I’ve been laid off at the Texas Observer today. The publication no longer has a digital editor or social media manager (I was both), and…
Laid Off
Posted in Journalism, and The Texas Observer
Kit O'Connell: Approximately 8,000 Words Posts
The internet is ephemeral
Posted in Gonzo Notes, and Ministry of Hemp
I grew up invested in the technocratic fantasy that the internet would turn into a perfect archive of all knowledge, always at our fingertips. Our mantra is often “the internet is forever,” and it’s easy to buy into this myth.
In the process, we sometimes forget the ephemeral nature of the digital world. If you’re online long enough, you’ve seen whole communities rise and fall. Places where we’d go to “hang out” for hours are now meaningless husks. Yes, it’s true you can technically find my LiveJournal if you look, but it’s no longer a place where minds gather to share ideas, stories, and silly memes.
When we say “the internet is forever,” we mean it in a forensic or archaeological sense. As online communities collapse, they leave little traces behind the way we leave behind fingerprints, and shed hair or skin cells as we move through the physical world. Researchers, such as antifascists on the trail, can sift through the rubble but the vitality departed long ago.
A Tour of Texas Bookshops
Posted in Austin, Journalism, and The Texas Observer
Big-city traffic and a resolution on New Year’s Eve of 2020 led Pflugerville resident Kelsey Black to become a bookseller.
An avid reader, she disliked the hour round trip required to get from her suburb of 65,000 to downtown Austin to browse a bookstore. “OK,” she told herself, “I think it’s just going to be easier for me to … start my own bookstore.”
Turned out, it wasn’t easy at all, “but it’s OK because I have now found my calling,” Black said. The Book Burrow began as a pop-up and online business and finally, on August 6, opened as a brick-and-mortar store. She said the 200-square-foot space has become a haven for those who don’t feel like they fit in elsewhere, drawn by the store’s motto: “Embrace your weird.” For her, the phrase means cultivating love for whatever makes you unique: “Embrace your gender identity; embrace your sexual identity; embrace your racial background; embrace your spiritual path.”
In 2021, Jesse Freidin began traveling across the country to photograph transgender youth for a photo project called “Are You OK?” He’s been to more than half the states in the country, meeting with dozens of trans kids.
In August, Freidin made his second visit to Texas. In the intervening year, legal and policy-based attacks on LGBTQ+ people in the United States have reached feverish heights. Governor Greg Abbott even launched child abuse investigations into parents who seek gender-affirming healthcare for their kids. Though nonprofits like Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union have responded with multiple lawsuits against the policy, which has been partially blocked in court, it still left many families fearing for their safety. Kai Shappley, a trans girl known for her outspoken activism, fled the state with her family a month before Freidin planned to photograph her.
“I want to tell those stories before they disappear, before these families leave the country or state, before these families have to go underground,” Freidin said.
Birdsite Blues: My Twitter Origin Story
Posted in Gonzo Notes, and Occupy Wall Street
Over the weekend of Halloween in 2011, 38 people were arrested at Occupy Austin, the local outgrowth of Occupy Wall Street, a national, mostly anticapitalist movement targeting systemic inequality and corporate influence. I wasn’t involved in the movement yet, but this incident, and a certain social network, set off a chain of events that launched my journalism career.
I joined Twitter in 2009 after attending a technology and sex conference in San Francisco. I noticed everyone using their phones and laptops in a new way to communicate with each other about the conference, even if they hadn’t met before. So I was virtually watching two years later, when dozens of people got arrested in my town in a single night over sharing food.
Like most Democratic cities, officials voiced initial support for the activists camping at Austin City Hall, until two things became clear: one, that Occupy was not focused on pushing the Democratic Party’s agenda or candidates, and two, that the movement made the city’s growing poverty problem impossible to ignore by bringing unhoused campers to its front door. After that, they tried every possible trick (constitutional or otherwise), along with escalating police violence, to dismantle the encampment and undermine the networks springing up around it.
National Butterfly Center Returns After Fascist Threats
Posted in Journalism, and The Texas Observer
More than 100 butterfly enthusiasts descended on the border city of Mission over Halloween weekend to celebrate the annual Texas Butterfly Festival. The event marked a comeback for its host, the National Butterfly Center, which has been threatened and harassed by right-wing extremists who believe (falsely) that the wildlife sanctuary is a human trafficking hotspot. The center closed from January to April over safety concerns.
“We reopened the National Butterfly Center on Earth Day, and this year it was honestly a big celebration,” recalled Marianna Treviño-Wright, director of the center.
Although festival enrollment was down slightly due to the pandemic and political controversy, Treviño-Wright was excited to share her love of butterflies with dozens of new initiates. Accompanied by 20 or so guides, they spent four days tracking the annual migration of monarchs and other species throughout South Texas.