Does it count as being hipster if you hipster like all the other hipsters?

MIT Technology Review

If you think all hipsters look alike, well you may not be far off. Now there's scientific research to back up your intuition. Jonathan Touboul at Brandeis University studies how transmission of information throughout a culture may impact those in the culture. Specifically, he created a mathematical model to show how our desire to be unique and non-conformist may actually drive us to conform with the rest of the non-conformists. Follow that?

This simple model generates some fantastically complex behaviors. In general, Touboul says, the population of hipsters initially act randomly but then undergo a phase transition into a synchronized state. He finds that this happens for a wide range of parameters but that the behavior can become extremely complex, depending on the way hipsters interact with conformists.from MIT Technology Review

It's interesting research and has applications far beyond consumers of avocado toast. It could theoretically be applied to financial markets and how groups might either long or short a stock. Or perhaps applied to political thought and the insurgency of fringe elements in conservative and liberal parties.

UPDATE: This story gets even better

Turns out MIT Technology Review received an angry letter from a man claiming to be the person in the photograph that ran at the top of the story:

"You used a heavily edited Getty image of me for your recent bit of clickbait about why hipsters all look the same. It’s a poorly written and insulting article, and — somewhat ironically — about 5 years too late to be as desperately relevant as it is attempting to be, by using a tired cultural trope to try to spruce up an otherwise disturbing study.”from The Washington Post

Yikes. Angry hipster indeed. Only problem is: that isn't his picture. He just happens to really look a lot like the guy in the image. The irony is delicious.

The secret lives of Facebook moderators

Casey Newton writing for The Verge,

She spent the past three and a half weeks in training, trying to harden herself against the daily onslaught of disturbing posts: the hate speech, the violent attacks, the graphic pornography. In a few more days, she will become a full-time Facebook content moderator, or what the company she works for, a professional services vendor named Cognizant, opaquely calls a “process executive.”For this portion of her education, Chloe will have to moderate a Facebook post in front of her fellow trainees. When it’s her turn, she walks to the front of the room, where a monitor displays a video that has been posted to the world’s largest social network. None of the trainees have seen it before, Chloe included. She presses play.The video depicts a man being murdered. Someone is stabbing him, dozens of times, while he screams and begs for his life. Chloe’s job is to tell the room whether this post should be removed. She knows that section 13 of the Facebook community standards prohibits videos that depict the murder of one or more people. When Chloe explains this to the class, she hears her voice shaking.

This is the 21st-century coal mine. Except this one destroys your mind not your lungs. I do not want to think about the mental health ramifications a job like this might lead to. Nothing good for sure.

The question that must be asked is this: if your business relies on human beings to be exposed to this level of psychological abuse, is your business truly adding value to the world?

I was disappointed that I missed the Independent Lens documentary on a similar subject, The Cleaners. Hopefully, it will be available online soon. Here's a behind-the-scenes piece on it.

Interview with Wisconsin Public Radio – Small stores won't save all retailers

I did an interview with Brady Carlson from Wisconsin Public Radio for an article on Shopko's recent bankruptcy and the failure of its small store strategy.