For once, you have a great reason to be distracted from the goings-on on the Internet this week: You’ve been listening to the new Kendrick Lamar album, thinking about race, and finding out those all-important nine things about him you needed to know in order to go on. That’s entirely understandable, but as you’d expect, there’s been a lot happening on the web that might have went under your radar as a result. As ever, we’re here to help, with this round-up of the strangest, stupidest, and Mr. T-iest things online. You’re welcome.
Big Barbie Is Listening
What Happened: Mattel revealed the next generation of Barbie dolls: a Barbie that can listen to what you’re saying. And then send recordings elsewhere via WiFi. No, really.
Where It Blew Up: Twitter, blogs, media think pieces
What Really Happened: Finally, someone has thought to use modern technology the way it was always intended—to create the next generation Teddy Ruxpin. Meet Hello Barbie, a doll that can “learn” about her owner by eavesdropping on conversations and storing that information in the cloud, thanks to an internal Wi-Fi connection. Unsurprisingly, not everyone is excited about this idea, with the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood launching a letter-writing campaign this week to have production halted before the product launches later this year. Plenty of reports explaining why this doll is problematic surfaced as news of Hello Barbie spread with everyone across the political spectrum admitting that “surveillance Barbie,” as she’s now being described, sounded more than a little creepy. To date, Mattel hasn’t commented on the uproar, but don’t worry; pretty soon, they’ll have enough Hello Barbies out there that they’ll know exactly what we’re all saying about their toys.
The Takeaway: No one had this much of a problem with Toy Story, and those toys didn’t just listen in to everything we said, they could do things when we were asleep. It’s the Wi-Fi thing, isn’t it? This is the week where nobody liked Wi-Fi.
Is Wearable Tech the New Cigarette? Of Course Not
What Happened: The New York Times reported on possible problems with wearable tech. Except that, well, the problem it reported was more than a little over-the-top.
Where It Blew Up: Blogs, media think pieces
What Really Happened: On Wednesday, the Times published a story called “Could Wearable Computers Be as Harmful as Cigarettes?”—a question so ridiculous that it quickly changed that headline to “The Health Concerns in Wearable Tech.” The damage was done, however, because although the headline was altered, the story, which suggested that wearable tech “could be as harmful as certain dry-cleaning chemicals and pesticides” and that cellphones were “possibly carcinogenic,” wasn’t.
Problem is, the available science doesn’t really back up the NYT report, as a number of later reports pointed out. (Including one on this very website.) The response got so loud that the Times returned to the topic days later, with public editor Margaret Sullivan noting that “the column clearly needed much more vetting, at least some of which could have been done internally at the Times,” and admitting that “the original web headline felt like click bait.”
The Takeaway: One of the pluses of the democratic nature of the web is the way in which irresponsible pieces from respected, establishment sources can be immediately fact-checked. Seeing the NYT‘s public editor respond to such an event in the way she did suggested that this might be one of those times in which the system worked the way it should.
So Help Me, Glastobury
What Happened: Kanye West was announced as a headliner at this year’s Glastonbury Festival. Not everyone liked that.
Where It Blew Up: Twitter, blogs, media think pieces
What Really Happened: The Glastonbury Festival is a mainstay of the British music scene, and particularly the British rock establishment (also, increasingly, the British dance establishment). So Monday’s announcement that Kanye West would headline the Pyramid Stage on Saturday night at this year’s festival didn’t really go down too well. In fact, it went down so poorly that someone started a petition to cancel his appearance, calling it “an insult to music fans all over the world.” The man responsible for that petition is Neil Lonsdale, a man who has never been to the festival before, but nonetheless feels that it deserves “the biggest performers [and] Kanye does not represent that,” which begs the question, who is bigger than Kanye right now? (Well, Beyoncé, but besides her.)
As of this writing, more than 90,000 people have signed the petition, leading to a raft of coverage, as well as a backlash on social media:
The Takeaway: Look, some people are just racists. Or maybe idiots? Hell, it’s not like they’re mutually exclusive. It’s also not as if this petition is going to change the Glastonbury organizers’ minds about West, thankfully. Maybe they will even be convinced to dump Friday’s headliners Foo Fighters for Kendrick Lamar. That’d be good.
The Note No Artist Should Have to Receive
What Happened: A comic book artist reflected on a Marvel Comics editor asking him to lighten the skin color of a character.
Where It Blew Up: Twitter, blogs, media think pieces
What Really Happened: Ron Wimberly is a comic book creator whose work includes The Prince of Cats and Sentences: The Life of MF Grimm. He’s also illustrating Marvel’s She-Hulk and, for the purposes of this story, Wolverine and the X-Men. He posted a wonderful comic strip essay about his experience on that latter title this week, noting that he was asked to lighten the skin tone of one of the characters and examining both the request and his response to it, and it immediately went viral.
Deservedly so, as it addresses an important, but often invisible, point—and one that was also brought up on Thursday’s Nightly Show with Larry Willmore , surprisingly enough.
The Takeaway: Diversity in comics is a hot topic right now, with publishers trying to improve. It’d be nice to think that Wimberly has managed to highlight a way in which racism was seeping into stories that can be avoided with some effort in future.
Was There Really a World Before Twitter?
What Happened: Twitter imagined a world without Twitter.
Where It Blew Up: Twitter
What Really Happened: Like many Americans—hell, many of everyone on the planet—I’m addicted to Twitter-dot-com, which means I was at once amused and confused by the emergence this week of the #BeforeTwitterI hashtag, which asked users to describe their lives before Twitter existed.
The Takeaway: Before Twitter, I was waiting for someone to invent a 140-character way for me to be told what’s happening in the world, because looking elsewhere or talking to people was just too much effort.
Give That DIY Network Executive a Raise
What Happened: Mr. T has his own home improvement show. It’s going to be called I Pity the Tool. Despite what that sounds like, it’s really not a joke.
Where It Blew Up: Twitter, blogs, media think pieces
What Really Happened: Whoever came up with the idea for I Pity the Tool is a genius, because how could the Internet not love that?
The Takeaway: It almost doesn’t matter whether or not this show is actually good, this level of free publicity means that it’s going to stick around for a while no matter what. Someone give that DIY Network executive a raise.
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