iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Joe Vaughan

The Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) @themerl.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

if you say "The Museum of English Rural Life" three times in a mirror, nothing happens. but if you speak it a fourth time, a man in a smock appears and asks you to incant the poem on the side of this rather menacing jug

harvest festival jug featuring a rather spooky sunshine design

the reverse of the jug, featuring a poem. it reads: "Harvest is come all
busy now in making
of the Barley mow if
you the Barley mow
neglect of Good ale you
can not then expect"

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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 14/09/2026

did my first improv class this weekend in like 3 years and let me say how much i freaking love improv

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Reposted by Joe Vaughan

The Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) @themerl.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Fun fact: this year we turned 75! It's a fine age. We remain extremely young at heart. But why the heck did people in 1951 think it was a good idea to make The Museum of English Rural Life?

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Reposted by Joe Vaughan

The Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) @themerl.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

we see the new iPhone and raise you a please do not try to fold up The Museum of English Rural Life

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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 11/09/2026

social media strategy: post absolutely giant horse

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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 09/09/2026

just saw a very well-established arts org hiring a digital content creator for a salary of... £20k are you for real right now

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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 27/08/2026

every now and then i write a sentence that leaves me feeling very surprised by my ability of beading words together

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Reposted by Joe Vaughan

The Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) @themerl.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

what would the Minions think of The Museum of English Rural Life

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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 27/08/2026

just received a newsletter (that I never signed up for) from my letting agent with the subject line > Can landlords still profit in 2026? Here's how are you kidding me

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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 27/08/2026

i set my Waze's voice to be Spongebob Squarepants, and let me tell you he's insufferable

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Reposted by Joe Vaughan

The Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) @themerl.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

apparently in GTA 6, you're going to be able to build your own farm, combining heritage skills and modern technologies to tackle the polycrisis by building sustainable and environmentally-friendly food systems. you're also going to be able to fire rockets out of a Ferguson tractor

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The Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) @themerl.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

in honour of @bsky.app testing longer videos, here's our most successful short: holding space with @olliedouglas.bsky.social

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Reposted by Joe Vaughan

The Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) @themerl.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

So, we found a live bat in our galleries. 🦇 a thread🦇

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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 19/08/2026

big @themerl.bsky.social content coming later today 👀🦇

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Reposted by Joe Vaughan

Kubobukata @kubobukata.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

And this is very good. Even for me, who does not have to think about the marketing aspect of platforms most of the time, beyond choosing where I wish to be marketed at.

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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 15/08/2026

I've seen a few people commenting on Bluesky's user numbers vs Threads. So, I wrote a blog about it. including: - what makes social media platforms grow/sink - why MAU comparisons are flawed - how Facebook beat MySpace joevaughan.net/posts/bluesk...

joevaughan.net

Is Bluesky still good? Yes | Joe Vaughan

Or, why I fear manifesting

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Reposted by Joe Vaughan

Musa Okwonga @okwonga.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

From this review- “Think of all the diligent, decent black academics who have been lumbered with the embarrassment of having Arday as a figurehead” - no, think of *why* black academics are held collectively responsible in ways that white academics are not

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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 12/08/2026

i edited this! i hope you like it

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Reposted by Joe Vaughan

Adam Koszary @adamkoszary.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Does anyone work in museum interpretation? How's it been affected by social media and short-form content basically rewiring our brains? Are labels still in? Do we need to radically rethink things? I'm thinking of writing something.

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Reposted by Joe Vaughan

Adam Koszary @adamkoszary.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Should museums be present on the most prevalent media platform known to humanity?

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Reposted by Joe Vaughan

Museums Association @museumsassociation.org · 04/08/2026

You heard it here first ❤️

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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 03/08/2026

should we update the bluesky account name to this y/n

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Reposted by Joe Vaughan

The Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) @themerl.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

so if Interview with the Vampire is canonically set in our universe, you're telling us there's a chance that Lestat de Lioncourt *did* visit The Museum of English Rural Life

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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 31/07/2026

really glad to be finally talking about the critical issues facing rural heritage studies: the vague permanent retrofuturism of holograms

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Reposted by Joe Vaughan

The Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) @themerl.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Absolute Units returns! This week we bring our rural history heads to a bunch of related topics. Like: - Bad Bunny - Stardew Valley - Star Wars - Martin Ødegaard - John Maynard Keynes - The Bloomsbury Group - Holograms Listen wherever you get your podcasts! merl.reading.ac.uk/explore/abso...

merl.reading.ac.uk

Absolute Units podcast - The Museum of English Rural Life

Come for the big sheep. Stay for the history of rural England and its people.

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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 13/07/2026

something that i think has always distinguished @themerl.bsky.social is that despite our socials' content getting very silly, we've always taken the medium very seriously

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Reposted by Joe Vaughan

The Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) @themerl.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Able to make it to Reading? We have a handful of tickets left for our Romany and Traveller Heritage Day this Saturday. Join us to celebrate these communities' rich histories and cultures, with activities like blacksmithing, flower making, dance, and more. merl.reading.ac.uk/whats-on/rom...

merl.reading.ac.uk

Romany & Traveller Heritage Day

Celebrate Romany and Traveller heritage through activities like blacksmithing, flower-making, horseshoe painting, dance, live music, and more.

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Reposted by Joe Vaughan

Ollie Douglas @olliedouglas.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

Brilliant explainer on the ill-fated and barmy Groundnut Scheme from @badsocialism.bsky.social. Nice to see a few bits of @themerl.bsky.social content finding a place in this woeful tale.

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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 18/06/2026

after the failed attempt of the last episode we have been able to successfully grow another beautiful .wav file, and in these trying and fallow times i think that's beautiful

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Reposted by Joe Vaughan

The Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) @themerl.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

It's not every day you bury a time capsule at work. But that's exactly what happened here last week! Learn more about a new project exploring the next hundred years of farming, as part of our celebrations of the @uniofreading.bsky.social's centenary. www.reading.ac.uk/news/2026/Un...

The team with the time capsule, standing in front of a hole in the museum garden!

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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 26/05/2026

these have all been very fun, and this Late is also free!

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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 15/05/2026

this will be so good! join us to produce and facilitate creative responses to the Modernist Archives Publishing Project and holdings linked to the Bloomsbury Group <3

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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 14/05/2026

a treat to chat again with @guyshrubsole.bsky.social! there are also some good outtakes from this episode where @olliedouglas.bsky.social and I spent 10 min eating fruit, which I'm sure we can use some day

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Reposted by Joe Vaughan

The Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) @themerl.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

new podcast episode: loading

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Reposted by Joe Vaughan

The Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) @themerl.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

Would you like some whimsy? We're sharing introductions to each of the rats in our Rat Trail by artist/maker Fong Scott. Watch now on our YouTube playlist! www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 11/05/2026

hello! I have been very offline for a while because of various bits of holiday. what the heck happened to @romanpalace.bsky.social :(

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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 24/04/2026

i believe in aliens but more importantly i hope they believe in themselves

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Reposted by Joe Vaughan

Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

How does an eel think about its life? What are the steps? And when should it start to eat its own bones? This map tells you! “But SEH,” you say. “I don’t want to come here every time I need to see this!” Good news, friends! You can buy it here as a poster and put it on your wall! etsy.me/3Nvk5jK

A long, skinny map titled: "Life and Travels of the European Eel" with a subtitle reading: "From the Eel's Perspective." A label at the bottom of the map reads: "Begin Here." The map top half of the map is an mirror copy of the bottom half.

The map goes from the bottom of the page up, starting in the Sargasso Sea. An set of arrows show the eels paths to shore, then up a river and into a marshland. The arrows continue up the page to show the eel leaving the marshland and heading back downstream, and out to sea. The land is green and verdant at the bottom of the map, because the eels migrate upstream in the spring. The land is brown and dry at the top of the map, because eels migrate downstream in the autumn.

A column of text on the side tells about the eels' journeys and changes. It is more text than I can relate in the space allowed here. Each paragraph has an arrow pointing up to the next one, and they are designed to be read from the bottom of the page going upwards.

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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 23/04/2026

had an amazing time yesterday at the Museum Association's Digital Tech day. really nice meeting and chatting to so many folks from across the sector <3

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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 01/04/2026

they said it couldn't be done. but they forgot one thing: The Museum of English Rural Life

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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 26/03/2026

happy birthday to our podcast xxxxx

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