In this issue: Steak-Umm tips on global conflict coverage / Swift-Kelce omniplex / DMARC changes / PRC media dissemination / Patreon changes / Y Combinator lobbyists / NPC streamer economics.
Welcome to Context Collapse, the world’s best comms newsletter. I’m Neal Ungerleider. I run Ungerleider Works and used to work as a reporter for Fast Company, write op-eds for the LA Times, and work as a senior copywriter for R/GA. This newsletter helps readers navigate the weird new world of media and gleefully ignores all the conventional wisdom about journalism, public relations, marketing, and advertising.
Long week, late getting this newsletter out.
I don’t like writing about my personal life—too damned self-indulgent—but, among other things. my father was hospitalized 2 weeks ago after falling at home. He thankfully did not break any bones but is now at an inpatient rehabilitation facility for physical therapy and will be there for a bit.
But, you see, in the kingdom of old age and disability, everything is complicated. The insurance and social worker stuff is just the start. Both of my parents have been disabled to varying degrees since I was a teenager, so this is old hand for me by now.
But do you want to get an older person with limited mobility in an inpatient setting a bag of clean cold-weather clothing when you aren’t able to physically be there? Your sibling has a fever and it turns out there’s noone else in the area who can go to their home and bring it to them. When you finally find someone, they misunderstand the ask and bring items for the wrong season. You can order it from Amazon, but the clothing will arrive on different packages on different days and there’s no way for the recipient to easily open the boxes. A friend can send a bag of clothing, but the nurses will take it to label it with your parent’s name and then have the clothes disappear into the ether. Multiply that by a million times.
Then there’s the whole situation in Israel right now. So, putting my cards on the table: I’m Jewish-American. My mother was an Israeli immigrant to the United States and I still have entire wings of my family in Israel. I attended graduate school in an English-language program at Ben-Gurion University in the country’s south; a whole bunch of students at the school were killed in the rave massacre there. Friends and coworkers of my Israeli relatives and friends were killed in the kibbutz attacks. And then I see a whole bunch of my “friends” in the United States saying the victims had it coming to them because of their nationality. And seeing the most vile celebrations of mass death on social media. And on and on.
With that said… here are the links.
“Swift seems to also be having fun with Kelce — a man who previously agreed to a whole E! show about trying to find him a girlfriend (Catching Kelce, lol). A man who started a podcast with his brother where they talk about football and pop culture and his failed attempt to give Taylor Swift a friendship bracelet with his number at her concert. A man who’s won two Super Bowls, sure, but who’s also hosted Saturday Night Live and recently signed with CAA — which is what sports figures do when they’re planning on parlaying their athletic success into a post-retirement entertainment career. […] Game, as they say, recognizes game.”
”Best known for his relentless public criticism of Google as a monopoly, longtime Yelp public policy chief Luther Lowe has a new gig: heading up policy efforts for Y Combinator. Why it matters: Startup-land has historically shied away from politics, but the famed Silicon Valley accelerator is now embracing it head on.”