timelets

Three decades ago, the entire middle 40% held a greater share of wealth than the top 1%. Today the reverse is true, with Moody’s Analytics recently estimating that the top 10% of US households now make up about half of all spending.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-01-14/america-s-a-la-carte-economy-is-making-everyone-feel-poorer

It might be that this trend contributes to the changes in media consumption patterns. The traditional media makes money through ads, while influencers are mostly paid by their fan base through subscriptions. Because the purchasing power is now concentrated at the top, advertisers prefer to go after the more affluent and more sane audience, i.e. the top 20%, who consume quality content on the so-called mainstream media. Those people are likely to qualify as "the elite" and almost inevitably, the mainstream media caters to them. By contrast, influencers* cater to the less educated who prefer conspiracy theories and other anti-establishment infogarbage that raises their self esteem, by keeping them inside particular bias-reinforcing, most often right-wing bubbles.

Moreover, the disaggregation of the traditional porn media probably plays a role when it comes to information consumption by young men. That is, before, printed porn magazines, e.g. Playboy, provided a combination of porn images and mainstream articles, including on politics, men's health, etc. Now, porn is served separately by specialized services such as Only Fans and others. The new generation of young men, especially those who are less educated, are "liberated" from reading mainstream and flock to anti-establishment influencers who are free to peddle garbage du jour.

* link via rsokolov

In the US, the media is often called the fourth branch of the government. Why? Because in a republic, the people between elections don't have any direct control over the three official branches of the government (executive, legislative, judicial), while the media serves as the only real-time public feedback/control channel. Today, the fourth branch of the government is not the traditional media, but a mix of podcasts, social influencers, blogs, etc. During the Biden term, the Democrats managed to lose control over that new media. There’s nobody like Joe Rogan on their side now. This means that the Democrats not only lost control over the three official branches of the government after the elections, but also that there’s no way for them to provide key inputs into the in-between-elections feedback/control system now. To me, this is the essence of the Democrats' current predicament. There are no thought leaders among them who could go on, e.g. the Joe Rogan show, and credibly represent the dissatisfied population. They could go to Ezra Kline or Jon Stuart, but that wouldn't move the needle. Maybe AOC could go on a Joe Rogan tour. Or Bill Mahr. The Democrats need to take a page from Trump's playbook and flood the zone.

It looks like WSJ journalists and editors took personally the arrest of Evan Gershkovich in Russia. Since his detention by FSB eight months ago, the paper published a number of blockbuster articles about Russian affairs, including today's expose about Patrushev's role in the killing, with Putin's approval, of Prigozhin, his closest advisors and the plane crew. The conclusion that Russia is run like a mafia state is inescapable and I hope the paper is going to go after the khuilo himself. The sooner, the better.
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“...posted a much higher rate of tickets per transaction compared with typical movies, meaning more people are seeing it in big groups, The Box Office Company said.

It’s unprecedented to see presales like this for an original comedy,” said Marine Suttle, the company’s chief product officer. “It’s performing like a superhero movie.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/barbenheimer-poised-to-deliver-blowout-weekend-at-the-box-office-9feef168

An interesting FOM: tickets per transaction. (an intensive quantity in Lawvere).

I have a feeling we are entering a bubble.

The Parler lawsuit against Amazon is highly likely to fail.

https://twitter.com/AkivaMCohen/status/1348987281793835008

Wikileaks no longer works, so Trump is trying to use a US tabloid to launder another crapload of political "kompromat." Nice try, losers. I wonder if they planned to release the story right before the second presidential debate and derail any discussion of substantive issues. Well, there's no debate and a lot of people are already voting. Also, neither major social network wants a piece of these Giuliani conspiracy theories. They had enough of that.


upd. Как обычно, парад местных мудаков: https://chasovschik.dreamwidth.org/2093890.html "Трампа обижают!"

As they say on Twitter, this didn't age well: