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Too Funny for Uzbekistan, How “Lost” Changed TV and More Morning #Mustreads
How social media changed American TV, the sex jokes that irked the Uzbek government and more.
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Here’s some good stuff to help you forget it’s Monday:
- The ABC show “Lost” became a worldwide phenomenon over its six-season run. This piece from Quartz charts the show’s rise during a period of rapid change in the mid-2000s, as televisions got bigger, more and more people started talking about TV online and advertisers noticed — making it perhaps the first TV show of the social media era.
- There are many infographics out there on a wide variety of websites that really don’t say anything interesting at all, a byproduct of an early-2010s Internet media marketing trend. This infographic, from Vox, about the volume of Internet usage worldwide is a useful, tidy representation of just how far behind the U.S. really is when it comes to the quality and accessibility of Internet in other developed countries.
- The Uzbek comedy troupe Million, whose subversive and risqué group is popular within the dictator-ruled former Soviet republic, is being targeted by the government of Uzbekistan for alleged violations of “ethical standards.” Million’s humor would pass as pretty standard fare on Comedy Central’s lineup, but it’s pretty funny to imagine government censors squirming at methodically planned dick jokes. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has the story.
- Last week, New York’s Kevin Roose published a widely shared story about “Silicon Valley’s Contract-Worker Problem,” which partly argued that companies like Uber and Homejoy (Uber for house-cleaning) were unwisely betting against paying their workers normal wages or giving them benefits — a theme Liz Gannes discussed in her “Instant Gratification Economy” series on Re/code last month. On Friday, Jacobin shared a compelling article further making the case against the “independent contractor” structure of these companies, by way of interviewing a group of Uber drivers who are forming a sort-of union and taking action against the sharing economy giant.
- Nikki Durkin, entrepreneur and author of a viral Medium post about what it was like to have her startup fail, took to Medium again with a pointed critique of the “woman in tech” label. The kid-gloves treatment from media, the patronizing remarks from male peers and the difficulty of speaking up — it’s all part of the experience of being a woman and working in tech.
If you see any stories you’d like to send our way (or have any questions/comments about stories we’ve recommended), feel free to shoot an email to noah@recode.net.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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