The latest Internet Thing, aka the Thing the Internet is doing, is now Gamestop. It is important to know about Gamestop, what it means, who the players are. The Internet was split into several groups by this subject: those who understood the financial transactions involved, those who did not but felt compelled to say something about it, those who memed or riffed off it, and those who were unaware of it entirely. Which group are you?
The last group, the most ignorant, is probably the most happy, since they tend to be too busy to get caught up in the Internet Thing of the moment. They do not feel out of touch. It’s just another world with its own peculiar fascinations and they are content to let it all play out on its own, since it doesn’t matter.
The second group interests me - those who feel like they have to say something about it, because it’s Happening and it is the Thing.
There’s a lot of wit on Twitter, and a lot of pithy insights and newly-minted aphorisms. But when there is a Thing everyone has to address, it distorts the information stream somewhat, simply because all the clever and indispensable people have to let everyone know they know about the Thing, even if it’s to express a late-stage meta-observation that suggests they knew about the Thing before you did.
Twitter turned the entire world into the Algonquin Roundtable, and I don’t say that as a compliment. I always thought the Roundtable would be rather tiresome on an average day - the working journalist who had to turn in copy every day would be a bit annoyed with the writers who sloshed back to their desks and pecked out fifty words before taking a nap, then getting a cup of coffee from the Automat, then looking at the typewriter again, shrugging, and deciding to go have a drink if anyone else is up for it.
Worst would be the days when someone got off a really good line, and someone else tried to piggyback on it, but it fell flat, and then the person groused about it and nursed resentments and left early.
Anyway, Daughter made a remark today about trying to buy a portion of a share of Gamestock, and how the trade was rejected. I messaged her a bit a grief for this and said I cannot even begin to muster the energy to explain this one to Mom over dinner when she asks if I heard from you.
Now, I know why she did it. Not to make a buck, but just to be part of history. Part of the Thing. Someone brings up Gamestop, you can say "I bought in, got 1/30th a share!" and all of a sudden you're someone who was part of the Thing instead of an observer. Makes a difference, right away.
It was easy to explain it to Wife, who was in financial services for a while. The shorting a stock part she got right away.
It was the why anyone cares part that took some doing, and the why on earth is Daughter buying a portion?
"To be part of it."
"Part of what?"
"The Internet Thing."
"Why?"
That's the great dividing line in the culture, isn't it? And by "culture" I mean the atomized, disconnected opinions of people marinating in a consensual delusion.
This week's utterly random selection from the Museum of Paris website. Really: I just click and save, so I'm not pulling out big impressive pieces. It's the little pieces that flesh out a collection.
Oh, they loved this guy.
Interesting. Again with the electricity: "The lightning of heaven, which hath delivered the scepter of tyrants."
Huh? No, can’t be right. Massage it a little, and eventually you get the epitaph uttered by Jacques Turgot:
He snatched the lightning from the sky and the scepter from tyrants.
Well, let's just say he helped.
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This is Butte. But it’s only part of Butte. Why? There aren’t any rules to this, and it’s my site, so Nyah. Also, Butte requires more than one pass, even under our new 20+ rule. This is a particular neighborhood downtown, and area that had its rise long ago. 
