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Feb 11, 2022·edited Feb 11, 2022

That last quote rings false, to my ears. If anything, the internet blurs these distinctions. Think of how the line between journalist and reader became blurred by blogging and Tweeting over the last 15 years or so. This is true in other areas, as well. To take one example: I started doing a bit of mountain biking during the pandemic. If you look at biking-themed channels on Youtube, there are the professionals like Phil Kmetz who travel to downhill parks all over the US and go bombin' down the gnarliest trails you've ever seen. Those guys have hundreds of thousands of views and subscribers, and they get recognized pretty regularly when they're out and about. But, at the same time, I can also search for trails in my area that I'm interested in potentially riding this summer, and I can find dozens and dozens of videos by regular people who've ridden that trail with a GoPro on, and I get a nice sneak peak of it and I can figure out if it looks like the kind of riding I like to do. These videos often have tens or even ones of views.

These are merely two opposite poles of a spectrum. Back in the day, there was a clear separation between, say, the people who made movies or television shows and the people who consumed them. That distinction doesn't exist anymore. In fact, maybe that has what's made affinity-based identities all the more salient. Before, if you were a Star Wars fan, you might collect Star Wars stuff, you might go to some convention or whatever, you might hang out with other big Star Wars geeks, but it was all a bit consumerist. Now with the internet, it's actually more interactive. You can post your thoughts on the movies or shows or whatever like you're Roger Ebert, you can make videos about this or that aspect of the Star Wars universe, you can write and publish Star Wars fan fiction, etc. Way more engaging than just collecting Star Wars action figures.

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On Collins: Another downstream effect of CDC/FDA foreclosing the use of massive screening testing of the asymptomatic to reduce the costs of reducing spread in anticipation of vaccinations/improved therapies.

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