Aaron Burden

This was one of those weeks that makes me wanna say “wow, this was one of those weeks.” A real rollercoaster, but I hung in there and managed not to barf. Nothing too heavy in my offerings this week, but I hope you have a great weekend!

1. How VH1’s I Love the… Created a Generation of Culture Students, The Ringer. I loved this series and ate up as much of it as I could catch on other people’s TVs until we got cable! “Hidalgo and Tinelli emphasize that they were trying to craft conversations about the collective experience, particularly when it came to the pre-internet, pre–social media eras when such experiences existed on a mass scale but without the social media component that enabled people to connect over them.” Also a bunch of the full episodes are (as of publication) available on YouTube so you know what your girl will be catching up on this weekend.
2. Don’t Make These Dumb Jokes About People’s Jobs, Lifehacker. This was a kinda funny roundup of jokes professionals are tired of hearing on the job. You think you’re making the joke for the first time, but that person has heard the joke a bunch of times already and it’s gotten old. And in general, just good advice: “Next time you’re about to deliver a witticism to someone who’s doing their job—or make a joke about their name, or about their physical appearance or something else they can’t control—ask yourself two things: 1. Is it conceivable that someone has made this joke before? 2. If this person doesn’t like your joke, are they at all socially obligated to pretend they did? If the answer to either is yes, do not make that joke!”
3. The Orange, Wendy Cope. This poem has been going around online and I think we all need to read it. “I love you. I’m glad I exist.”
4. I Don’t Know Who Needs to Hear This But You Shouldn’t Get Your Nutrition Info From Influencers, Self. “I’ve urged influencers to do the research and be more responsible with the information they’re promoting throughout their platform. I’ve said that it’s important to know the difference between anecdotal evidence and randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials that are published in peer-reviewed journals (the gold standard when making health claims—and even these have their limitations and can’t necessarily be generalized to everyone). But of course it’s more than knowing which data to use. You also have to have the training to be able to sift through the science and draw meaningful conclusions from it. Not just anyone has the foundation required to interpret a study’s findings.” The critical-thinking questions in this article are good, and I wanna share them with my students. I think second to political misinformation, health and wellness misinfo is the most dangerous stuff out there for the average internet user. And it’s so pervasive and hits right at a vulnerability for a lot of people. Gets me HEATED.
5. “The Seven Friendships,” from Pursuit by Erica Funkhouser. Two poems this week. If this link doesn’t bring you to the beginning of the poem, it’s on pages 62-65. This one is just fun and makes me wanna talk about friendship. I don’t particularly relate to any of these friendships, except for “friendship / based on the exchange of gifts, / preferably ridiculous.”