For years I have harangued the same 4 or 5 people about articles and podcasts I’ve been enjoying. Some of my friends describe having backlogs of my emails that they have yet to get to. Months later I’ll get a response–Hey, just getting to this. Very interesting, thanks.

I might be the last human being who uses email. No more…let us jet into the future, to the mid 2000s, and the Blog Revolution. I’m going to start posting articles, podcasts, videos, and what not. Let’s say once a week. Let’s say on Friday. Let’s begin.

David Graeber/Bullshit Jobs

I love anthropologist David Graeber’s groundbreaking, necessary work on bullshit jobs. What are bullshit jobs? Here’s a confession from a bullshit worker:

I do digital consultancy for global pharmaceutical companies’ marketing departments. I often work with global PR agencies on this, and write reports with titles like How to Improve Engagement Among Key Digital Health Care Stakeholders. It is pure, unadulterated bullshit, and serves no purpose beyond ticking boxes for marketing departments. . . . I was recently able to charge around twelve thousand pounds to write a two-page report for a pharmaceutical client to present during a global strategy meeting. The report wasn’t used in the end because they didn’t manage to get to that agenda point.

More from this New Yorker review of Graeber’s book, Bullshit Jobs. And then there’s this interview on the Hidden Brain podcast. And this blog post from Boing Boing. Final fun fact: David Graeber was a leading figure in the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Evan Wagoner-Lynch is sponsored by Standard Rainbow