Liz and Alex lay into their most despised words from the content mill industry, from "dynamic content" and "content management system" to "optimize" and "authentic." Also covered: video game DLC (that's "downloadable content," remember!), store

A funny thing happened on the way to the AI forum

Jan 5th, 2024 1h 18m

Alex and Liz dig their claws into "AI," this time focusing on some recent hype-y conferences Liz attended in Chicago and Las Vegas. We also look at cyberlibertarianism, the difficulties that LLMs have with ambiguity (and why making them better

Digital content in the analog world: Snackable ideas while engaging with our lunch

Sep 28th, 2023 1h 34m

Alex and Liz talk about what really makes digital content different from physical and analog equivalents, and what distinctive ideological concepts—"everything's binary, monopolies are good, technology itself is the agent, users should be treat

The artificial intelligence is coming from inside the house

Sep 3rd, 2023 1h 24m

Alex and Liz talk about the hottest topic out there—"AI," or "artificial intelligence" (quotes because we're a little skeptical of it being in any way "intelligent"), with a look at some recent essays that explore whether "AI" is agent or tool,

Ghost writing the cliffhanger ending to the private cloud

Aug 15th, 2023 1h 8m

Alex and Liz talk about their time at the content mill, how it was all about ghost writing, what techniques they honed by doing that (such as learning how to easily add 100-200 superfluous words to any article's intro), and how that overall exp

What’s Mastodon? What’s ActivityPub?!

Jun 20th, 2023 1h 23m

Alex and Liz talk about Mastodon, the open social network that uses a federated design that works somewhat similarly to email. We also explain ActivityPub, the W3C-sanctioned protocol that underpins Mastodon and other services such as Pixelfed.

Information overload is a type of censorship

May 13th, 2023 1h 4m

Alex and Liz talk about Jenny Odell's "How to Do Nothing," this time focusing on how information overload and context collapse make it difficult to do what you want to do. We also make a brief detour into "This is Water" (and its roots in "Infi

Doing Something About Jenny Odell’s ”How to do Nothing,” Part 1!

Apr 1st, 2023 44m 33s

Alex and Liz look at "How to do Nothing" by Jenny Odell, talk about Twitter, TikTok, and Mastodon and their respective effects on our mental health, and even spin out a hot take on David Foster Wallace's legendary 2005 commencement speech at Ke

The Complete Beginner’s Guide to ”Capitalist Realism”

Dec 10th, 2022 1h 32m

Liz and Alex dive deep into Mark Fisher's seminal 2009 surprise best seller, "Capitalist Realism." Topics explored include how society individualizes mental illness, why there's this widespread conception of "gritty" content as somehow "realer"

SEO Cope And Change—And StarCraft!

Oct 23rd, 2022 59m 2s

Alex and Liz talk about the coping strategies they witnessed from their managers at the content mill. Interested in doing the work of your direct reports for them? Want to work with clients who don't respond to emails for months? Wondering if y

The Top 10 Things We Wish We Didn’t Know About Content Mills

Sep 24th, 2022 1h 23m

Liz’s website: lizmakesstuff.comLeft Anchor: https://www.leftanchor.comStrunk and White’s Macho Grammar Club: https://www.thedailybeast.com/strunk-and-whites-macho-grammar-clubNeil Patel, who doesn’t read: https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment

The Knife Alien File: A Content Bonanza

Sep 2nd, 2022 54m 38s

Alex and Liz talk about the one topic you can never ever write about at content mills. Also included are two on-air readings of archetypal content mill content, except we break that taboo and write about He Who Shall Not Be Named. Liz’s websit

002b: Content algorithms: We’re the tools and Google is the operator

Aug 6th, 2022 55m 14s

Alex and Liz talk about algorithms and how they select and serve content, with an extended riff on an academic paper about bureaucracy (don't worry! we make it easy to understand). Also, if you've ever wondered what recursion is, we've got you

002a: IMDb What to Watch, AWS, and algorithmic selection

Jul 24th, 2022 34m 29s

Alex and Liz talk about IMDb What to Watch, a new app for trying to find that one pearl in the sea of "endless streaming content," through gamification. Will it work? We’re skeptical. And wasn't consuming content supposed to be fun at some poin

001: Bill Gates and the origins of ”content is king”

Jul 17th, 2022 49m 14s

Welcome to Literally 2 Cents About Content!, the podcast about what it’s like to write thousands of words per day for literally two cents per word! In our first episode, Alex tells Elizabeth all about the origins of the content industry, what t

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