Making sense of my Medium recs: ontologies and assemblages, life coaches, working moms, and North Carolina drag

I’ve been sifting through the posts recommended to me on Medium looking for personal themes.

You know, because all algorithms that direct my content consumption are ultimately about ME (that’s a Taylor Swift reference because to refer to Swift’s work is to refer to life, reflected accurately.)

Thus, before we begin: ALL HAIL the (current) Queen of Content, Autocrat of the Algorithm, Slayer of Lies, The Dragon Queen, Silver Lady, Breaker of Chains, Ahai Returned…

You should see Tay in a crown (sorry, Billie E, maybe one day…)

Most prominent amongst my consumption:

Ben Zweibelson, PhD, last looked at ontologies and assemblages: the fact that social algorithms exist IRL as well as online (one might suggest one inspired the other and is currently seeking to replace it….if *glitch* it hasn’t already *glitch*…)

With the enthusiasm of a True Swiftie, Ben effuses an academic article that applies these post-modern philosophical terms to military targeting. Now David Graeber and Yuval Noah Harari have made careers out of relating these ideas to pretty much all recognized aspects of mortal existence, from gender to empire to economics to all the other ways in which we humans attempt to arbitrarily categorize and codify the black…