Normal Facebook posts and Twitter statuses are too short to be very meaty, unless you link to something longer, create a thread of smaller bite-sized pieces, or embed an image or video.
I’ve been tinkering with medium granularity: some slightly longer-form social media writing. That’s what I’m aiming for in a series of written-word episodes dubbed Bob Runs the Numbers.
Argument by Meme == 😡
Sadly, tiny posts or statuses, especially with viral media being shared all over the place, tend to lead to “argument-by-meme” which is the dreadfulest possible argument. Even if a punchy meme refers to a longer argument, what, like I’m gonna watch some fifteen-minute-long partisan screed that’s not even by anyone I know? Shyeah, right. As if.
Stumbling across some pixelated meme image dissing libtards while its caption tries to break the untruths-per-sentence record? That isn’t a tactic that’s ever left me reconsidering my opinion. And — since conservatives and liberals are all flesh-and-blood humans with human strengths and human emotions and human reactions and human frailties — I am forced to assume that liberal snarky meme-based witticisms (even those I’ve authored!) haven’t converted too many conservatives either.
Facebook Notes
I originally started using Facebook’s Notes feature to create a series of “Bob Runs The Numbers” episodes. They’re not exactly posts or statuses or articles or essays but some sort of combination of all of them. Facebook Notes allowed for minimal formatting and just enough structure for an episode of a couple of pages.
Facebook Notes have been deprecated for several years now though.
Twitter Threads
I have sewn together a few essays in the form of Twitter threads and those, too, are ungainly and unsatisfying. (And, updating this in late 2022, Twitter is not exactly a highly trustworthy model of stability.)
Substack
Now in 2021 I’m migrating these episodes over to substack. Facebook’s deprecation of Notes is one of several reasons to find a better home for Bob Runs the Numbers. We’ll see how long these stay here.
Substack seems oriented towards authors interested in monetizing their work. That’s not where my head’s at — I’m planning to keep these Bob Runs the Numbers episodes free for all readers.
Quantifying problems. Not proscribing solutions.
A lot of issues are too complicated to distill down to an obvious conclusion in 140 (or even 280) characters, or a normal Facebook post. I like to focus on the statistics of issues. That’s one of the guiding principles of Bob Runs the Numbers. I’d like to think that these episodes will be focused on quantifying the problems, not proscribing solutions.
And I’m hopeful that even with an unapologetic focus on the numbers, we won’t get too far into the weeds. Most of the math will be understandable by middle schoolers, with an occasional foray into high-school-level math.
Muses & Inspirations
My research for these episodes is generally “what’s easy to search on the web.” There’s no budget for this stuff ... but people with an actual budget have done similar work.
Mythbusters: This may be the greatest science show ever. The approach of jumping in to test questions runs deep in the show’s DNA.
Penn & Teller’s Bullshit! I like the attitude they present, even if their tendency to find terrible spokespeople for the opposing viewpoints starts to grate.
FiveThirtyEight: Data-based analysis is the best analysis.
Freakonomics: Let evidence lead where it may; incentives may lead to surprising results.
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: I love what HBO has let John Oliver do with this show. Every episode includes a deep, well-sourced, and funny dive into a complicated issue.
Here’s Hopin’
Hopefully a longer-form structure will help avoid bombastic shortcuts. Hopefully keeping things numbers-based will avoid emotional distractions. Hopefully these can be an exercise in finding common factual ground for meaningful conversations about solutions.