[AKN #119] You Have Spoken
LAUGH: Actually Receiving The Gifts From 12 Days Of Christmas, LOVE: Transparent Content Moderation Proposal
Sup homies?
Tough week this last week.
It started out with seeing the chiropractor for the first time in my life — which was a real “welcome to your thirties” moment.
I visited him because I’ve been suffering from “sciatica” which is an affliction where my leg sometimes feels numb.
He immediately informed me that this ailment is entirely my fault. Through some combination of sitting too much and potentially lifting weights with bad form, I injured my lower back which resulted in the disc in my vertebrae coming into contact with the sciatic nerve.
Joy.
There is no “fix this quickly” type solution. Instead, I now see him twice a week for the next three weeks where he will progressively realign my spine.
Bummer.
And it is definitely not my favorite experience.
Like I go there, sit on this table, and this guy who insists I call him Doctor — even though he doesn’t have an MD — places me into the shape of a pretzel and belly flops on top of me in order to generate the requisite force to realign my spine.
It’s like I was accidentally dropped into someone else’s kinky fantasy.
It’s definitely not my kink. Not enough feet involved to be my kink.
But that’s where the rest of my week comes in.
You see, thanks to the regrowth of some plantar warts as well as my fetish for both feet and doctors who don’t have MDs, I went to the podiatrist.
And good Lord was this a fucking torture chamber.
First off, I don’t know if you ever had your foot numbed, but let me paint the picture for you.
You sit down. A guy stabs your foot. You let out a little yelp. He apologizes. Repeat four times.
Secondly, the actual wart removal process is literally him cutting a hole into your foot with a soldering iron. And holy hell does the bottom of your foot have some fucking thick skin.
Jesus.
Anyway. Not the best week.
Just me eating a hefty helping of brutal strudel from beginning to end.
BUT!
Despite my numb leg and the open wounds oozing from the base of my foot, I still showed up tonight.
Because the show must go on.
On to the newsletter!
LIVE: You Have Spoken
Thanks to everyone who replied back to my request for feedback last week.
Let me tell you, the homies have spoken!
And the replies are both enlightening…and brutal.
In reading through all of the feedback, the following three trends appear:
You like to hear my take. Yes, I toe the line of being a sensationalist from time to time…but you forgive me because the introductions make you laugh and I am mostly objective. There were several requests to give you more of my takes. Like you want to hear where I stand on the story de jour like the FTX scandal or how GPT-3 will shape the future. Or at least you do, provided I have done my homework and come with sources/links so you could investigate for yourself.
You like to laugh and be educated. Content that does this is something the people in the newsletter business like to call “infotainment.” It’s not surprising you like this because you are human after all. But to this end, the posts I write which you like the most teach you something and sprinkle jokes in along the way. This is why most of your favorite sections of the newsletter are the LAUGH and LOVE section. You appreciate me curating interesting, funny content for you.
You don’t like personal development posts. Like literally all of you. Crazy you just let me write those and said nothing. Why didn’t you say something? Cowards. I would write a whole self development post about how you could become more courageous, but you wouldn’t like that.
What a fun character building exercise it is to read feedback about your writing.
Like wow it hurts when someone says something constructive. Much more fun when people only tell you that you are great!
But overall, I am thrilled you told me what you really thought. And I am ecstatic that you want to hear more of my takes. As an extremely opinionated person, requesting to hear more of my opinions is my love language.
So thank you again for the feedback and you can expect to see these changes reflected in future editions.
Additionally, feel free to give feedback whenever you would like. Like if you had some unfinished email you haven’t sent to me from last week, why not just send it? Stop being a coward, ya know? Be the change you want to see in the world.
LAUGH: Actually Receiving The Gifts From 12 Days Of Christmas
LOVE: Transparent Content Moderation Proposal
The real problem with content moderation on social media is not that it happens, it is that when the banning is done, it is often done without explanation.
Here is a really great proposal for moving forward with content moderation:
I think the final solution for content moderation absolutely looks like more transparent banning.
CLOSING TIME
A call to action to help me build a community of homies
You don’t have to go home, but you can subscribe here:
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are strictly my own. Who else’s would they be?
Numbly Limping Along,
K.Rapp
A brutal week. Hang in there!