Gabe Bullard

@gbullard

Journalist and critic. I'm writing a book about convenience. I'm on the radio. Everything is at gabebullard.com. Basel, CH.

335 Folgt402 Follower223 Posts

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Gabe Bullard@gbullard· Jul 1

Is this too much setup for a sub-60-second video encouraging book pre-orders? Nah. I want the ten people who see it to enjoy some quality.

A table with a typewriter on it. A camera on a tripod points at the typewriter. A microphone plugged into a recorder is behind the typewriter. A green notebook is also on the table.

Gabe Bullard@gbullard· Jun 30

Is the Swiss ALF Hunter Thompson?

A screenshot of a digital ad. It says "ALF Casino" and shows two people in suits chasing a blue alien, who is carrying a briefcase full of money. The alien is dressed like Hunter S. Thompson from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A bucket hat, orange aviator sunglasses, a flowered shirt, and white shorts.

Gabe Bullard@gbullard· Jun 25

My book critiquing technology isn't out for a few more months, so I'm going to release this picture now and get ahead of the scandal. Yes, I use computers and always have.

A photo of the author as a child, age four or five, sitting at a desk in front of a Commodore 64 computer. The screen reads "Game 1, Level 1."

Gabe Bullard@gbullard· Jun 25

People like to joke "I bet you'd hate if I got your book on an e-reader or ordered it online." There's only one way to find out. Order it now for 25% off and see how I react.

An image of the cover of the book for "Against Convenience: Embracing Friction in an Age of Endless Ease" by Gabe Bullard on a tablet, a phone, and a hardcover book. The book cover is a plastic food delivery bag with the title as text on the bag. Above the image are the words "Barnes & Noble Sale! Preorder now for 25% off." Below are the details: 6/23-6/26, online exclusive, code:preorder25, US B&N Rewards and Premium Members Only."

Gabe Bullard@gbullard· Jun 3

I've been saying video podcasts look bad, especially when clipped. This is an example. For staging: it's cluttered; the mic cable is just hanging there; the book spines aren't facing a camera. For framing: we're too far away (this is meant for a phone screen) and the host's legs are cut off.

A still from an Instagram video for a podcast recording. Steven Spielberg sits in an armchair in the middle of the frame. He is behind a hexagonal coffee table, on which there are three large books with their spines facing to the left. He has a plastic water bottle and a plastic drink cup with a straw in front of him. Spielberg's chair is in the corner of a room. On the walls behind him are a number of posters—photos of musicians, movie posters, an ad for Chesterfield cigarettes, a vintage Red Sox calendar, and a sign that says "Basketball Hall of Fame" with an arrow pointing to the right. At the left and right edges of the frames are pairs of legs wearing khaki pants with white sneakers. The bodies of the people whose legs these are cannot be seen. Spielberg is speaking into a microphone on a boom stand. The cable for the microphone is not wrapped around the boom and sags as it moves to the side.

Gabe Bullard@gbullard· May 20

After two years of research and writing, my book is now available for pre-order. It's a critique of technology, a brief history of chores, a critique of streaming and of the news business, and a few thoughts on what to do next. www.harpercollins.com/products/aga...

A photo of the book titled "Against Convenience: Embracing Friction in an Age of Endless Ease" by Gabe Bullard. The cover depicts a food delivery bag with the text printed on the bag.

Gabe Bullard@gbullard· Feb 1

Look no further.

Gabe Bullard@gbullard· Oct 11

Podcasting

A still of Kurt Russell from the John Carpenter film The Thing (1982). Russell looks tired and is talking into a microphone. There is a tall glass of whiskey on his desk.

Gabe Bullard@gbullard· Sep 8

Part one of my cultural history of the bowling shirt is one of the most popular essays I’ve published in a while. I guess people like it? gabebullard.substack.com/p/what-happe...

A collage of newspaper ads for bowling shirts from the 1940s and 1950s.

Gabe Bullard@gbullard· Sep 5

Going deep on bowling shirts. gabebullard.substack.com/p/what-happe...

Thirty years ago, a bowling shirt was a signifier of an obsession with kitsch or an addiction to irony. The vintage-shop owner played by John Waters in a 1997 Simpsons episode wears multiple bowling shirts. Ethan Hawke’s character wears one in Reality Bites. In less than a decade, the bowling shirt changed from the uniform of alt hipsterdom to the button-up equivalent of a bleached-blond soul patch. A Flair Hair visor for the torso. Now its image is something like Fieri—derided in some corners for absurdity and tastelessness and appreciated in others for earnestness. It’s simultaneously steeped in irony but too sincere to dismiss as frivolous. Fieri’s influence on the shirt’s image is notable, but it’s just one part of a decades-long nostalgia cycle that has left the shirt a little more faded with each turn.

Gabe Bullard@gbullard· Aug 23

gabebullard.substack.com/p/this-isnt-...

Gabe Bullard@gbullard· Aug 14

It's so odd to me that we have hours and hours of video podcasts where a host talks to a guest, and none of them look half as decent as TV did 50 years ago. The technology exists!

Gabe Bullard@gbullard· Aug 8

niemanreports.org/local-truste...

“Maybe 20% of the country is effectively going to lose any concept of itself as a place within the next 10 years without public media,” Shepperd added. “They're essentially all going to have national ideology on the local level, and no local memory and no local experience. They won't have the history, they won't have the funding from [the National Endowment for the Humanities] for the history museums. They won't have public media to interview people in their own community,” he said. “They'll be decentralized, but they will have Fox News.”

Gabe Bullard@gbullard· Jul 25

I wrote an essay about this rock. gabebullard.substack.com/p/a-solitary...

Gabe Bullard@gbullard· Jul 22

The "Tesla Diner" looks terrible, but in a significant way. It's supposed to be some retro-future idea, right? The update of the old futurist/Googie designs of the '50s, but for the electric car age? It has none of the imagination, daring, or sense of fun of old designs.

An image of the Tesla Diner in Los Angeles. It is a two-story silvery-gray building with a neon stripe around the first floor.

A Googie-architecture car wash with bright pillars extending beyond the roof.

A Googie coffee shop with a sharply angled roof.

Norm's diner, with a large sign and angular roof.

Gabe Bullard@gbullard· Jul 18

A still from a New York Times Opinion video. In it, Ezra Klein is sitting in a red armchair, looking directly at the camera. His palms are turned up in a welcoming gesture. The caption says "God says: Welcome." It is captured from a joke Klein told at the beginning of the video.

Gabe Bullard@gbullard· Jul 18

I'm really glad we traded things like reading articles, watching TV shows, or listening to radio for hourlong videos with shots like this.

A still from a New York Times opinion video. It shows writer Ross Douthat speaking into a MacBook. The computer is on a plastic stand. Douthat is wearing large headphones. His computer has a webcam clipped to the top of it and a large microphone to the side. The wires of both are visible.

Gabe Bullard@gbullard· Jul 17

My latest. www.watchingtogetheralone.com/p/in-defense...

The pitfall of developing a signature voice is that people will recognize it. Once they do, they stop looking for anything else. They watch, read, or listen in hopes of finding a way to feel smarter than the work—even if they ostensibly enjoy it. This is how recognizable themes become “obvious,” how a logical plot becomes “formulaic,” how a style becomes a copyable meme.

Gabe Bullard@gbullard· Jul 17

Almost two years in, I'm really happy with how Together, Alone is going. If you're wondering where to start, try @ariellebernstein.bsky.social's essay on Sabrina Carpenter and how we talk about popular culture. www.watchingtogetheralone.com

A screenshot of the homepage of the website Together, Alone. There are five stories featured: "The Uncanny Valley of Digital Pop Culture Discourse"; "The Persistence of Commodified Memory"; "In Defense of Artifice"; "The Age of Robot Women"; "I Don't Want To See You, You Seem Bored."

Gabe Bullard@gbullard· Jun 10

Who put a PDF called "Ian MacKaye" into an Apple demonstration video?

A screenshot from the Apple Liquid Glass demonstration video. It shows a MacOS Finder window with four files. One is labeled Gears, another Ian MacKaye, another Improv, and another Index.

Gabe Bullard@gbullard· Apr 11

Reject the anxiety of Hi dreaming about missing his flight. Normalize the Wizard of Id enjoying a martini in his chair.

A panel from a Hi and Lois comic strip in which Hi is sitting in his pajamas in bed, looking wearing, saying "I had that dream again about missing my flight."

A cropped panel from The Wizard of Id showing the titular Wizard sitting in an armchair and holding a martini.

Gabe Bullard@gbullard· Mar 24

Really I guess there's nothing stopping me from doing this.

Gabe Bullard@gbullard· Feb 17

Rock-Ola was a big brand of jukebox, but the name didn't come from rock music, or the fact that the jukebox's antecedent, the player piano, was called the pianola. Rockola was the founder's name. He started making jukeboxes in the 1930s. The name might've influenced the coinage of "rock and roll"

Gabe Bullard@gbullard· Jan 15

Never gonna happen.

A MacOS prompt says "Ready for Apple Intelligence" "Time to experience the new personal intelligence system" with a button that says "Set Up Apple Intelligence"

Gabe Bullard@gbullard· Dec 19

Why I love sad Christmas music. Click for the picture of me as Santa. Stay for the short essay. gabebullard.substack.com/p/muddle-thr...

A Polaroid photo from 2005 shows the author dressed as Santa Claus, wearing a red suit, fake beard, and Converse sneakers.

Gabe Bullard@gbullard· Dec 17

Oh wonder! How beauteous mankind is! Oh brave new world that has such people in it!

A screenshot of a social media post from The Wirecutter that says "This nifty little tool turns an ordinary canned soda into a beautiful cocktail-esque beverage. We put the viral device to the test on nearly two-dozen cans. Here's what we learned" with a still image from a video of a gray plastic device that removes the entire top of soda-style cans.

A social media post in which a user writes "google just dropped veo2 and it is outperforming sora significantly" followed by a star eyes emoji. The post includes a side-by-side video labeled "Google's Veo 2 vs OpenAI Sora." Each video shows a knife cutting a tomato. The video is paused.

Gabe Bullard@gbullard· Dec 16

www.watchingtogetheralone.com/p/generative...

A paragraph from the linked essay that reads: "So don’t. Don’t use generative AI. Do not give another inch to this technology. No curious clicks. No quick images to put atop a post. No get-a-load-of-this-garbage screenshot fodder. In two years of showing off their latest parlor trick, the venture-capital-backed plagiarists who profit from AI have done nothing to further the arts, nothing to strengthen the humanities, and nothing to improve any human endeavor that doesn’t make them personally wealthy, famous, or powerful. Don’t give them another user to exploit. Leave them to their sad lives of reinventing the city bus."

Gabe Bullard@gbullard· Oct 26

Living the Dream.

A carnival ride sign reads “Disney-Dream” and hands over a life-size model of the Simpsons.

Gabe Bullard@gbullard· Oct 23

Secretary of Labor James Mitchell and Murrow both smoked through their interview.

Then-Secretary of Labor James Mitchell at his desk in the documentary Harvest of Shame. Mitchell is holding a cigarette.

Then-Secretary of Labor James Mitchell talking with Edward R. Murrow in the CBS documentary Harvest of Shame. Both are smoking cigarettes.

Gabe Bullard@gbullard· Oct 23

Ah, here it is. Murrow's smoke is drifting over Sen. Harrison Williams's cup of pencils. In a wider shot, you see Murrow smoking through the interview.