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Joe Vaughan

@joevaughan.net
3.3K followers 322 following 565 posts

writer, podcaster, social media lead at The Museum of English Rural Life joevaughan.net

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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 designthe 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 · 15/09/2026
for the @readingmuseum.bsky.social copy -- the embroiders were actually from Leek! and they didn't add the underpants; instead, it was archivists at the South Kensington Museum (V&A) who added the pants to images they supplied 👖
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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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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
absolutely. there is such a gulf between the importance/expectations of social media/comms and the compensation and resourcing!!!!! bsky.app/profile/kubo...
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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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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 24/08/2026
I'm not crying, you're-
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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 19/08/2026
you heard it here first ok bsky.app/profile/them...
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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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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 19/08/2026
in the context of the arts, it feels interesting to cross-reference this with a recent paper about the language used in arts job adverts! journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com
Sage Journals: Discover world-class research
Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.
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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 16/08/2026
obsessed with him
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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 15/08/2026
tyvm! appreciate the kind words a lot 💖 hope you are keeping well!!
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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 · 15/08/2026
This is an amazingly in-depth analysis by Ray Morrison, of how arts and culture job ads reveal the sector's attitudes towards work and culture journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com
‘Seeking a Passionate, Committed and Energetic Person’: Cultural Fit Signals in UK Arts Job Advertisements - Ray Morrison, 2026
Despite sector-wide diversity initiatives and the stated equality aims of many arts organisations, the arts workforce remains relatively homogeneous. While exis...
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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
The Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) @themerl.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
it's time: we would like to nominate ourselves to be President of Fifa www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...
bbc.co.uk
Gianni Infantino says sorry but remains as Fifa president after executive meeting
Gianni Infantino will remain Fifa president after receiving backing from senior executives, but "sincerely apologises" for errors in his controversial private investment plans.
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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 05/08/2026
it's interesting bc I feel like museums can either embrace the pace of information consumption on social media or position themselves as a more meditative alternative. not sure either option is inherently better but it feels like museums should be making a conscious choice here
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Reposted by Joe Vaughan
The Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) @themerl.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
it really makes you think
A clearly photoshopped screenshot of a Threads post. It reads 'All the people who are anti The Museum of English Rural Life, I have one question: if MERL disappeared tomorrow, could you still get through an entire workday without half a building comprised entirely of heritage wagons? Imagine MERL was suddenly banned. Would you actually be willing to give it up.'
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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 05/08/2026
cu @
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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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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 05/08/2026
idk if he's on Bluesky but Filippo Lorenzin has written amazingly about this on LinkedIn
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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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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 04/08/2026
always!
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Museums Association @museumsassociation.org · 04/08/2026
You heard it here first ❤️
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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 03/08/2026
I was interviewed by the @museumsassociation.org about whether museums should still use social media. My answer: resoundingly yes :) www.museumsassociation.org/museums-jour...
museumsassociation.org
Digital detox: Is social media still worth it for museums? - Museums Association
The online landscape suddenly looks very different amid a backlash against tech giants. Geraldine Kendall Adams asks how museums are adapting to the post-X era
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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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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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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 02/07/2026
if we ever do an episode on farriers we will return to this very good pun bsky.app/profile/calm...
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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 02/07/2026
hope you're doing great, bee, wherever you are
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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 02/07/2026
this was a very interesting and enjoyable conversation with Tom and Marzia. one thing the audio format doesn't cleanly convey enough is that there was a 10 minute period where a bumblebee was flying around the room and i couldn't stop watching it
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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 02/07/2026
the pod- is cast
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Joe Vaughan @joevaughan.net · 02/07/2026
can't share via Bluesky but some kinda benchmarking of UK GLAM socials would be a cool project if you could ever get the funding to take it on!
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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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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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