iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Michael J. Steudeman @msteudeman.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

found a photograph of the last time I ever looked relaxed

picture of me as a baby, looking chill af in my blue cozy shirt

Michael J. Steudeman @msteudeman.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

this reminds me of the cartoon trope where the bloviating villain gets smaller and smaller and smaller, their voice pitching higher, until they can be placed in a glass jar

Mario movie scene with Toad holding a diminutive Bowser by the tail to place him in a jar

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Michael J. Steudeman @msteudeman.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Mark Hlavacik (@schoolfuss.bsky.social) published a lovely review of my book Absence of National Feeling in the Quarterly Journal of Speech. An excerpt of his review is below. Read it here: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Text from the review: “Altogether, Absence of National Feeling is a tremendous contribution to the study of the politics of education in the nineteenth century. It is also a worthy addition to the rhetorical study of congressional argument, which is high praise considering the very high bar the previous books on that subject have set. Absence of National Feeling is probably best assigned in graduate-level public address classes or in undergraduate classes where the histories of the nineteenth century, Congress, or education are major themes. For scholars of public address, congressional debate, the rhetoric of education, or nineteenth century oratory Absence of National Feeling is required reading. For rhetoric scholars seeking to deploy affect as a mode of textual analysis, Steudeman's book provides a range of thoughtfully executed approaches. Finally, for readers with a strong base of knowledge about the contemporary condition of education politics and willingness to do their own reckoning, Absence of National Feeling holds many interesting insights into the deeper history of the challenges we face today. I very strongly recommend it.”

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Michael J. Steudeman @msteudeman.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

this is all I can see when I encounter a video of RFK Jr

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Michael J. Steudeman @msteudeman.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Fox News has been beating this drum lately… “your adult kids haven’t cut you off because our network turned you into a mouth-frothing bigot, it must be because their woke therapists want to take them away from you” Textbook strategy cults use to isolate people from non-indoctrinated family members.

Fox News article “5 reasons more Americans are cutting off their own parents,” image shows a 20-something white guy with glasses arguing with an older man and woman

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Michael J. Steudeman @msteudeman.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

the OK GO video where they choreograph a zero gravity dance on an airplane is pretty impressive, but I’m more amazed by video where they somehow got over 500 printers to work without breaking

Screenshot from OK Go ‘Obsession’ video. four men in white outfits stand in front of a wall of printers. Papers are coming out of each to form a colorful pattern

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Michael J. Steudeman @msteudeman.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

the Miley Cyrus cover is catchier but less informative than they original

Title page of “Parties in the United States” by John Quincy Adams

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Michael J. Steudeman @msteudeman.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Okay TEMU but what will you deliver this item inside of?

TEMU ad for a 40 foot tall shipping container

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Michael J. Steudeman @msteudeman.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

OH HI HANDSOME I TOO HAVE MY LIFE TOGETHER I SWEAR I AM NOT A TINY VULTURE

A molting female cardinal with no feathers on its head.

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Michael J. Steudeman @msteudeman.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

hello lady cardinals! look at my beautiful plumage i have my life together, i swear

A cardinal having a rough time with molting season

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Michael J. Steudeman @msteudeman.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

dropped by the paint store for some swatches, thought these two colors complemented each other well

Paint swatches for “Conservative Gray” and “Privilege Green”

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Michael J. Steudeman @msteudeman.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

“The guy next to me looks a little like Robert DeNiro.”

That “Four Freedoms” free speech guy painting by Norman Rockwell

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Michael J. Steudeman @msteudeman.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

I just don’t finish articles anymore when they’re this crowded with ads. I can’t.

A USA Today article almost completely obscured by advertisements and notifications.

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Michael J. Steudeman @msteudeman.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

this is the weirdest captcha-type quiz I've ever seen. Something about the size and stacking choices made on the burgers took me aback. Also the weird watermark over the burger--is that Cthulu I'm looking at? And why four burgers? These machines are getting weird about how they evaluate my humanity

The image is a CAPTCHA for web security. It gives the instruction: "Select the image from the same category as the reference image." It then provides a picture of a spaghetti for the reference. The comparison photos are three pictures of a train, four pictures of cheeseburgers, and two elephants. The images all appear to be AI-generated riffs on enormous cheeseburgers, with some strange background watermark patterns overlaid on each.

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Michael J. Steudeman @msteudeman.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

The admin just had to have their state propaganda get out ahead of this

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Michael J. Steudeman @msteudeman.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

The George W. Bush Presidential Library still has this banner in storage. Maybe DJT can bust it out again tonight.

Bush standing in front of a “Mission Accomplished” banner on an aircraft carrier

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Michael J. Steudeman @msteudeman.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

Apparently DOGE’s definition of “DEI” included crucial sanitation infrastructure for majority-Black counties in Alabama apnews.com/article/sewa...

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Michael J. Steudeman @msteudeman.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

Thanks to our child’s bath bomb, we now know what it would look like if Walter White dissolved a Minion in hydrofluoric acid

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Michael J. Steudeman @msteudeman.bsky.social · 15/02/2026

over on the PA subreddit folks have identified that Sen. Fetterman’s mustache makes him look like Dr. Robotnik and now I can’t unsee it

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Michael J. Steudeman @msteudeman.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

If Gov. Shapiro were serious about making kids learn cursive, he’d require students to use flexible dip pens and write in Spencerian script. All children deserve the chance to write like a 19th century diplomatic envoy preparing a formal treaty

An example of Spencerian Script handwriting style — an elegant handwriting form with line variation

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Michael J. Steudeman @msteudeman.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

why does this description sound more like a tech company than a federal department?

The U.S. Dept of War web page description on Google: “The Department of War serves as an innovative leader in developing technology to protect all Americans on and off the battlefield.”

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Michael J. Steudeman @msteudeman.bsky.social · 24/01/2026

bookended by The Whig Identity and The Whig Ultimatum

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Michael J. Steudeman @msteudeman.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

Indeed, accusing democracy of being effeminate was essential to Nazism. See, e.g., Kenneth Burke, “The Rhetoric of Hitler’s ‘Battle,’” p. 167:

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Michael J. Steudeman @msteudeman.bsky.social · 18/01/2026

These days my mental state vacillates between William Hogarth’s “The Distrest Poet” and “The Enraged Musician” (1741)

A poet sits at a desk, hand over his head, clearly distressed by the conversation on the other side of the room between a bill collector and the poet’s spouse.

A bustling scene with a drummer, singers, and other noisemakers, irritating a man up in a window with his hands over his ears

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Michael J. Steudeman @msteudeman.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

I think about this panel from Matt Groening’s School Is Hell comics a lot

It reads: “The horrible secret of adulthood: the bullies, cheaters, tattletales, and sniveling toadies who tormented you in school are now trying to sell you insurance, explaining why a payraise for you is currently impossible, informing you your tax return is being audited, and telling you why your country has just declared war.”

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Michael J. Steudeman @msteudeman.bsky.social · 04/01/2026

“The Divine Raffaelle, represents Mars, in the attitude of War, with a drawn sword uplifted and ready to strike, while an unarmed Angel from behind, with gentle but irresistible force, arrests and holds the descending arm.” - Charles Sumner, “The True Grandeur of Nations,” July 4, 1845

Image of angel restraining the God of War from Raphael’s “Creation of the World” mosaic in the Chigi Chapel

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Michael J. Steudeman @msteudeman.bsky.social · 20/12/2025

how it feels to get the academic job you want

A scene from Bluey. After great effort, Bentley the dog hangs from the playground monkey bars, saying “I’d like to get down now”

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Michael J. Steudeman @msteudeman.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

What Star Wars hill am I willing to die on? I get this question a lot. I’d have to say the peak of Mount Umate on Coruscant, the only visible part of the city-planet’s surface.

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Michael J. Steudeman @msteudeman.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

This guy had great hand-eye coordination

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Michael J. Steudeman @msteudeman.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

Someone needs to write this book for us burned out academics

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Michael J. Steudeman @msteudeman.bsky.social · 24/11/2024

I went to the gaslight museum in New Orleans. They kept lying to me & making me think I was crazy

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