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Mark O’Connell

@mrkocnnll.bsky.social
3.5K followers 403 following 67 posts

Writer and so forth

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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Me too!
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Patrick Radden Keefe @praddenkeefe.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
I'm hugely grateful for this deeply considered and beautifully written review of LONDON FALLING from a writer I admire, @mrkocnnll.bsky.social. @nybooks.com www.nybooks.com/articles/202...
nybooks.com
London’s Brutal Underground | Mark O’Connell
In Patrick Radden Keefe’s London Falling, an ordinary boy’s deadly obsession with the ultrarich reveals deeper corruption at the heart of modern London.
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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
Thank you!
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The Author, Séamas O'Reilly @seamas.bsky.social · 14/01/2025
By far the funniest part of this insane post is that even the maniacs who believe this stuff are so media-pilled they refer to it as a 'leaked photo'. As if God, CEO of Heaven Studios, had included it in a press kit for awards season, but embargoed it til January 27th.
Tweet by Nandi showing a bizarre snowy(?!) fantasy city under a dark, cosmic sky, along with the text;

"Leaked photo of heaven is going viral on social media. No wonder Christians are so determined to get there.
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Rick O'Shea @rickoshea.bsky.social · 20/10/2025
We'll be doing a live Arena show at @dublinbookfest.bsky.social celebrating 100 issues of @thedublinreview.bsky.social. We'll have editor Brendan Barrington, contributors Sara Baume, @patrickfreyne.bsky.social, Doireann Ní Ghríofa, and @mrkocnnll.bsky.social. Do come, it's going to be special...
dublinbookfestival.com
The Dublin Review at 100 - Dublin Book Festival
The Dublin Review, Ireland’s quarterly magazine of essays, memoir, reportage and fiction, is celebrating its 100th issue. Join us for a special live broadcast of RTÉ Arena on Radio 1 in conversation w...
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Ed Morrish @edmorrish.com · 16/09/2025
[me, a journalist who spends all day every day on a social media app where the discovery algorithm is personally controlled by its owner, captain birdseye] you know, a lot of people are talking about fish fingers, we should probably cover that
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The New York Review of Books @nybooks.com · 13/09/2025
“It is often said that many nonfiction books should really have been magazine articles; this one feels like a LinkedIn post mercilessly stretched to nearly three hundred pages.” —Mark O’Connell on Palantir’s founder’s first book
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The War App | Mark O’Connell
Last year, according to a recent report in The New York Times, Alexander Karp received a total of $6.8 billion for his services as CEO of the data
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Jason Kirk @jasonkirk.fyi · 12/09/2025
Discovering computer as an adult makes you go crazy. Discovering computer as a baby makes you go crazy. In all of human history, there will only ever be one generation to discover computer at the correct age: 13
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John Merrick @johnmerrick.bsky.social · 13/09/2025
Yeah man, keep being patronising snobs, that’ll get liberalism back on the road
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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
Terrible book, terrible guy, great magazine
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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · 26/08/2025
Yes, in the same way your thermostat suffers from the pain of burning
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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
Exactly the effect I was going for, thrilled I pulled it off
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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · 31/07/2025
Catholic handbags!!
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Meredith Whittaker @meredithmeredith.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
Stand by this: www.politico.com/newsletters/...
What’s a technology that you think is overhyped?

I’m going to give a sideways answer to this, which is that the venture capital business model needs to be understood as requiring hype. You can go back to the Netscape IPO, and that was the proof point that made venture capital the financial lifeblood of the tech industry.

Venture capital looks at valuations and growth, not necessarily at profit or revenue. So you don’t actually have to invest in technology that works, or that even makes a profit, you simply have to have a narrative that is compelling enough to float those valuations. So you see this repetitive and exhausting hype cycle as a feature in this industry. A couple of years ago, you would have been asking me about the metaverse, then last year, you would have asked me about Web3 and crypto, and for each of these inflection points there’s an Andreessen Horowitz manifesto.

It’s not simply that one piece of technology is overhyped, it’s that hype is a necessary ingredient of the current business ecosystem of the tech industry. We should examine how often the financial incentive for hype is rewarded without any real social returns, without any meaningful progress in technology, without these tools and services and worlds ever actually manifesting. That’s key to understanding the growing chasm between the narrative of techno-optimists and the reality of our tech-encumbered world.
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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · 31/07/2025
Instagram ads have gotten exponentially worse recently, right? Just an endlessly encroaching tide of slop and cheap scams
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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · 25/07/2025
Thank you!
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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · 25/07/2025
The NYT talked to @jenniferwalshe.bsky.social and me about MARS, which opens tonight at Galway Arts Festival
nytimes.com
An Opera Takes A.I., Pronatalism and Hustle Culture to Space
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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · 19/07/2025
I think that’s a solid assumption
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Rob Palk @robpalk.bsky.social · 07/07/2025
Oo remembers lying awake after dinner at Combray for maman to give you a goodnight kiss?
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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · 30/06/2025
Don’t tell me about a thing being “downstream of” another thing. I don’t want to hear it, and I won’t listen to it!
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Shamim Malekmian @shamimmalekmian.eurosky.social · 28/06/2025
This is an X screenshot I can get behind. No more J.K. Rowling screengrabs, just Bryan Johnson being delusional about how well his age reversal project is going
X post by Bryan Johnson: I'm 18 years old and have a 19 year old kid. Pretty wild.
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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
Patrick Collison here, illustrating a mindset that is, in many ways, a simple misunderstanding of life itself
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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
It didn't strike me that it might be one of those words you don't really hear anymore
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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
For those of you who were simply too lazy to read my essay about MrBeast and the attention economy yourselves, here's me reading it for you www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2...
theguardian.com
‘The Mozart of the attention economy’: why MrBeast is the world’s biggest YouTube star – podcast
He’s spent 24 hours immersed in slime, two days buried alive – and showered vast amounts of cash on lucky participants. But are MrBeast’s videos simply very savvy clickbait – or acts of avant garde ge...
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sarah jeong @sarahjeong.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
thinking again about this 2018 cover
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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
Seems a little drastic, he could just shut them down in the normal way
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mattie lubchansky @mattielubchansky.com · 17/06/2025
(sliding out from under The Gyre on a mechanic's creeper, covered in grease) okay, bad news
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Rick O'Shea @rickoshea.bsky.social · 16/06/2025
This is on Thursday, and my last gig until after the Summer. @urchinette.bsky.social @mrkocnnll.bsky.social and @prasifcat.bsky.social Tickets went in a couple of days but as there are frequently cancellations, @booksupstairs.bsky.social keep a wait list: booksupstairs.ie/all-events/w...
Writehawks poster
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Will Davies @will-davies.bsky.social · 14/06/2025
‘Postliberalism’ is mainly books with titles like ‘The Fate of Civilisation and the Death of God at the End of the West’ by men with backgrounds as investment analysts
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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · 13/06/2025
It’s a skeet, and you’re too cowardly to say it
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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · 13/06/2025
I’ve had worse ideas, as you know
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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · 13/06/2025
I worked in a hotel during a golf tournament when I was 18, and brought room service to Tiger Woods, who was sitting on a couch in his underwear watching himself play golf on tv
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Jeffrey Vagle @jvagle.me · 08/06/2025
This essay is the best description of Mr Beast I have ever read: His oeuvre is “a Hobbesian gameshow of all against all,” and he “may not be the genius we need, or the genius we want, but he may be the genius we deserve.” via @mrkocnnll.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/news/2025/ju...
theguardian.com
‘The Mozart of the attention economy’: why MrBeast is the world’s biggest YouTube star | Mark O’Connell
The long read: He’s spent 24 hours immersed in slime, two days buried alive – and showered vast amounts of cash on lucky participants. But are MrBeast’s videos simply very savvy clickbait – or acts of...
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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · 09/06/2025
Thank you!
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Patrick Cosmos @veryimportant.lawyer · 06/05/2025
every year there is a new pr blitz about a hardcore band whose gimmick is Not Being a Hardcore Band
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Al Kennedy @alkennedy.bsky.social · 05/06/2025
This is basically like Christmas morning for me, the guy who goes around posting "and this surprises you how?" under people's political tweets
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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
This is just deeply, deeply sad
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Kyle M. @kyleismoody.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
Sweet Christmas, this is a good piece on somebody that I don't really enjoy. These fragments from @mrkocnnll.bsky.social really speak to the primacy of MrBeast and how he may be the perfect emblem of Where We Are Now. www.theguardian.com/news/2025/ju...
theguardian.com
‘The Mozart of the attention economy’: why MrBeast is the world’s biggest YouTube star | Mark O’Connell
The long read: He’s spent 24 hours immersed in slime, two days buried alive – and showered vast amounts of cash on lucky participants. But are MrBeast’s videos simply very savvy clickbait – or acts of...
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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
A problem with The Mountainhead is that it’s kind of a stretch to believe billionaire tech founders coming out with the kind of viciously witty lines Jesse Armstrong writes, in a way that it somehow wasn’t with the Murdoch-style old media bastards in Succession
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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
Thank you!
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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
Thank you!
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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
Cool
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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
Do you actually want me to explain to you who MrBeast is, or do you want some kind of public recognition for not knowing who a famous person is?
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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
Who what?
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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
One of the great editors. Not only did David countenance 5,500 words of MrBeast exegesis, he suggested the idea and made the piece the best version of itself it could have been. He also let me be just a shade more pretentious than he was comfortable with, for which I'm also grateful
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Brandy Jensen @brandyjensen.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
I did not wake up this morning looking for profound insight into MrBeast’s whole deal but @mrkocnnll.bsky.social has provided it
theguardian.com
‘The Mozart of the attention economy’: why MrBeast is the world’s biggest YouTube star | Mark O’Connell
The long read: He’s spent 24 hours immersed in slime, two days buried alive – and showered vast amounts of cash on lucky participants. But are MrBeast’s videos simply very savvy clickbait – or acts of...
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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
Thanks, Brandy!
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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
You have no choice
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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
Hahaha
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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
Thank you!
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