@martinvdlinden
PhD candidate in the study of religion, Linnaeus University, Sweden | Shinto, digital religion, aesthetics theory, popular culture, and critical media theory https://lnu.se/en/staff/martin.vanderlinden/
It is of course from the great Cory Doctorow this description of AI being the asbestos of the Internet came from. Read the full blogpost here: pluralistic.net/2025/09/27/e...
This I will quote in my anti-AI rant next time
I gotta say I find a lot of AI discourse around higher ed very confusing. "if ChatGPT can write your essays is college even worth it?" did people think math teachers were assigning problem sets because *they* couldn't figure out the answers?
I did a (small) thing (finally), yay! Eat Pray Anime is SO BACK πΎβ©π°
The first YouTube Short in a lighthearted series on sacred animals in Japan.
youtube.com/shorts/IgST8...
Photo of a Shinto torii gate painted shiny gold. It is dull and degrading in some areas due to age and weathering.
Close up photo of a golden torii gate. There are small rocks stacked on the second horizontal beam.
Photo of an Inari shrine painted all in gold, including the fox statues and donation box.
Photo of a kitsune (fox) statue at an Inari shrine in Japan painted shiny gold. The fox holds a scroll in its mouth.
Happy #ToriiTuesday! The series will resume soon (if I can catch a break).
My bestie & I found this GOLD Inari shrine at ZuiryΕ«ji ηιΎε―Ί in Εmi-Hachiman this weekend & I may have fangirled way too hard. ππβ©οΈ
Kinsei Inari DaimyΕjin ιη稲θ·ε€§ζη₯ is now collecting donations to restore the #torii to glory.
Excellent essay (begins on p. 25)
One day a article about these kind of influencers aesthetics has to be written by yours truly haha!
I need suggestions for this.
I'm getting followers in the fields of religious studies and/or media studies. So...
Are you interested in Digital Religion?
There's a list of resources here: giuliaevolvi.com/digital-reli...
Also, if you're studying Digital Religion and we never met, please comment and self-promote!
Hereβs an excellent article from @digibritislam.bsky.socialβs @drkelshayyal.bsky.social and Dr Sadek Hamid on British Muslim podcasters. Thereβs lots to consider in relation to the impacts of podcast content, and - especially - the personalities behind the pods.
themaydan.com/2024/11/brit...
Reading @kaitlynugoretz.bsky.social latest paper in preparation and anticipation of her PhD thesis! Online Shinto studies lets gooooo!
The meme of the dad and son from American Chopper arguing. Text: American Chopper memes are compelling rhetorical devices that could be taught in schools! They are impenetrable walls of text serving only as exceedingly dry in-jokes for the recherchΓ© subcultures already familiar with their subjects! They brilliantly employ American Chopper as a low-brow "carrier wave " to entice people to read about ideas they otherwise wouldn't! THEY HAVE NONE OF THE BREVITY AND ENERGY OF GOOD MEMES, AND THEY SUBSTITUTE FAUX-ACADEMIC LOGORRHEA FOR WIT! THIS IS THE ONLY MEME FORMAT THAT ACKNOWLEDGES THE EXISTENCE OF COMPETING INFORMATION, AND AS SUCH IT IS THE ONLY FORMAT SUITED TO THE COMPLEXITY OF OUR WORLD!
You had me at βexceedingly dry in-jokes for recherchΓ© subculturesβ
We're science fiction writers. Of course we write stories about the consequences of technological innovations, and no one ever comprehends the story is about the consequences and not the technology
weird interaction with a student this week. they kept coming up with weird "facts" ("greek is actually a combination of four other languages") that left me baffled. i said let's look this stuff up together, and they said ok, i'll open a search bar, and they opened... ch*tgpt
and i was like "this is not a search bar" and they were like "yes it is, you can search for anything in here" the thing that made me feel crazy is like. every kid that's using this as a browser is getting new BESPOKE false "facts." this isn't "a widespread misconception about X that stems from how it's taught in schools." each individual kid is now hooked into a Nonsense Machine with the "widespread misconception about X" you can start at a baseline. like, ok, in tenth grade we all talk about X thing from history, and that leaves us with some misguided concepts about X, but we can correct that as students get broader understandings of the world but with this, each child is getting UNIQUE wrong facts they are SURE are correct... because they did what we told them to do! they "looked it up"! they got it from somewhere! it's not a kid making up a belief on hearsay and assumption... it's something they think they LEARNED
this kid was extremely combative with me, and i understood why. i was sitting in front of him and telling him that the internet, a computer, technology, all these supposedly authoritative things... were wrong. and that i, one person, was right. he basically *couldn't* believe me. 8 135 3.8K 97K ... stillorangecrushed @stilloranged. 7h he decided that i was simply a teacher who'd made a mistake. he could check it, after all! he could look it up! he could find the REAL facts. i obviously hadn't done that, i was just an adult who'd decided i was smarter than him. hence the defensiveness. like i said: i understood 5 760 3.2K 82K stillorangecrushed @stilloranged. 7h ... it was so fucking rough. i did my best, but i am one person trying to work against a campaign of misinformation so vast that it fucking terrifies me. this kid is being set up for a life lived entirely inside the hall of mirrors
Well this is grim
A important thread!
Time for some summer reading!
A bit short, but here is a updated webpage to my doctoral project "Shaping Shinto: A Multimethod Study in the Digital Aesthetics of Religion":
Welcome back to #ToriiTuesday! We're picking up the #torii with personality series with two torii that are WORLD TRAVELERS! β©οΈπ§³
In 2013, a familiar vermillion wooden beam mysteriously washed up on the Oregon coast...1/ π§΅
Photo by Judson Randall
New year, new me, same old thesis, same old desk. But you know what! We got bookshelves now! After 1.5 years of waiting! I can finally put my personal books on their own shelf above my desk!
So I'm on this list, which is bananas. And right off the bat I notice Ai Yazawa and Kyoko Okazaki, two pioneering shojo manga artists whose careers have been cut short by severe health problems. Please, please, instead of messing around with AI trash, buy these artists' books and support them.
2 PhD fellowships in Area/American Studies at the U Oslo. For completion of a PhD, but it's treated as a job w/ strong benefits: healthcare, pension, maternity/paternity leave, paid vacation, etc. Annual salary: NOK 532,200-575,400 ($52k-$56k). Deadline: 1/31/24. www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...
3 PhD positions at the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies at the University of Copenhagen
Fully salaried.
Deadline 11 February 2024
jobportal.ku.dk/phd/?show=16...
Looking forward to it! Was planning a LOTR reread myself! Together with Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.
Let this be the year you stop worrying about βself-promotionβ and just talk about the cool things you are working on.
We shouldnβt have to wait for the book to be published to know what itβs about.
Some ppl will be eager to read it if theyβve had lots of info (esp non-fiction)
Happy #ToriiTuesday! I'm on holiday break, so the current series is on pause. In the meantime, please enjoy this #torii-tastic Fushimi Inari Grand Shrine seasonal card from
Sanrio and accept my many good wishes for the holidays and the coming year! β©οΈπ
Happy #ToriiTuesday! Today's #torii with personality is MARRIED. β©οΈπ€΅π°
This tiny torii stands on the 'husband' of Ise's famous Wedded Rocks (Meoto Iwa 倫婦岩) at Futami Okitama Shrine. π§΅
View from my office βοΈ
After a hectic period of workshop organization and teaching I am happy to spend my remaining time before the yuletide holidays with my thesis π
Sometimes particles need a little tickle