The Chuck Wendig Case

The news about Chuck Wendig and the end of his work relationship with Marvel have been making the rounds in the social media in the last few days; if you don’t know what’s going on, then please refer here for the public statement by Wendig. By now, I haven’t found any statement available online about this matter from Marvel.

In a nutshell, Marvel decided to fire Wendig for reasons unrelated to his projects and without any prior litigation between the firm and the author. According to Wendig, that happened for his political activism on the social media. It looks like that Marvel evaluated all the adverse reactions about this activism as a serious marketing problem for its products and acted by consequence.

My candidate is better than yours (and you don’t know sh*t!)

The title of this post is the synthesis of much of the political-oriented messages I get from the social media; it is also a demonstration of the end of any choice to establish some form of discussion in this field. It’s not a surprise, a decade of political communication based on hate and “alternative truth” left its mark in our collective subconscious, not to mention the deep state of distress of the mainstream media.

Is your safe space an echo chamber?

You know, I think that we have missed another opportunity. This is about social media, the people who used them and some big misconception about what a “safe space” really is. Yes, it will be one of those post that you don’t really have to read. Except if you’re in the same internet bubble where I am.

Garbage time – Why we should wait before speaking about anything

We are surrounded by media, we drown in the media and we trust the media to tell us the truth about what’s going on in the world. A pity that the media are designed and maintained for an audience who pay very little attention to the facts and knows squat about the world.

The idea for this post is about how to approach what’s going on with a little more caution and a pinch of salt. First thing, let’s set up an example. A fictional fact, with a fictional timeline, associated. In a town named Alpha, a man enters in a restaurant and shot dead two men with a gun. It happens at 08:00 PM

[start of garbage time, more about it later]

The Power of Social Media – another good MOOC

English: Infographic on how Social Media are being used, and how everything is changed by them. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’ve just completed another MOOC, this one from the platform FutureLearn.

That was about the social media, with some hindsight of its structure and a whole lot of good points about the use and the perspective of said media in our life. The people at the University of Southampton, starting with Dr. David Millard and Dr. Lisa Harris did an amazing work, concentring in a 2-week course a lot of information.

Be Self or Be Pro – a false choice

William Caxton showing specimen of his printings to the King

Everything changes but the human mind. This could be a good title for this post and also a way to start thinking a bit about a false debate that’s running under the lines in the social media scene. Since the very start of the self-publishing modern era I’ve read thousands of post and status about how silly was the choice for an author to put himself/herself out in the market alone, away from the organization of the publishing houses. That was the very voice of fear, in my opinion. Fear about a market that was changing, for the first time since the 1800’s.

Still alive

…and kicking, the complete title of this post should be like that. Has been months since the last time I’ve written a word here and it will take a while to set up a regular rhytm of blogging. What happened in this months? A lot, of course. I have a very busy life and more than my share of things to do everyday. But I will like to share with you a couple of thing that I’m particulary fond of.