.
Answer at the bottom.
HITTING THE LINKS
Link #1: How Dream Unlocked The Secret To YouTube’s Algorithm
World famous YouTuber Dream revealed his face last weekend. This explains how he blew up. Pretty interesting.
One YouTuber unlocked the secrets of YouTube’s algorithm.
He’s generated over 2 billion views and 25 million subscribers in less than 3 years. In the process developing what The Verge described as, “a fan network stretching across the globe, it’s become a worldwide phenomenon.”
Link #2: TikTok Politics and the Era of Embodied Memes
Good read from Charlie as usual.
Allow me, for a moment, to talk about NyQuil Chicken. In September the FDA issued a warning against viral TikTok social-media challenges involving medicines—specifically, a trend of boiling chicken in NyQuil as a sleep aid. The FDA cautioned that cooking chicken in NyQuil is “unsafe.” This warning prompted a lot of people in the media to assume that teens on TikTok were poisoning themselves in droves for internet clout.
Of course, they weren’t. TikTok told BuzzFeed News that there never was a NyQuil Chicken trend on the platform; the “sleepytime chicken” recipe originated long ago as an inside joke on 4chan, and some screenshots went viral earlier this year on Reddit. But the FDA’s warning triggered a slew of breathless, incorrect news articles about TikTok and NyQuil Chicken, which—you guessed it—spurred a whole lot of TikTok searches for NyQuil Chicken. (If you want to read more about this, Ryan Broderick has a great explainer.)
Link #3: The Battle for the Soul of the Web
Fascinating. Insightful.
It feels like things have gone wrong on the internet. Decades removed from the gonzo highs of blinging GIFs and wacky blogs, the web is now a place where many people feel exploited, manipulated, and tracked; where freedom of speech is being tugged around in a strange culture war; and where the rich get richer.
THE FUNNY PART
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