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Keith Plocek

@keithplocek.com
172 followers 94 following 156 posts

USC Annenberg professor. Independent journalist. Huckleberry. links.keithplocek.com

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Keith Plocek @keithplocek.com · 29/09/2026
It’s been too hot for my long walks down Los Angeles streets, so I hung out at the mall instead
tar.land
11 Hours at the Mall
No third spaces anymore?
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Keith Plocek @keithplocek.com · 28/09/2026
On my deathbed: “At least I won‘t have to download any more apps.”
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Keith Plocek @keithplocek.com · 24/09/2026
Manbun at True Value
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Cole Nowicki @colenowicki.com · 23/09/2026
The inaugural issue of SAUCE, "A DIY journal dedicated to the cultural, social, aesthetic, and athletic contributions of skateboarding," is now live. Stoked to work on this with such a talented, smart group of people. www.saucejournal.org/issues/issue...
saucejournal.org
Issue 1: Magical, Realism
Welcome to the inaugural issue of SAUCE, a journal for skate studies. Skate studies is a field of serious academic research that covers the activities, cultures, and institutions of skateboarding, av...
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Moira Donegan @moiradonegan.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
ProPublica got the literal check Collins was bribed with.
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Keith Plocek @keithplocek.com · 18/09/2026
"AI is rotting the bonds of trust that keep us working, playing, and being together." — Nathan Munn in @flaminghydra.com
flaminghydra.com
Thinking partner
Metal machine thinking repudiated by Nathan Munn
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Keith Plocek @keithplocek.com · 17/09/2026
In The Hound of the Baskervilles, one of the characters describes himself as "a picker up of shells on the shores of the great unknown ocean," which seems like a wonderful way to engage with the world. (Then he asks Sherlock Holmes if he can run his fingers over his skull.)
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Victor Ray @victorerikray.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Shout out to the student journalists at The Daily Iowan for reporting on the travesty that is Iowa's Center for Intellectual Freedom. With quotes from me dailyiowan.com/2026/09/15/u...
dailyiowan.com
Uncertainty in leadership, curriculum surrounds UI Center for Intellectual Freedom
In the barren walls of his Calvin Hall office, where the Center for Intellectual Freedom resides, interim director and University of Iowa economics professor Luciano de Castro shuffles a stack of pape...
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Tar @tar.land · 15/09/2026
Some people see the LA River and think of Grease or Terminator 2. Others are reminded of Jackass.
tar.land
The Jackass Guide to LA
Nothing shows the streets of Los Angeles as they really are quite like Jackass
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Keith Plocek @keithplocek.com · 14/09/2026
It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than a slight modification of capitalism
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Keith Plocek @keithplocek.com · 14/09/2026
I think about this guy all the time because, dangit, I am this guy sometimes
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Keith Plocek @keithplocek.com · 08/09/2026
My dad died in November. He showed up in one sentence of an essay I published in March. And now he’s busted through the wall of an art review I published today.
tar.land
Big Taix
Sometimes grief will surprise you
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Keith Plocek @keithplocek.com · 06/09/2026
Ain’t no party like an indoor piñata party…
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Siddhartha Mitter @siddharthamitter.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
The Assholocene.
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Keith Plocek @keithplocek.com · 03/09/2026
Y’all love talking about quicksand, but I was also raised to believe there would be more limbo parties in my life
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Keith Plocek @keithplocek.com · 01/09/2026
Beep beep!
tar.land
Honking at Waymos
The future is not written, and don't let anyone hoping to profit tell you otherwise
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Josh Caress @joshcaress.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Finally got around to reading this one, and damn: “The more we suspect that each other’s words and images have been generated by machines, the less we value each other’s humanity. And the more we dehumanize each other, well, you know where this is going, because in many ways we’re already there.”
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Keith Plocek @keithplocek.com · 26/08/2026
This year’s first-day-of-class walk-up song is…
youtu.be
Your Silent Face (2015 Remaster)
YouTube video by New Order - Topic
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William Shakespeare @shakespeare.lol · 25/08/2026
[Exit Queen.]
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Keith Plocek @keithplocek.com · 25/08/2026
I tracked down the guy who's been painting pigs along my morning commute
tar.land
Trump Pigs on the 10 Freeway
Like many folks, I sank into a hole two Novembers ago. I’m not saying I was hiding in that hole, but I slid far enough down in there that I might as well have been. Eventually I began climbing back ou...
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Matt Stromberg @mattstromberg.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
I'm thrilled to share "Series: One Thing After Another," the online exhibition I juried for Site: Brooklyn Gallery. I selected 35 artists who use seriality, repetition, and sequence in their work to explore formal, narrative, and conceptual themes. www.sitebrooklyn.com/series-one-t...
sitebrooklyn.com
Series — Site:Brooklyn Gallery
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Keith Plocek @keithplocek.com · 18/08/2026
I wrote about my favorite script for @tar.land
tar.land
Santa Monica Cursive
It loops, because it’s cursive and that’s what cursive does, but it doesn’t stay between the lines, instead climbing up, up to the end of the word. It’s Santa Monica cursive, and you can see it on the...
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Keith Plocek @keithplocek.com · 17/08/2026
That logo
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Keith Plocek @keithplocek.com · 16/08/2026
Not gonna lie, that first year or two, it felt pretty good to have all those randos wishing me happy birthday on Facebook
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Keith Plocek @keithplocek.com · 11/08/2026
Police officers typed the wrong license plate into the computer and smashed a guy's car window before pulling him out of the car and pepper-spraying him. When they realized it was a mistake, they charged him anyway. Those charges remained until he committed suicide.
latimes.com
A typo by San Francisco police led to a violent arrest of an innocent driver, officials say
A police watchdog found that San Francisco police officers threw a man to the ground and pepper-sprayed him after they entered the wrong license plate into their computer.
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Dr Sarah Hewitt @s2hewitt.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Well worth a read, and an excellent example of critical reading and thinking. Why can't journalists do the same?
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Keith Plocek @keithplocek.com · 07/08/2026
Hey reporters, if you load your notes or audio into an AI cloud service (ChatGPT, Claude, Otter, etc), there’s a good chance those companies will comply with a court order and hand that info over. “The rule is simple: Don’t share anything you wouldn’t the service provider or a court to see.”
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Keith Plocek @keithplocek.com · 05/08/2026
Or the reporters are also tooted out of their minds
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Keith Plocek @keithplocek.com · 04/08/2026
Out of my walk videos so far, this one easily has the most views, with some people calling me a wuss for not walking further and others calling me crazy for walking what I did
instagram.com
Keith Plocek on Instagram: "After walking to Santa Monica Airport for my previous video, I took a flight to Las Vegas. Upon landing at the JSX terminal at Harry Reid International, I could see the Veg...
328 likes, 48 comments - keithplocek on July 25, 2026: "After walking to Santa Monica Airport for my previous video, I took a flight to Las Vegas. Upon landing at the JSX terminal at Harry Reid Intern...
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Joel D. Anderson @joelanderson.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
It’s pretty jarring we’ve just come to expect that the feds will lie to us and publicize false information and that there is virtually no consequence for it.
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Keith Plocek @keithplocek.com · 28/07/2026
I haven’t seen y’all this excited about a negative review since that takedown of Guy Fieri’s restaurant in Times Square
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Mallory Carra @mallorycarra.com · 24/07/2026
One of my passions is helping people learn about the business of freelancing, so I was excited to help organize this event with AAJA-LA & @lapressclub.bsky.social Featuring UC Irvine Prof. Erika Hayasaki & Robert Lopez, McGraw fellow 🍕 & 🧋 provided. RSVP: lapressclub.wufoo.com/forms/zzspwh...
Image that has the following text:

"AAJA-LA AND THE LA PRESS CLUB PRESENT
The Business of Freelancing
Want to kickstart your career as a freelance journalist or go independent, but you're not sure where to start?
Learn from our speakers about the basics of the business side and how to fund your independent journalism.

[headshot]
Robert J. Lopez
ndependent investigative reporter and fellow, McGraw Center for Business Journalism at Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, CUNY

[headshot]
Erika Hayasaki
Independent journalist and professor in the Literary Journalism Program at the University of California, Irvine

2535 W Temple St, Los
Angeles, CA 90026
Thursday, August 6 at 3pm"
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Keith Plocek @keithplocek.com · 22/07/2026
Every independent coffeeshop in Colorado Springs is also a church
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Gingerspiced @gingerspiced.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
Pete Hegseth: "We need our warriors to embrace the Spartan mindset" U.S. Military: *suffers crushing defeat to the Persians*
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Keith Plocek @keithplocek.com · 09/07/2026
Good morning
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Vince Gonzales @vincegonzales.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
State-supported gas stations selling gas at prices set artificially low by the government to a vanity price meant to make the president feel special? Sounds like communism to me.
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Keith Plocek @keithplocek.com · 08/07/2026
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Jason Scott @textfiles.com · 03/07/2026
I'll summarize this: Mamdani asked NYers to keep air conditioning at 78 degrees. A wave criticism hit online. A MSNBC broadcast pointed out the US Department of Energy recommends that 78 degree figure. Immediately after, the US Department of Energy deleted 6,000 web pages related to energy saving.
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Kyle Beachy @kylebeachy.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
Skateboarding is the most important American invention since jazz music and it's not even close.
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Lauren Dobson-Hughes @ldobsonhughes.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
For the first time in 30 years, child deaths are now rising, in large part due to USAID cuts Lancet modelling shows USAID cuts will cause 14 million deaths including 4.5m children, by 2030. Independent CGDev research backs this up
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Christopher Mathias @letsgomathias.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
30 years for moving some zines www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
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Joey Scott @joeyneverjoe.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
The FBI is sending agents and spending resources on harassing unhoused people in Skid Row over unsubstantiated voter fraud claims.
A tweet from the FBI Rapid Response account saying:

Not on our watch!
Got em

Below is a screenshot from a news outlet that says:

FBI agents descend on Skid Row in massive voter fraud probe after stunning claims of election bringing
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Keith Plocek @keithplocek.com · 19/06/2026
Did you know there were two San Vicente boulevards? For years I thought it was one illogical street that somehow crossed Wilshire twice www.instagram.com/reel/DZvbmzY...
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Keith Plocek @keithplocek.com · 18/06/2026
the standard joke about how you always try the wrong side of the USB first, but me opening up ChowNow or Grubhub
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Keith Plocek @keithplocek.com · 17/06/2026
OK, Jean Paul Sartre. Sure.
Opening text of The Devil & The Good Lord
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Keith Plocek @keithplocek.com · 16/06/2026
I have long felt it’s far more OK — or at least far less not OK — to tag an outdoor advertisement placed on public property than, say, a stained glass window in a church
tar.land
Art of the Bus Stop
What are the ethics of tagging an outdoor artwork with fake graffiti already on it?  I ask myself this question as I sit on one of Alfonso Gonzalez Jr.’s mock bus benches, staring at another across f...
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Keith Plocek @keithplocek.com · 12/06/2026
I wrote about the Laura Aguilar show at the Huntington
tar.land
Laura Aguilar Is Out There
There is a landscape. It is the desert. Not the sandy desert. Rocks. I see cracks and shapes. I see boulders. One of them is not a boulder. It is a human. A nude human. A nude human with a crack. Hidi...
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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 11/06/2026
It’s not really surprising that people are becoming more distrustful and cynical about tech (and everything else) when there’s a constant drumbeat of stories, like this, about a seemingly innocuous game/tool/website harvesting data that is then used for murderous purposes:
dronexl.co
Pokémon Go Scans Quietly Trained The Navigation Tech Now Headed Into Military Drones
Pokémon Go players' 30 billion scans trained navigation tech now bound for military drones, via Niantic Spatial's defense partnership with Vantor.
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Keith Plocek @keithplocek.com · 05/06/2026
I walked the length of Harbor Gateway, that thin strip that connects Los Angeles to the port
youtube.com
Walking Harbor Gateway in Los Angeles
YouTube video by Keith Plocek
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