After learning about the Lights Out Meta campaign, a boycott on all Meta platforms from January 19th thru January 26th, 2025, it sounded like a good idea, and after reading about it more extensively, I think it's a necessary one.

Here are the articles I quote from in this one-off boycott episode:

Meta's pivot to the right sparks boycotts and calls for a user exodus

and-

Lights Out Meta: R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe calls for Meta boycott to protest rise of US far-right

and-

Meta Boycott And TikTok Ban Could Signal Social Media's Transformation

Founder of the SCOPE Art Show, Alexis Hubshman talks about everything from its size (approx. 300,000 sq ft of exhibition space), to the number of galleries exhibited (95 from 27 countries) to how he makes the fair run smoothly; his support of new and emerging galleries, giving many of them rent-free booths, subsidized by their corporate sponsor partnerships; how he sees the accessibility of the art at Scope as a form of open-source experience, emphasizing being welcoming to visitors; how and why they’ve taken more nouveau-pop sensibilities out of the exhibition equation; he breaks down Scope’s Miami week as catering to: high-end collectors and museum curators on Tues. and Wed., Thurs. into Friday are for “culture shifters,” while Saturday and Sunday are a ‘come one, come all’ scenario; how when he got sober 15 years ago, he decided to limit Scope’s enterprise to Scope Miami (no more Basel, London, Hampton, L.A.), to both focus the work and to allow for his quality of life; how he’s able to attend the other fairs happening simultaneously in Miami, which he credits to his great team; the shift in the industry towards sobriety between the 90s/2000s to now, even showing more of a yoga-and-sound-bowls kind of morning these days for his team; and how bullish he feels (was feeling) going into the fairs, Scope specifically, based on the election, the location, the market generally and other intangibles.

In the latest OLD NEWS roundup with Emily Colucci of Filthy Dreams, we start by revisiting our prior, charged exchanged about Louis CK, in which Emily was admittedly a bit of an apologist for him, which alienated some listeners- in this case, while we don’t land on the same page, we do air out our respective perspectives, and Emily dubs herself a contrarian. This leads to a brief discussion of the culture of heterodoxy, which promotes viewing issues from multiple angles as opposed to just your typical ideology; Emily’s interest in what she calls ‘the trash aesthetic,’ the pinnacle of which she explored by braving a late-October rally at Madison Square Garden featuring you-know-which-politician as the headliner, an event she ultimately describes as surprisingly boring; Emily’s own article (appearing in the Oct. 12th OLD NEWS), “GAGOSIAN-BRANDED STICKER MADE ME HATE NAN GOLDIN’S “YOU NEVER DID ANYTHING WRONG,’ in which she critiques Goldin’s exhibition at Gagosian through the highly distorted lens of being made to cover up her phone’s camera lens with a Gagosian-branded sticker (and Emily now knows the impact of her blog post about it- which is that the gallery’s not going to do the sticker cover-up anymore); Emily shares her admiration for Goldin, not only her art but also her activism, through P.A.I.N. as well as that related to A.I.D.S.

To hear this episode in its entirety, including bonus content on Gary Indiana, Libbie Mugrabi and more, go to: patreon.com/theconversationpod where you can support the podcast for as little as $1 a month