Premium: The Shape Rotators And The Wordcels Are Still Going At It
After Katie tells Jesse a heartwarming and disgusting story about a miniature horse who has gone too far, the hosts discuss the latest skirmish in the eternal fight between Wordcels and Shape Rotators. There’s a lot to unpack here and it’s all remarkably stupid.
Show notes/Links:
In their own words:
BuzzFeed’s excellent oral history of weird Twitter: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jwherrman/weird-twitter-the-oral-history
Some more observations about in-group Twitter/postrat Twitter/whatever:
There’s a dog in this one:
They’re nice though:
More… stuff:
Bouba/kiki effect:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouba/kiki_effect
Via Wikipedia:
This picture is used as a test to demonstrate that people may not attach sounds to shapes arbitrarily: American college undergraduates and Tamil speakers in India called the shape on the left "kiki" and the one on the right "bouba".
Etcetera: https://mobile.twitter.com/search?q=degreebled%20kiki%20choose&src=typed_query&f=top
Roon (@tszzl)’s definitive overview of the rise of wordcel/shape rotator discourse:
More:
More:
Balaji:
Roon didn’t like this:
Andreessen:
Taylor:
Jordan Peterson:
Mel Magazine: https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/wordcels-numbercels-definition
Vice: https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkpqzb/ok-wtf-are-wordcels-and-shape-rotators
Charlie Warzel: https://newsletters.theatlantic.com/galaxy-brain/62008eb7dc551a002085e298/wordcel-vs-rotator-brainworms/
Mike Solana summarizes:
And @MaryKayUltra expands on the absurdity:
The final takeaway:
Image: “Abstract still life installation, colorful geometric shapes,” via Getty.
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