Harold Edgerton: Hammer Breaking Glass (1933)

"This future sure seems unduly fragmented."

I find myself almost exclusively turning to social media for my BreakingNews. I haven’t tuned into a local television news broadcast in nearly five years. I don’t have access to CNN, Fox, or MS-Now on TV, or even access to the network television news broadcasts. I will, on occasion, still tune into NPR if I’m near a radio when news breaks, but I have been increasingly bee-lining to my social media feeds when I catch a whiff of something important occurring. I most often get those whiffs from my social media feeds, too, though I’ve grown increasingly cautious. The proliferation of deepfakes there means that I often check the credibility of the URL behind whatever seems to be breaking. I, sadly, often find the questioned URL carrying the BreakingNews to be broken.

The news itself seems broken by social media.

Tags: #Unscrolling, #PureSchmaltz

Étienne Claude Voysard: Printemps [Spring] (18th century)

This writing week saw the tone of this series shift from the personal toward the more general. I began following the jury trial of Meta and YouTube, who have been accused of trading in products harmful to children, from in here to out there. Out there, the world seems fairly preoccupied with presumptions about itself, notions not yet quite proven by experience or validated by science. We seem to be passing through an initiation with the outcome not yet certain.

I began by noting how large companies tend to come in only one of two flavors: Boobs or Sonsabitches.

Tags: #Unscrolling, #PureSchmaltz

Moses King, Compiler & Publisher: John Davison Rockefeller (1899)

Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy, The New York Public Library. "John Davison Rockefeller" New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed February 19, 2026. (https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/87f79b40-86d4-0131-769f-58d385a7b928)

“The value of its services explains why so many use them so much, not ‘clinical’ addiction.”

The bellwether trial involving Meta and YouTube eventually reached the point where the BigMan was called as a witness. Mark Zuckerberg serves as the BigMan this time, in the same role that a long succession of big men served before. John D. Rockefeller was as nasty a competitor as was ever born, though he managed to soften his image later in life, after he’d shrunken, by handing out dimes to street urchins while delivering little sermons of something he never mastered himself: thrift. Andrew Carneigy was an equally heartless capitalist before he chose to donate much of his ill-accumulated wealth in the form of libraries, generating great goodwill. Zuckerberg’s not yet achieved sufficient dottage to be seen as a benefactor, though I’m sure he contributes plenty to various charities, none of them amounting to anything threatening his personal billions.

It’s a tough time to be an oligarch.

Tags: #Unscrolling, #PureSchmaltz

Unknown Artist: A smart pig—Caldecott -- Farmer's boy (1912)

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. "A smart pig" New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed February 18, 2026. (https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/b197e850-c5bb-012f-0e24-58d385a7bc34)

"…repeated social media use has introduced a much broader swath of the population to this sort of experience than has previously existed."

Our continued compulsive use of social media probably produces several secondary outcomes. I might scroll for distraction, entertainment, or information, but once subject to so much visual and auditory experience, I very likely absorb stuff without being totally aware of what. Social media seems to have been largely constructed out of memes, imitation genes. These tend to be visual and verbal summarizations, shortcut representations capable of transferring some semblance of understanding without much in the way of scholarship or studying, resulting in knowledge perhaps best described as iconic. The goodness or badness of whatever’s so represented almost always seems obvious. Memes accumulate like strings of very limited knowledge, often knowledge without any underlying understanding. Ideas seem like things, easily, even preconsciously classified, and recalled with such immediate dexterity that they manifest without much in the way of questioning accompanying.

This largely visual learning process mimics how one adopts prejudice.

Tags: #Unscrolling, #PureSchmaltz

Honoré Victorin Daumier:
A Gentleman Who Wanted to Study the Habits of Bees too Closely,
plate 6 from Pastorales (1845)

"I'm just not complying with their wishes at the moment."

"It is fascinating that so many Instagram users believe that they are addicted when, according to clinical criteria, the risk of addiction is relatively rare." [Anderson, I.A., Wood, W. Overestimates of social media addiction are common but costly. Sci Rep 15, 39388 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-27053-2]

The science assessing social media use does not appear to have entered its infancy yet.

Tags: #Unscrolling, #PureSchmaltz

Lewis W. Hine:
Making Apparatus for Laboratory, Glass Works, New Jersey (c. 1937)

"This world remains in flux."

The European Commission recently found that TikTok’s addictive design appears to be in breach of the Digital Services Act, a landmark 2022 legislation designed to create a safer digital space by enforcing accountability, transparency, and user safety on online platforms, social media, and marketplaces. It mandates content moderation, bans certain targeted ads, and imposes severe penalties for non-compliance, with special obligations for “Very Large Online Platforms” (VLOPs). VLOPs can be assessed up to 6% of their total gross annual revenue for violating the Act. This announcement must have sent chills up whatever passes for spines in the Googles, Facebooks, and TikToks of this world.

These findings are not based upon a single study, but upon interpretations of several inquiries and formal studies performed with varying degrees of rigor.

Tags: #PureSchmaltz, #Unscrolling

Russell Lee: Shadows on the snow in the mountains in Bernalillo County, New Mexico. The unusual crescent shaped light in patches in the shadows were caused by the eclipse of the sun (04/1940)
United States. Farm Security Administration (Sponsor)

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. "Shadows on the snow in the mountains in Bernalillo County, New Mexico. The unusual crescent shaped light in patches in the shadows were caused by the eclipse of the sun" New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed February 15, 2026. (https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/ba84e0f0-4993-0137-010c-2971ff3091f6)

"We have become our own foreign adversary now."

Scrolling has seemingly suddenly taken an historically outsized role in current affairs. Hardly a newspaper can be published without some story harkening into some aspect of social media. Our president uses his own private social media platform as the primary conduit for disseminating government information. True to its social media nature, much of that information amounts to deliberate mis- and disinformation. In 2024, Congress passed, and President Biden signed into law, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (PAFACAA). It was intended to address national security concerns regarding TikTok’s ownership by the Chinese company ByteDance. The act identified some critical risks that they insisted necessitated a forced sale or ban of the platform.

Congress feared that the Chinese government might employ its national intelligence laws to compel ByteDance to share so-called sensitive personal data of more than 170 million American users, including location and biometric identifiers.

Tags: #Unscrolling, #PureSchmaltz

Thomas Bolton Gilchrist Septimus Dalziel:
Illustration of "The three sons" by poet John Moultrie (1868)

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. "The three sons." New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed February 14, 2026. (https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/faee0690-c5bb-012f-199f-58d385a7bc34)

"These are who we’ve entrusted our precious attention spans to."

Who are these people we so easily entrusted with our precious attention spans? Most of us had no clue how precious our attention spans might have always been until technology made it practical to distract them. But even given that technology made mass distraction a practical possibility, who might find tapping into that an attractive occupation? Cue the thoroughly modern corporation. Such an occupation seems to demand a certain sense of presumption beyond what any technological capability might impart. A sense of privilege and self-possession might enable one to engage in any of the snoopier professions. One spies on lesser beings, not on equals; on fools. One must identify as a spy, an occupation that hardly lends itself to gentile persuasion. One lurks, often under misleading pretenses, and draws attention away from one’s actual operations. The providers of such services tend to grant themselves expansive labels: Meta, Google, Amazon, and X come readily to mind, names that provide little hint at what might pass for day-to-day operations going on under their hoods, but hint at the enormous and infallible.

They seemed the very soul of accommodating at first.

Tags: #Unscrolling, #PureSchmaltz

Alexis Chataigner: The Ballad Writer (19th century)

At the start of every writing week, I wonder what might rise to any level of importance that would warrant writing about it. This world has thus far been benevolent in that respect. I daren’t second-guess or stiff-arm whatever might manifest, lest I jinx the whole operation. This writing week turned out no different—a faith-based initiative executed by someone not necessarily infused with faith. I never know until I post, and often not even then, if I’m being true to my intentions and moving this curious ball further afield. I strongly recommend to anyone who might be interested that they consider becoming anything other than a writer, but if they choose writing—or writing chooses them—to befriend that urge. It’s either friend or enemy, neither obviously.

I started this writing week trying to distinguish between real and “Reel” life, not entirely successfully.

Tags: #Unscrolling, #PureSchmaltz

Russell Lee: Fence on Cruzen Ranch. Valley County, Idaho. AAA (Agricultural Adjustment Administration) has painted out this fence as being an outstanding type for ranch use. It keeps out predators (wolves, etc.), the wire is stapled loosely to allow for expansion (06/1941) United States. Farm Security Administration (Sponsor)

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. "Fence on Cruzen Ranch. Valley County, Idaho. AAA (Agricultural Adjustment Administration) has painted out this fence as being an outstanding type for ranch use. It keeps out predators (wolves, etc.), the wire is stapled loosely to allow for expansion and" New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed February 12, 2026. (https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/f54aa060-84a2-0137-2a98-29e7943b6d77)

"Our lust for Utopian futures reliably produces their opposite."

In the beginning, there was a civilization aching to spawn a better one. It produced an infant with tremendous potential but carrying the same curse its parents held, for they were predatory, just as their offspring would most certainly be. Though they had long dreamed of transcending their nature to amplify their better angels, devils continued to haunt them. They had proven themselves capable of great compassion as well as appalling Predation, as would their offspring. The child seemed anything but wild at first, fragile and vulnerable, but it grew bolder as it came to cover more ground. It began in academia before breaking into commerce, then on into what it deceptively called Social Media. It remained capable of producing great goodness but often proved disappointing. It attracted trolls almost immediately, and frauds. Let the browser be wary, and they were.

The children came with their innocence intact, easy prey for even the laziest predators.

Tags: #Unscrolling, #PureSchmaltz

Thomas Bolton Gilchrist Septimus Dalziel, (Artist)
Dalziel Brothers (Wood-engraver):
Contented John. (1868)

Content: Illustration of "Contented John" by poet Jane Taylor.
Source Note: The children''s poetry. Being a selection of narrative poetry for the young; with illustrations by Thomas Dalziel, engraved by the Brothers Dalziel. 1868) Dalziel Brothers , Engraver. Dalziel, Thomas Bolton Gilchrist Septimus (1826-1906), Illustrator.

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. "Contented John." New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed February 11, 2026. (https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/fa2a2ba0-c5bb-012f-990f-58d385a7bc34)

— — — —

"We can't seem to stop ourselves from coming back again and again to such contexts."

The plaintiff in the breakthrough social media lawsuit against YouTube and Meta, now taking place in Los Angeles, has introduced a novel approach to the proceedings. Internet “content providers” like Meta and YouTube have thus far operated under an act of Congress immunizing them from liability for content posted by third parties. Since both YouTube and Meta thrive largely as Context providers, with a few exceptions, they’ve survived accusations that their moderation excused offensive materials. The law explicitly assumes good faith moderation and that they cannot be treated as the publisher or the speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. This law, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (47 U.S. Code § 230), has been referred to as the law that built the internet, for Congress created it to encourage the growth of the internet and to foster free expression. It has succeeded, though at some cost.

Many have expressed frustration when platforms like X, formerly Twitter, and Facebook, published lies and hate speech before elections, proclaiming exemption due to § 230 protections.

Tags: #Unscrolling, #PureSchmaltz

James Gillray: Pandora Opening her Box (published February 22, 1809)
published by Hannah Humphrey

"Progress moves more slowly than molasses."

The attorney for the plaintiffs delivered his opening statement in what PBS described as “a lively display.” He asserted that the case is “easy as ABC,” which he said stands for “Addicting the Brains of Children.” Simple as his case might be, he was nonetheless unable to complete his OpeningStatements before the lunch break. The defense, of course, denied every allegation, and so the process began. This is how we determine reality in the twenty-first century, just the way we did it in the prior centuries, for we demand proof, not necessarily beyond any reasonable doubt, but enough to compel the checkbooks to come out and cough up. Two of the wealthiest corporations in the history of corporations stand accused of deliberately engineering dependence in adolescents. I suspect they’ll be found guilty as charged.

We have always been cranky when it came to protecting consumers.

Tags: #Unscrolling, #PureSchmaltz

Corita Kent (Sister Mary Corita): than of everything (1967)

Inscriptions and Marks
Signed: l.c.: Corita
(not assigned): Printed text reads: THAN OF EVERYTHING
BULK RATE [stamped in black ink]
© Courtesy of the Corita Art Center, Immaculate Heart Community, Los Angeles / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

"(They don't speak the language.)"

I should have been more careful with how I characterized social media, for nothing was ever quite what it appeared to be. We each feature layers, each consequential but no single one ultimately definitional. We are always and inevitably a melding: yin and yang, helpful as well as utterly helpless, useless yet ultimately useful. Our nobility lies in precisely these dichotomies rather than along any margin or within any conclusion. Some days, perhaps even most days, social media sure does seem beyond redemption, yet abandoning it, even for its proven shortcomings, could only erase any possibility of any hope of redemption. Repeating ad nauseam, which might be the only way any such defensive strategies ever get repeated, creates a world of formerly hopeful alternatives, discredited in practice. We inevitably create a world of also-rans and disappoint ourselves.

Hope was never intended to resolve itself. It exists solely for its own sake.

Tags: #Unscrolling, #PureSchmaltz

Will Hicok Low:
Checking His Love Trance, a Cup He Took Full Brimm’d (1885)

"I still feel compelled to check in from time to time
and seem to possess no reliable defence against Checking Out before I exit."

It seems to be the nature of social media that the mere act of checking in insidiously transforms into a form of checking out. All intentions aside, once inside, things naturally guide the eye to other, often unrelated, entries, before a trance completely overtakes the proceedings. I might consequently feel lucky to make it back out of there alive, though I sometimes feel as though I exclusively exit as some form of undead. Not quite dead yet, I wash up like an exasperated, if better-informed fish. I will have inevitably gained some remarkably arcane knowledge, often the kind with no obvious practical application, though somehow nonetheless supremely satisfying, as if I’d gorged on popcorn or salad dressing. My palate will feel temporarily satisfied without growing much more sophisticated.

My CheckingIn/CheckingOut boundary becomes my primary dichotomy. I seem unable to maintain a stable relationship between seeking important information an

Tags: #Unscrolling, #PureSchmaltz

Harper Pennington: Holiday festivities in colonial times; dancing the Virginia reel (1891-01-03)
COLLECTION
Prints depicting dance
Theatrical dancers in groups or more than two but not in a ballet or theatrical dance scene
Josephine Butler collection of dance prints from illustrated periodicals

Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library. "Holiday festivities in colonial times; dancing the Virginia reel" New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed February 7, 2026. (https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/24c44fb0-f763-013b-db97-0242ac110002)

“Maybe all life qualifies as representational,
merely so many shadows on those cavern walls.”

Real life has always paralleled unrealistic representations of itself. The differences were explained as poetic or metaphoric, since no mirror image can ever be true to its image’s source. The mirror fiddles with perspective, but it provides access to experiences otherwise impossible. We somehow thrive in spite, or perhaps because of, obvious imperfections. The purists among us might deride the representations as not being “real”, though they certainly inhabit a 1820s real-enough space of their own. A novel might be fictional but still adequately-enough represent its subjects.

Social media’s little different, though it does prominently display some rather glaring contrasts.

Tags: #Unscrolling, #PureSchmaltz

Wenceslaus Hollar: Spring (1644)

This was the writing week I dreaded since at least Christmas, though I found ample reason to celebrate before it finished. I discovered a fresh holiday, one capable of blessing rather than reliably damning me. This was a week of revelation. I conceded this week, with the petunias still alive and roses budding, that this might actually come to be the winter where winter never visited. We’ve had a few frosty mornings, but nothing sustained enough to set our gardens very far back on their knees. I mowed lawn this week.

I continued reframing my scrolling habits by ReadingBooks. I dabbled in a little StrategicForgetfulness, and stumbled into genuine realization by Trolling instead of scrolling my social media for a change, resulting in some serious change.

Tags: #Unscrolling, #PureSchmaltz

Albrecht Dürer: The Desperate Man (1515–16)

"There seems to be few viable alternatives. Caveat emptor here."

Was it always the case that the exercise of free speech rights attracted dedicated despots? This seems to be the case with our ‘internets.’ That space seems brimming with budding as well as practiced despots plying their slippery trade. The ratio of authenticity to absolute bullshit seems impossible to assess, but the presence of despotism there seems, finally, to be a given. It’s not just the Russians playing poltergeist, either, but what might appear to be upstanding business and political figures. Who isn’t suspected by someone? Whose motives are pure? The chief difficulty of any free speech medium might be that it encourages people to speak freely rather than circumspectly. Free speech has never been the same as loose talk, and social media seems to tolerate altogether too much loose talk. Is this the proper price for this franchise?

The greatest gift The Gods gave humans was the blesséd inability to read each other’s minds.

Tags: #Unscrolling, #PureSchmaltz

Lucas Kilian: Second Vision, from Mirrors of the Microcosm (1613)

"On my better days, I catch reassuring glimpses of it."

In the beginning was an idea, a concept expansive enough to encapsulate everything. As that idea spread, it began decomposing into constituent pieces, not because these were necessary, but because each represented choices, and because they seemed to better serve somebody or some constituency. The cynical, as they often do, eventually co-opted the more idealistic. They insisted that a system capable of connecting could easily accomplish division. They proposed creating profit centers. They encouraged shady operators to promote patent medicines and conspiracy rumors, certain to attract and entertain the least discerning. They encouraged trolls. The most progressive invention in the history of humanity became the primary engine of repression. Social media retains the DNA of its hopeful founders, though its stewards long ago largely chose cynicism because it offered greater revenue potential. Have we forgotten the originating whole? Has the medium lost its soul?

Each platform serves as a microcosm of the originating Macrocosm’s whole.

Tags: #Unscrolling, #PureSchmaltz

Mieko (Chieko) Shiomi, George Maciunas: Water Music (1964)

"Scrolling can serve some incredibly useful purposes, sometimes even EssentialServices."

I sincerely apologize for starting this series under what I should have known would turn out to become false premises, but each of my series so far has eventually stumbled into this same realization. I might conclude that non-false premises can’t coexist with serious series writing, since some of their purpose should rightfully and properly remain in actually discovering something. I couldn’t have known precisely where the falsity might emerge, only that it would inevitably emerge and, in doing so, turn me into, if not a liar, then a perveyor of partial truths. Absolutists, those who only peddle in complete truths, might not actually exist, so at least I might consider myself in reasonably good company. If my purpose was to discover something, I required some partially-baked basis upon which to initiate my search.

The issue might never be whether premises prove to be false or not.

Tags: #Unscrolling, #PureSchmaltz

Marianne Stokes: Candlemas Day (1901)

"Her influence seems as eternal now as the Yew, and as paradoxical, too."

Today is the day I’ve been dreading since at least Christmas. For the last four years, I have anticipated this day with deep gloom, recognizing that there would be no way to sidestep the experience. It would come, wreaking havoc, then depart, leaving me worse for the experience. This seemed to be my curse, since this date will forever be the anniversary of my darling daughter Heidi’s suicide. Speaking with an old friend a week ago, I recounted my dreary January experience. He advised that I find some way to celebrate on that day. Celebrate her existence rather than her absence, he advised. February’s full of celebration days: Groundhog Day, Fat Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, and Presidents’ Day. It’s Black American Month, too, and Heidi was always touting how she was a citizen of the world, not merely an American. Now, she’s a citizen of the universe, and her presence continues to stick with me, her family, and her many colleagues. She’s become a force of history.

That she chose February 2 to depart this realm struck me as painfully ironic, for it seems to be the date that celebrates the promise of resurrection.

Tags: #Unscrolling, #PureSchmaltz

Claude Gillot: Harlequin Espirit Follet: The Comedian’s Repast
(c. 1700–1715)

"…forgetting my phone on purpose when I'd most often accomplish that by default."

However I might try to slice the challenge, Unscrolling still seems difficult. It carries the usual difficulties associated with trying not to do something, a philosophical impossibility if not necessarily a physical one. It might just as well be impossible for all the success I seem to engender whenever attempting to accomplish it. Not even my very best intentions, freshly shaved, showered, and dressed in clean jeans, seem capable of succeeding very often, and even then, it seems more accidental than intentional. Still, I accept accidental as a valid tactic, except I cannot will an accident any more than I seem to be able to not do something as seemingly innocuous as scrolling. Maybe I’m hopeless.

Hopeless or not, I don’t seem to yet be beyond leveraging my budding forgetfulness towards this end.

Tags: #Unscrolling, #PureSchmaltz