iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Loved talking about Hetconned on Yeah Nah Pasaran, Andy and Cam are champs and I hope I made sense with my weird little project.

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Allegra Kirkland @allegrak.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

@rothschildmd.bsky.social dug deep into the archives, listening to hours of conspiracy theory radio from 9/11. As he put it, America's collective "descent into paranoia started even as the Towers were still burning." talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/on-9-11...

talkingpointsmemo.com

How 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Are Still Shaping Our World

In Rough Edges, Mike Rothschild writes about fringe groups, conspiracy theories and how...

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Leena 🌵 @leena.reuben.games · 10/09/2026

Anyway I wrote a whole thing about nostalgia and this was an interesting little tidbit I learned during that. If you’d like to read the whole thing it’s on substack and the blog if you don’t like substack.

"dont come back, dont give in to nostalgia, forget us all" from cinema paradiso

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Leena 🌵 @leena.reuben.games · 10/09/2026

It’s made me a little insane. Selling merch to launder “the government has decided you can do without” into “look how wonderfully resilient you are!” Keep calm! Carry on! The library’s fucked. The hospital’s fucked. Mustn’t grumble! Chin up old bean. Think of the waaaaarrrrr

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Leena 🌵 @leena.reuben.games · 10/09/2026

Owen Hatherley talks about the poster in The Ministry of Nostalgia (2016) as an example of selling “austerity nostalgia”, a prosthetic nostalgia for the return of “the Blitz spirit” and the virtues of ‘making do’, and ‘muddling along’, to soften the ground for savage cuts to government services.

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Leena 🌵 @leena.reuben.games · 10/09/2026

“Keep Calm and Carry On” was left on the cutting room floor in favour of two posters with considerably more urgency and a lot more “Reginald! The Gerries are here!” energy than telling everyone to just suck it up and get on with things:

Freedom is in peril, defend it with all your might! and YOUR courage, YOUR cheefulness, YOUR resolution WILL BRING US VICTORY

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Leena 🌵 @leena.reuben.games · 10/09/2026

Learned recently that this famous poster we all associate with wartime Britain was never actually circulated during WW2 at all?? It was one of three posters designed by the Ministry of Information in 1939 amid fears of a German ground invasion—and it was the only one that didn’t make the cut.

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leena @hetconned.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

I wanted to figure out why nostalgia gets such a bad wrap on the left, months later (💀) this is where I landed: “Unmet needs sit in our longings; there is space for nostalgia in the utopian imaginary.” Substack: hetconned.substack.com/p/nostalgia Blog: hetconned.com/2026/09/09/n...

hetconned.substack.com

Nostalgia

On why we don’t quite trust it.

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Angela Mitropoulos @mitropoulos.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Academic freedom & freedom of speech are different. The former stipulates conditions, like verification, per the field. The latter, that the state cannot dictate the content of speech. Differences aside, neither compel me, universities or media to platform flatearthers, phrenology or fascism.

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Lucy Hamilton @lucyham.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

This is the kind of event that provokes Murdoch’s commentariat & Atlas Network partner people to have several junktanks geared to break the 🇦🇺 law like the Federalist Society broke 🇺🇸. These fossil fuel-linked players want federalism ➡️ free states from federal mandate, for the donors. #Auspol

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Tech Policy Press @techpolicypress.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

As of July 1, Vietnam's updated Cybersecurity Law took effect, Khadija Alam reports for Tech Policy Press. What counts as a violation now extends beyond memes and "fake news" to boycott calls, "causing division," and more.

techpolicy.press

Vietnam Tightens Online Speech Controls as Cyber Law Takes Effect

As of July 1, what counts as violation goes beyond a meme spreading “fake news,” writes Khadija Alam.

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leena @hetconned.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

I set up a wordpress site for the hetconned project for the people who don't want to use substack. Graphic design is obviously not my passion, so be nice about it or I'll cry. It has all the same posts as the substack, and I'll post across both going forward. ✌️ hetconned.blog

hetconned.blog

hetconned

Hetconning (n.) — the deliberate retroactive straight-washing of history. Hetconned, the project, maps how the contemporary far-right market different post-truth fantasies to recruit and radicalise…

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Leena 🌵 @leena.reuben.games · 13/07/2026

Can’t wait to see whose kids will be majoring in phrenology and physiognomy next year

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Leena 🌵 @leena.reuben.games · 10/06/2026

Worth pointing to this as some background to what’s happening in the UK, @annieknk.bsky.social’s reporting from back in January feels very relevant to what we’re seeing on the streets right now: podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/q...

January • E
London Has Fallen (E356)
QAA Podcast >
1h 50m
If you've spent any time on Travel YouTube lately, you've probably seen it: grim walk-and-talks through London that portray neighborhoods like post-apocalyptic no-go zones. This week, Annie Kelly digs into the booming "London Has Fallen" genre of online video travelogue. Unscrupulous influencers trawl London's most diverse neighborhoods hunting for "proof" of civilizational collapse, and reliably finding it in the form of clickbait, racism-by-implication, and algorithm-friendly panic.

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leena @hetconned.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

“I should probably get across the literature on nostalgia before going further” nek minnit:

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leena @hetconned.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

“Straw knighting” 👏👏👏 open.substack.com/pub/counterc...

Oh yeah? The online rando says. You think every author has to read? Well, maybe you haven't considered an author who gets caught in a freak basement explosion that lodges a rusty pipe from the boiler into their skull, which after being surgically removed leaves them unable to comprehend written words, and also they have a preexisting ear sensitivity that means they can't listen to audiobooks with headphones-and before you ask, they live in a crowded home of screaming war orphans so they can't play audiobooks on speakers-and even if they could still read, they literally do not even have a single free second of the day between work, cooking, cleaning, and posting on social media. Are you saying they can't still be a writer? Huh? You're saying a disabled war orphan caregiver with literally no free time because of late capitalism can't be a novelist? You elitist gatekeeping
@&%*#^$*!
(As a side note, I've never seen a great term to define this common rhetorical move. It is a bit like straw manning, except you're inventing an imagined exception instead of an imagined argument. And a bit like white knighting, though not on behalf of anyone real. I hereby propose "straw knighting" as the term.)

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Philip Bump @pbump.com · 23/05/2026

[sticks finger in toaster] "how did i get burned, i thought it loved me"

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leena @hetconned.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

the biggest hurdle to me pursuing further postgrad studies is that i’d look like this standing in front of people going “don’t you want THIS as part of your faculty?!”

Daniel radcliff in slippers with guns being very normal

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Amarnath Amarasingam @amaramarasingam.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

It's publication day! Mine and @stephaniecarvin.bsky.social's book is now available anywhere books are sold: www.mqup.ca/Books/F/For-...

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Bill @bill-of-lefts.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

I still think these two paragraphs from Ganz are the most important contemporary political writing

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Digital Warrior - Combat Disinfo @digitalwarrior.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

1/ We keep asking the wrong question about deepfakes. The real question isn't whether voters get fooled into changing their minds. It's whether they get confused enough to stay home. The math is brutal. And in 2026, it's already working at precinct level. #DV1 #ProudBlue #Voices4Victory #USDemocracy

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leena @hetconned.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

I appreciate the military angle here, gives it a certain je ne sais quoi. I also appreciate seeing people use the term fantasy here, as I go about my little project mapping them even though nobody asked: hetconned.substack.com/p/traditiona...

hetconned.substack.com

“Traditional Family Values” and the Labour They Conceal

(Home)making America Great Again

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leena @hetconned.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

Was in the fortunate position of interviewing some researchers recently and one of my questions was “If we put all your research on a big corkboard, what would be the common threads between it all?” & i’ve been doing amateur Freudian analysis on my own output ever since it doesn’t look good folks!

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leena @hetconned.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

Always happy to have a constructive conversation about my writing and thinking but I will be a bit of a noodge and insist that such critiques engage with what I actually said and not something you made up ✌️

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leena @hetconned.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

Milestone reached: a post of mine is doing the rounds with people who have fundamentally misunderstood what I was saying and are calling me a fucker about it

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leena @hetconned.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

Finished Muskism this week on this recommendation and have much to digest about the fantasies men like Musk are choosing to believe in order to not send themselves insane. Fun to think of the brain damaging capacity of immense wealth and how that interacts with the things I’ve been writing about.

Book cover:
MUSKISM
A Guide for the Perplexed

Quinn Slobodian & Ben Tarnoff

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Leena 🌵 @leena.reuben.games · 17/04/2026

Don’t miss this. Absolutely essential stuff.

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leena @hetconned.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

*EOI by April 10* Feminist early career researcher wanted: the Vic Women's Trust is commissioning independent research into the impact of AI on women and girls, funded by its harm-prevention entity, the Dugdale Trust for Women and Girls. ($25k) Apply here: www.ethicaljobs.com.au/members/Vict...

ethicaljobs.com.au

Feminist Researcher in Residence 2026 - Job in Melbourne - Victorian Women's Trust

We are seeking a curious Early Career Researcher (ECR) to uncover the unique risks, harms and opportunities AI technology poses for women, girls and gender diverse people in Australia.

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leena @hetconned.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

Starting a new project is nerve wracking and a bit lonely but today I got the first comment from someone I didn’t know, gotta take your wins where you can get ‘em!

2 comments
Leave a comment
Dean Kiley *
7:53 PM
Got engrossed by this antisentimental, evidence-marshalled, incisive, compelling, and wholly-persuasive analysis of the seductive surface-smoothing mechanics of neocon nostalgia online.
LIKE • & REPLY

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leena @hetconned.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

The internet didn’t get worse by accident. It did what it was built to do, & when we call the early internet a golden age, we ignore all the hostility that got us here. New Hetconned on the Lost Internet fantasy & why we should tread carefully with nostalgia: hetconned.substack.com/p/the-intern...

hetconned.substack.com

The Internet You Miss Never Existed

On the political work of digital nostalgia, and the fantasy of the Lost Internet

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leena @hetconned.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

Hello new followers! If you thought the most recent post went a little easy on Curtis Yarvin may I present this aperitif from my post on neo-feudalism/medieval nationalism to whet your whistle: hetconned.substack.com/p/special-li...

In his "Patchwork" writings 2, Yarvin outlines a vision of fragmented sovereignty organised through private ownership. He proposes replacing existing states with "a global spiderweb of tens, even hundreds, of thousands of sovereign and independent mini-countries," each governed by "its own joint-stock corporation without regard to the residents' opinions." "A Patchwork realm is governed by a Delegate," he writes, "who is the proxy of the proprietors" He cannot resist adding an antisemitic aside in the same breath: "(The Delegate is always Jewish.)" Even when he is sketching his new clean corporate monarchy, he goes out of his way to smuggle in a tired old trope.
Treating him as a cultural curiosity or eccentric blogger is another form of organised forgetting.

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vibe-free lifestyle and smiling apple purveyor @ellaguro.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

"these virtual spaces were always, always hamstrung by this sort of self-imposed conformity. they were rarely very radical, and certainly not positioned to take on the dominant cultural order." that's right, i'm quoting from Let's Play Life again ellaguro.blogspot.com/2024/03/lets...

ellaguro.blogspot.com

Let's Play Life

hello - this post of mine i've been working on for the past few months! it's a sequel of sorts to last year's California Problem post and i...

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vibe-free lifestyle and smiling apple purveyor @ellaguro.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

hey - finally something on this subject i agree with

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Cris (without an H) @ambignostic.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

This is really good, Anna makes me think nostalgia for the early internet is a lot like nostalgia for the American frontier: a lawless time and place where abuse ran rampant, but in hindsight we only remember the exhilaration of a sparse population on a landscape open for development or exploitation

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Ben Peake @reddishraven.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

Nice (and gentle) counter to "Golden Age Of The Internet" nostalgia. As always it's what (and who) they leave out that makes it gilded.

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leena @hetconned.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

hetconned.substack.com

The Internet You Miss Never Existed

On the political work of digital nostalgia, and the fantasy of the Lost Internet

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Leena 🌵 @leena.reuben.games · 13/03/2026

There’s something so theatrical about it, so exaggerated and signally. They want cookies and applause from men they respect and also to be a useful recruitment tool to get more little actors in their troupe. (The crossover with sovcits and theatre studies has been fascinating to read about!)

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leena @hetconned.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

Any agents looking for a book on chauvinism, I’m 20% of the way there 💀

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Leena 🌵 @leena.reuben.games · 13/03/2026

A misogynist is someone who signs up to do the dirty work of keeping women in their place, either in the wider project and/or the immediate intimate social group. This can be anyone, in any sphere of influence, and it’s *crucial* to separate that from their personal feelings about chicks they know.

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Leena 🌵 @leena.reuben.games · 13/03/2026

This is why Kate Manne’s work correctly defining misogyny is so crucial to understanding our current moment. Misogyny isn’t “hating women”, these guys all have exceptions to that. Misogyny describes the *policing arm* of the patriarchy; its foot soldiers are the misogynists. It’s like ICE.

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Leena 🌵 @leena.reuben.games · 12/03/2026

Made a field note about method to avoid finishing any of the half-written drafts I’ve got piling up. *taps forehead*

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leena @hetconned.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

New Hetconned, a note on method: A problem with studying reactionary movements is that the people producing the fantasies are extremely annoying & extremely online. But if I ignore them, the analysis feels vague & thin. If I make it all about them, it's turning the whole thing into a freak index.

Field Notes: A note on method

On studying reactionary movements without turning the whole thing into a catalogue of maniacs

HETCONNED.SUBSTACK.COM

There are strong ethical reasons to avoid naming individuals when analysing reactionary movements and online radicalisation. Even though it would be really fun! Even though they're asking for it! Even if it takes all the oomph out of the argument to avoid pointing directly at examples and sticking my Bitchy Little Knife in.
- Leena van Deventer

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Liberal Currents @liberalcurrents.com · 20/02/2026

"[Bongino] was worried about whether or not they’d look good on a doorbell camera. This is not a professional administrator, this is a casting director." www.liberalcurrents.com/killing-for-...

liberalcurrents.com

Killing for Content

The Trump administration cares more about clicks and content than human life.

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hannah gais @hannahgais.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

Patriot Front members have tried to build their own intentional racist communities is through their gyms, as this mentioned. One, called Patria Gloria, posted last year about traveling around sleeping on the same mats they train on. Not super hygienic and seems like a great way to get MRSA.

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Global Project Against Hate and Extremism @globalextremism.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

A coalition of interfaith organizations has filed suit to halt Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission, arguing it is dominated by Christian members and unlawfully structured. The complaint says the panel marginalizes religious minorities and advances a government-backed vision of a Christian nation.

globalextremism.org

Religious Freedom for Some

A coalition of Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, and interfaith organizations has filed suit to block Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission, arguing the panel violates federal law and is overwhelmingly Christian in...

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