BECKET ADAMS: Hollywood: Where Creativity Went to Die.

With the contraction of the theatrical model has come the death of entire genres, most notably the mid-budget romantic comedy. Sure, you can still find a new rom-com, but you will have to settle for streaming quality, where monotonous, blunt, and intentionally repetitive “second-screen-friendly” scripts that indulge multitasking home viewers are becoming the norm. “Now everyone has a phone in hand while watching,” says Rubinstien. “And because of the absolute deluge of content, a small, subtle, smart independent movie or season of television can be dumped on a streamer and washed away with the tide.”

This brings us to one of the larger problems of streaming entertainment, and of online journalism as well: quantity, not quality, is king. The streaming production model naturally incentivizes rushed output because a streaming platform is only as good as its latest offering. But quality and speed cannot coexist. The lightning-fast streaming production model doesn’t just allow for sloppy writing; it practically encourages it.

Examples abound. Take Amazon Prime’s 2021 Lucille Ball biopic, Being the Ricardos, in which Nicole Kidman, playing Lucy in 1952, uses the expression “circle back.” Or FX’s Feud, in which Jessica Lange, playing Joan Crawford in 1962, refers to herself as a “brand ambassador.” Or Paramount’s Starfleet Academy, set in the 3190s, in which a character says, “Visit the mess hall because sometimes hanger is the greatest enemy of all.” (That’s “hanger” as in the noun form of “hangry.”) And if that doesn’t do it for you, another character on the same show says of herself, “I give unpaid dating coach energy.” It’s unclear how online Gen-Z-speak survives into the 32nd century, but there it is.

Perhaps with a little more time, and a culture that values doing it well over doing it first, these scripts could have been sharper. Perhaps with a deeper bench of seasoned writers, slipshod and lazy wouldn’t be the norm.

It could be worse though. Far worse: Star Trek’s puppet episode recreates Wrath of Khan scene on Strange New Worlds.

HOW IT STARTED:

In January 2014, desktop internet use was overtaken by mobile internet use in America. This means screens got smaller, layouts moved primarily from horizontal to vertical, and physical keyboards were largely unavailable.

This means writing a longer post was more difficult. Formatting it to appear nicely with photos in line with the text became more difficult. Reading a post that was text-heavy became more onerous. As people drifted away from their desktop computers, they began to drift away from forums.

Social media sure is easy

With most popular forms of social media, you’re being served interesting things all the time with cross-pollination all in a one-stop dopamine hit. Do you love golf, Audi cars, retro-cafe motorcycles, and sushi? Social media can easily serve that up to you in a seemingly constant stream. With forums, however, you’d probably have to log in and catch up on four or five different places. Granted, that conversation may be deeper and more helpful for technical topics, but most folks aren’t trying to read about the best way to do a valve check on a Suzuki GS450 every day when they have a few minutes to burn.

You may be saying, “Hey, it’s easier to consume, but it’s a pain to create content on Insta or Facebook.” I’d agree with you. I’d also argue it’s going to be much harder to find great content in the future (if it even exists) because traditional social platforms like Twitter and Facebook are designed to deliver the latest content, not the deepest.

— “Why are online motorcycle forums drying up and dying?” RevZilla, June 20^th, 2022. (As is obvious with the headline, this is a motorcycle forum-themed article. However, anybody who has seen their favorite hobbyist Websites transform from having huge active memberships producing loads of updated content, and then shrivel down to just a few remaining diehards by the end of the previous decade, will relate to everything being described at the above link.)

How it’s going: The Great Inversion: AI Is Quietly Draining the Public Internet of Thought. “The Internet is no longer primarily a place where thinking is externalized and shared. It is becoming a place where thinking is extracted and contained:”

The Great Inversion: AI Is Quietly Draining the Public Internet of Thought

Something profound is happening to the Internet, and almost no one is naming it clearly.

I have been cataloging it of the last 4 years.

For decades, the web’s most valuable resource wasn’t bandwidth or… pic.twitter.com/2WmfkkaiYp

— Brian Roemmele (@BrianRoemmele) August 22, 2026

THE KARMELO ANTHONY SAGA: Sometimes, the System Actually Works.

From Fox News this morning:

A Texas judge denied Karmelo Anthony a new trial Saturday, after his attorneys argued that courtroom restrictions, hearings held without Anthony present and the handling of an unwritten agreement between his former lawyers and prosecutors violated his rights.

Retired District Judge Michael Chitty denied Anthony’s request after reviewing the motion, court record, evidence and arguments, briefs and relevant case law, according to his order. The order did not detail his reasoning for the decision.

The decision leaves Anthony’s murder conviction and 35-year prison sentence in place. His challenge will continue on direct appeal.

Well, look at that. Sometimes the system actually works. The guilty get held accountable, the legal process runs its course, and the sky somehow remains above our heads.

I’ve watched this case unfold from the beginning, and longtime readers already know my usual approach: let the story actually play out before rendering my own verdict in these pages. Don’t convict somebody because Twitter demands it. Don’t exonerate somebody because activists demand it. And, above all, don’t decide the answer first and then go rummaging through the facts looking for something you can staple onto it.

At RedState, Kyle Becker adds, “Anthony’s legal battle isn’t necessarily over. His attorneys can now take their challenge to the Fifth Court of Appeals in Dallas, where his direct appeal of the murder conviction is already headed. The defense can raise some of the same issues there, and potentially advance additional claims involving the conduct of the trial. That process could take a while. Dallas appellate attorney Brett Ordiway, who isn’t involved in Anthony’s case, previously told The Dallas Morning News that the appellate court may not even have the complete record and briefing necessary to seriously consider the case until early 2027. ‘That’ll be a long road ahead there,’ Ordiway said. For now, though, the most immediate attempt to undo Anthony’s conviction has failed.”

WITH NO FINGERPRINTS: Hillary Reportedly Planning Bill Clinton’s Funeral, and I Have Questions.

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: A dream of Cambridge. The university’s place in the public imagination is as illusory as Jason Arday’s academic credentials.

Arday’s case is egregious on many levels. Perhaps the worst of it is the university’s original response to allegations of plagiarism, which it immediately denounced as a witch hunt. It is one thing to fail to spot evidence of academic misconduct, but it is something else entirely to fail to acknowledge it when it is pointed out to you. Still, though, this sorry tale is symptomatic of a wider university culture in which so many people fear for their futures and are uncertain of what their purpose is.

Anyone who thinks Cambridge should be immune from this by dint of its prestige and privilege is missing the point. So much of the prestige and privilege of Cambridge is now bound up in leveraging the university’s – and the town’s – advantages in tech and scientific research. Social science and humanities academics can argue as much as they like about how important their subjects are for critical thinking and human flourishing – but as the new technology marches on, it gets harder and harder to feel confident that these arguments will win out.

AI is helping scientists capture Nobel prizes and helping mathematicians solve puzzles that seemed beyond human reach. What is it doing for people who read and write books for a living except to make them worry whether they can trust anything that matters again, including the essays being written by their students? Grandstanding can sometimes feel like it’s all that’s left. The joke used to be that academic politics are so poisonous because the stakes are so low. Now, it’s more like the politics are so performative because the real stakes are being played out somewhere else entirely.

Read the whole thing.

GET RID OF PESTS: Zevo Flying Insect Trap for Fruit Flies & Gnats. #CommissionEarned We got some of these traps a while back and they seemed to catch a lot of flies and gnats but it takes a while to start working (a few days).

SUNLIGHT IS THE BEST DISINFECTANT: Florida State U. removes ‘correct language’ threat after College Fix inquiry.

CHANGE:

Who owns Stars & Stripes?
Hint: It's run by a guy named @PeteHegseth

Key elements of the current charter (DoWI 5122.11)
"prioritizing content not readily available via commercial media." i.e. don't be the MSM

"It does not take its own editorial positions." i.e. just the news… https://t.co/h70uKPziu7 pic.twitter.com/zjdWscvxsl

— Jim Hanson (@JimHansonDC) August 21, 2026

Hanson’s tweet concludes:

“It does not take its own editorial positions.” i.e. just the news not the liberal viewpoint. You lot failed those miserably and were properly let go when you refused to change your ways. You will not be missed.

Was it a good decision by Hegseth? If George Conway isn’t happy, then it probably was:

The problem is, George, that nobody in uniform trusts them. We’ve learned the hard way.

And, you’ve never read that rag either. You never served.

Crawl back into your hole, creep. https://t.co/eVyXrwzuJy

— Buzz Patterson (@BuzzPatterson) August 22, 2026

Flashback to the start of the year: Pentagon to ‘refocus’ military newspaper Stars and Stripes away from ‘woke distractions.’

SAY ANYTHING: Penn professor writes book arguing ‘sex isn’t real,’ but previously taught course on ‘studying sex.’

JAMIE RASKIN HATES TRUMP MORE THAN HE HATES ANTISEMITISM. “Can anyone take this joker seriously? . . . Raskin and his whistleblowers have a logical problem. They want to acknowledge the sudden rise in antisemitism—not to do so would lose them public support—but they can’t bear to acknowledge that Donald Trump was doing something about it. So they tie themselves into knots, claiming that the administration went after Columbia, Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and other institutions not because of the flagrant (‘systemic’?) antisemitism but because Trump doesn’t like free speech/education/the ivy league/whatever.”

THE RETRIEVAL IS A MASSIVE ACCOMPLISHMENT. SO IS THE FACT THAT A SPACESHIP FLOATED IN THE OPEN OCEAN FOR 24 DAYS. Against All Odds, SpaceX Finally Tugs Starship Into Port After 24 Days at Sea.

WE’LL KNOW IF THIS IS TRUE BY THE PRICE AT THE PUMP:

MSM spin narrative incoming https://t.co/MPjNZOhefH

— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) August 23, 2026

FIGHT THE POWER: California Parents Sue School District for Mosque Field Trip.

YOU’RE NEVER ALONE WITH A SCHIZOPHRENIC:

"Israel is murdering children!!!! Now excuse me, I have to go to the rally for Lindsay Clancy."

— Kamel Amin Thaabet (@K_AminThaabet) August 21, 2026

(Classical reference in headline.)

THE ENEMY WITHIN: El-Sayed Campaign Gets a $175,000 Boost From CAIR, Whose Leader Was ‘Happy’ About Oct. 7, After Alleging Primary Opponent’s AIPAC Support Constituted ‘Foreign’ Intervention in Election.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Pop Culture Puts Antisemitism on Blast (Finally).

It’s a massive problem, one that late-night stars like Jon Stewart, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon won’t touch.

And then there’s Mark Ruffalo.

The “Avengers” star is one of Hollywood’s most strident pro-Palestinian voices. And, as is often the case with that sub-set, the messaging can appear critical of more than just the Jewish state.

This week, Ruffalo attacked the proposed Paramount/Warner Bros. Discovery merger, but he didn’t stop there.

The actor shared a video of Oracle Executive Vice Chair Safra Catz discussing the company’s assistance to Israel after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attacks. “Look how she revels in what we now have come to see as a genocide, which was built on an apartheid system of oppression powered by Oracle,” Ruffalo wrote on his social media channels.

Team Paramount swiftly fired back, accusing the star of spreading antisemitic language.

“We are, as always, troubled when antisemitic tropes are invoked in purported service of a business dispute. Words like ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid,’ applied to a corporate transaction, aren’t just wrong — they’re a bridge too far, and they cheapen the very real suffering those words are meant to describe.

The mega-studio wasn’t the only one to lash out at Ruffalo. Sharon Waxman, the veteran Hollywood journalist and founder of the far-Left TheWrap.com, took the unusual move to call out Ruffalo directly.

Naturally, Ruffalo is in full “I’m not antisemitic, I’m merely anti-Zionist” mode in response to Paramount’s pushback:

The thing people like this never acknowledge is that the majority of the anti-Israel sentiment is just people who hate Jews and don’t give a rat’s ass about Palestinians. And yes, that influences you when you hang around such people all the time. https://t.co/AH2jfSmQ8k

— Frank J. Fleming (@IMAO_) August 22, 2026

But Ruffalo chose his initial tropes carefully:

Ruffalo has always been an unhinged anti-Semite, but there is a method to his current madness. He is seeking to establish that American Jews who support Israel cannot conduct business. As Jews in Nazi Germany could not conduct business. https://t.co/eFRdcPKYZd

— Ayn Reagan (@AynReagan) August 22, 2026

He’s now “trying to walk it back by saying criticism of the Israeli government or a tech contract is somehow different. It’s not. Injecting those specific words into a corporate fight against Jewish business leaders is the problem.”

Mark Ruffalo is now claiming he’s not antisemitic after using classic tropes in a business dispute.

He dragged “genocide” and “apartheid” into an attack on the Paramount merger, specifically targeting Jewish executives and their ties to Israel. Paramount correctly called it what…

— Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) August 22, 2026

“No studio should want this. Disney, Marvel, and every other employer should drop him. Antisemitism is not a political opinion that deserves a free pass because the person is a famous actor.”

To be fair, he’s probably safe at Disney, at least based on their past reputation:

LIGHTNING DEAL: Camping Shovel Axe Outdoor Survival Shovel Set with High Carbon Steel. #CommissionEarned

THE BEST AND BRIGHTEST:

Will Smith’s bisexual polyamorous daughter teaches people about “sacred geometry.”

“I’m Willow and I might know some sh*t about some sh*t. Shapes. Square. Triangle. Pentagon. So we know shapes. When you look outside…you can see that there are shapes in the plants.” pic.twitter.com/04Cm7zKZx9

— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) August 22, 2026

WE’VE DESCENDED INTO SOME SORT OF BIZARRE HELL-WORLD IN WHICH JOHN FETTERMAN IS A VOICE OF SANITY:

It's impossible to have a nuanced, conversation about data power centers on social media; the politics right now is to demonize them, call them predators rather than show examples of good industry stewards.
Few have the courage to raise the consequences of that.
Except Fetterman. https://t.co/LXx2kIzFAe

— ZitoSalena (@ZitoSalena) August 23, 2026

In accordance with the prophecy:

THE 21ST CENTURY IS A BAD ONE FOR ACADEMIA, AND IT’S GOING TO GET WORSE: Nuke Academia From Orbit. It Is the Only Way to Be Sure. “Our prestigious institutions are fundamentally corrupted, and it is not an exaggeration to say that the dominant ideology has become race Marxism in the guise of DEI. They no longer have any allegiance to the truth, facts, or rational discourse. They are fundamentally hostile to the values that gave rise to them.”

OPEN THREAD: Party on, and be excellent to one another.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: China’s Chang’e 7 moon probe will launch this weekend on the most ambitious lunar mission in history.

SORRY JUST SAT AT THE KEYBOARD FOR THE FIRST TIME TODAY, TO SHARE THIS:  Meme with Me, I want to be your meme supplier, can’t you see?

I THINK THE WNBA IS A PSYOP DESIGNED TO CONVINCE NORMALS THAT BLACK WOMEN AND LESBIANS HATE AMERICA:

Sophie Cunningham is once again the only player on the court to put her hand above her heart for the singing of the US national anthem pic.twitter.com/c6grxtZMzm

— Wesley Yang (@wesyang) August 22, 2026

EVERYTHING IS A PROBLEM: We’re Not Taking Harmful Cat Behaviors on The Internet Seriously Enough, Researchers Warn.