Things I Learned in 2025
2025 can lose my number, but I'm taking these things with me into 2026
Welcome to the weekend edition of The Experiment, your official hopepunk newsletter. If you’d like to support my work, become a paid subscriber or check out the options below. But even if you don’t, this bugga free. Thanks for reading!
Before we wake up in a new year, I wanted to take stock with you about anything I learned this year worth remembering:
In 1995, Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron, two media theorists, looked past the rose-tinted hoopla about the Internet and saw the “long-predicted convergence of the media, computing and telecommunications into hypermedia.”
Our news media has become unable to report that America is undergoing an administrative coup. In fact, it’s probably time to stop paying the news media, but not the news, attention.
It took a while, but Russia won the Cold War, largely by installing a Russian stooge in the Oval Office.
It’s easier to convince us of a crazy lie than a simple truth. Seeing what is right in front of our faces can be the hardest thing of all.
And then, “Once they’ve swallowed sham and hokum/Facts and logic won’t unchoke ‘em.”
The Pilgrims killed Christmas, which wasn’t a holiday in the United States until after the Civil War.
The National Anthem is a question.
There’s an empathetic backlash underway to the Austin comedy scene that has the potential to reach unaffiliated voters.
Why Democratic politicians talk like defective robots.
David Bowie helped bring down the Berlin Wall and was an early example of joy’s power over fascism.
If AI is drawing on human-generated content from the Internet, how could it replace us?
I was early on this one. Trump is turning American culture into a dumb theme park.
Here’s hoping I learn more things in 2026. Happy New Year, people.
Buy the book Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick banned from the Bullock Texas History Museum: Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of the American Myth, cowritten by yours truly.
We set up a merch table in the back where you can get T-shirts, coffee mugs, and even tote bags now. Show the world that you’re part of The Experiment.