iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

What’s the hip paleohistory tip to replace my old hardback of Dinosaur Hunters on the shelf, then?

Yeah. I subscribed to Shudder ages ago, watched a load of horror back to back to optimise my membership, and now Prime is basically unusable, cos it only remembers a brief, clear run of viewing that totally capsized the algorithm. I love horror, but I don’t ONLY love horror.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 1h

Oh good. I’ve been looking for a muddled film that’s way too long. We’ve been short of those recently.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 1h

That’s an interesting subset, innit? Films I saw multiple times on first release at the cinema: Se7en E.T. Judge Dredd (Danny Cannon’s one) The Fisher King Spider Man: Into The Spider-verse It’s a strange bunch, really. Dredd was simple overexcitement. Three times, I went.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 1h

Not sure there’d be any way to do that sort of round the fire thing in another medium, except books maybe.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 1h

Just thinking about the thing I make - Broken Veil - and how it’s designed to be stumbled upon (or recommended), declare itself, then unfold slowly so it changes while you experience it. That’s not how you’d make it for another medium. But it works for audio podcasts, somehow.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 1h

And if we do, it will pop up somewhere else.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 1h

Crossover here with the other thread I’m in right now here about linear TV. We lose whole genres and modes of storytelling when we can’t trust people will sit in front of something and let it unfold in time. That’s basic round the fire storytelling. We shouldn’t abandon it!

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 1h

I really clocked this in Tàr. It’s a long slow film. But it starts with a scene in a very slow considered tempo. Because that is its mood. And so you don’t feel it’s overlong. Your heartbeat settles, like a metronome. It’s about a conductor, so that concept is front and centre.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 1h

It also acknowledges the mutual sense of rhythm and shape involved in holding an audience’s attention. We know the shape of any piece of art from its declared tempo. You anticipate the rise and fall.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 1h

VOD and disrupter media tech in general has been a slow crash course for people outside the entertainment industry in the fact that the entertainment industry did, after all, know what it was doing. Next: budgets.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 1h

The bare minimum for marketing is to make clear what to expect. Then people will pay. You can’t keep doing teasers right up to release and also (have definitely seen this) in the film itself.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 1h

This is good news. The trailers and marketing all seem to say “we have no idea what we have made.”

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 1h

It’s also why some films only let you in halfway - because they’ve not been edited with full knowledge of theme / story - and you suddenly realise you’re watching something quite different from what you maybe hoped it was going to be. A good film has its story running through it like words in rock.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 1h

“Come along and help decide what we made!” It’s a weird pitch. I want to say, “Can you finish it first?”

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 1h

A lot of modern films don’t decide what they’re about. That’s why they’re so long. It’s easier to cut if you know what a thing is. I don’t think I’ve seen a more indecisive modern film, judging by the marketing, than Digger. Does it know? I mean, we definitely don’t. But I’m not sure it does.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 1h

They’re the Proms guys. They’re the Glastonbury guys. That’s their brand. They curate and share. That’s what they DO.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 2h

Ha! I was worried that someone reading the thread might think that shade was being cast on the nice people I’ve met at the big VODs who’ve expressed real concern that we mustn’t thoughtlessly ditch linear TV and an alternative delivery system. They know.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 2h

I mean, Bluesky is the last stand of linear TV. And my god, it works here. It gathers social groups brilliantly.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 2h

I thought the all knowing data bot was meant to know what I liked without telling me to sort through this box of random shit on my own?

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 2h

This sort of moodboard stuff has crept into all the VOD / streamers. It’s weird cos it’s done by those adland tags that schedulers and marketers use, not viewers. “Warm involving female led” and so on. You can sense the desperation. It’s not algorithmic. They’re saying “you do it” to the audience.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 2h

What the streamers and VOD services have done is revolutionary. And the investment in money and talent is keeping the industry alive right now. But nobody has actually replaced what curated linear TV does. And I’m not sure they can ever do that, or should want to.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 2h

Wish there was a way of explaining this to the public, free from bullish rhetoric of competing / surviving / destroying the competition. It’s best as a mutual ecosystem.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 2h

I don’t think any exec at linear TV or digital streaming should be advocating for becoming the other system. We will lose so much. It’s better when they are both there, supporting what the other one can’t do.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 2h

Are you calling the BBC a tech company?

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 2h

The whole menu / on demand system reveals itself to be astonishing at some things, and very poor at others. There are loads of things a streamer should never even try to make, as the menu system will vanish it completely. VOD needs to exist in parallel with linear TV for a healthy TV culture.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 2h

Hm. Conversations I’ve had with insiders at Netflix are all about how any menu system can’t remotely compete with linear TV - so many disadvantages - and that plenty of programmes and whole genres can only survive on a platform that doesn’t rely on an algorithmic / front page priority system.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 19h

Well, it read as roughly what you’d expect. Mole man surfacing.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 20h

I think this is how minifigs have high heels. Their legs are like dog’s hind legs.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 20h

The optics of this interview - conducted on a comedy show, when it should be on every current affairs broadcast - are so potent. It’s a grown-up and a child. “So… Been a while. What have you been doing in there, sport? JESUS CHRIST!”

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 20h

The AI “thought experiment” is at the level of “what if I push this big red button?” and should be treated as such.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 20h

The Tech Bro Overclass act like these questions of worth and work and how to organise society have NEVER BEEN ASKED BEFORE. And someone who “thinks” that (and I hesitate to even use the word “think” here) does not deserve my attention, nor the world’s money and power. Too thick to live.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 20h

I can’t believe she got those three men to the moon by piling up all those books under them. Staggering achievement. “Astronavigation’s greatest Ludlow” - Carl Sagan

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 20h

I mean, they act like these questions of worth and work have NEVER BEEN ASKED BEFORE. And someone who thinks that - and I hesitate to even use the word “think” here - does not deserve my attention, nor the world’s money and power. Too thick to live.

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Reposted by Joel Morris

Annemarie Cancienne @cancienne.bsky.social · 20h

I love this tree. Like an athlete taping up their muscles, it's woven and strapped up its bark so it can get on with the important job of being really bloody massive.

The lattice-work trunk of a tree - cottonwood? Walnut? Acacia? Chestnut? Clearly I don’t know. What I do know is it’s massive (it would take three people to hug it) and far too big for its pavement plot and therefore wonderful in how it’s making us respect its authority.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 20h

Have been laughing about this for nearly an hour solid now.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 21h

Make your passion into your job* and you’ll never work another** day in your life. * and have tech bros decide that your work is incredibly valuable as data and also high value for audience attention but monetarily priced at zero ** paid

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 22h

The Natural Party Of Government.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 22h

Have you seen what they spend on lunch? I mean, Jesus.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 22h

After that, I don’t trust wealthy people to know fuck all.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 22h

There was a brief period of my life where I had a bit of money and I was fucking terrible with it. Had no idea of its value for a year or so. It was like being completely disconnected from my normal lived reality. Like going deaf, or something, losing a sense you’ve always had.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 22h

“Come from” and “good with” get mixed up, don’t they? I’d say poor people are much better with money than rich people. Generally.

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Reposted by Joel Morris

Rachel Parris @rachelparris.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Hey folks. In total honesty my tour is NOT selling well. I’ve sold 30 tickets in a 400 seater in Birmingham, and not much more elsewhere. If you like musical comedy, if you like standup, then please come see my show! And spread the word! The Rachel Parris Songbook tour starts in Nov! Link in bio! 🎶

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