iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jamie Cohen @jamesncohen.com · 26/02/2026

I argued that VR v1, in the late 80s was really about community. Compare the image of VR pioneer/engineer Eric Gullichsen with Tim Leary (with William Gibson and other artists) at ArtFutura in 1990 to the soulless Zuck parading around 100s of masked automatons in his 2010s dystopia reimagination

Left to right: Michael Girard, Susan Amkraut, Deborah Gibson, Timothy Leary, Eric Gullichsen and William Gibson at Parque Guell (Gaudi's masterpiece). Barcelona, January 1990.

Zuckerberg walking among hundreds of masked-up people showing off his newly acquired tech

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Jamie Cohen @jamesncohen.com · 26/02/2026

My piece for Whole Earth Redux is really a distillation of my entire project: VR was *supposed to be* a mind expansion device for creativity but instead was immediately considered a tool for office use. My diss focuses on how publications like Whole Earth thought of the technology.

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Jamie Cohen @jamesncohen.com · 26/02/2026

I can finally say I've published my dissertation! .. Well, sort of. I'm honored to be included the Whole Earth Redux, a book of essays that offers "new perspectives on the legacy of the Whole Earth Catalog." My piece, "Corporate Corporeal," reconsiders a section of Summer 1989's Whole Earth Review

Whole Earth Redux: New Perspectives of the Whole Earth Legacy

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Jamie Cohen @jamesncohen.com · 31/05/2025

These two revel in video game style militarism and remote death. Comically evil. WSJ: Look at this cute bro reunion 😍🥹

Wall street journal article with the headline Meta Fired Palmer Luckey Now they’re teaming up on a defense contract. Features an image of Palmer luckey who is wearing cargo shorts and Hawaiian shirt with an army jacket standing next to mark Zuckerberg who is westing a white shirt and jeans. Both are smiling thinking about all the people they’re gonna remotely detonate

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Jamie Cohen @jamesncohen.com · 30/05/2025

We’re at a point where the dems are so useless that Wall Street had to step in and help out

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Jamie Cohen @jamesncohen.com · 03/04/2025

I feel like I should be getting royalties that are backdated to the 17th century. That would put my earnings at nearly 3 figures. I want my back pay

screengrab from amazon showing versions of my book, 2020, 2015, and 1655

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Jamie Cohen @jamesncohen.com · 22/03/2025

Easily some of the most important books to understand our era

Three books: character limit: how Elon musk destroyed twitter by Kate conger and Ryan Mac, men who hate women by Laura Bates and Palo Alto by Malcolm Harris

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Jamie Cohen @jamesncohen.com · 02/03/2025

I knew it would come to this

Photo of a newspaper with the headline US Military bans men with girl names from combat. Print publication: the onion

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Jamie Cohen @jamesncohen.com · 20/01/2025

As someone who’s studied this since Ted Stevens called it a “series of tubes” it’s fascinating/infuriating we’re still in this situation nearly two decades later. I think @kenklippenstein.bsky.social summed it up best here. www.kenklippenstein.com/p/the-tiktok...

The absurdity of this all is evident in Congress’ practically overnight reversal on the issue just before the ban, amid public backlash. How serious could the threat have been if they folded instantly? Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who voted for the law, pled with Biden to delay the ban. In my view, anyone who did not anticipate the TikTok ban would, uh, tick people off, should not be in politics. But they are, and that raises an interesting question: If governments can’t even understand their own public, should we really be so worried about attempts by governments to influence foreign audiences they know even less about?

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Jamie Cohen @jamesncohen.com · 30/12/2024

No matter how many gifts she got, nothing beats crayons and paper

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Jamie Cohen @jamesncohen.com · 29/12/2024

Found this motivational poster in my attic left by the previous owners. Very strange illustration lol

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Jamie Cohen @jamesncohen.com · 24/12/2024

It’s honestly kind of sad that they can’t even get some shitty hacker to make a sign in the middle of nowhere say this and they have to use ai to play pretend

Screenshot from millennial_republicans instagram account featuring an ai image of a snowy highway and an led roadside message stating “America is back Jan twentieth 2025 with an American flag in the foreground

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Jamie Cohen @jamesncohen.com · 21/12/2024

Imagine if aggressive stupidity leads to civic knowledge. Absolutely wild

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Jamie Cohen @jamesncohen.com · 24/11/2024

Beautiful contemporary art at Tampa Museum of Art. Nice to combine art works with their antiquities collection too. Here’s some of my favorites

Willie Cole - Sunflower (1994) artwork. Irons on canvas

David Hilliard - Lucky Coin (1995) - series of photos of a young man picking up a coin

View of the Skywalk exhibit at Tampa Museum of Art - multiple pieces of contemporary art

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Jamie Cohen @jamesncohen.com · 13/11/2024

Super long play from the Byzantine Empire

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Jamie Cohen @jamesncohen.com · 10/11/2024

Election night I felt hopeless. After 15 years of teaching internet studies, it seemed all I've warned about happened. Like what's the point. But when I woke up, I realized that we need to be even more resilient and critical - not less! My book Critical Internet Literacies comes out Jan 20 (!)

Cover of the book Critical Internet Literacies by Jamie Cohen featuring an image of a woman recording a vlog

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Jamie Cohen @jamesncohen.com · 24/06/2023

I’ve researched YouTube since 2006 so I had some thoughts about Colleen Ballinger’s inappropriate relation to her fans. I spoke to CT Jones at Rolling Stone about it www.rollingstone.com/culture/cultur…