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Robin James

@robinjames.bsky.social

5K followers 1.1K following 3.6K posts

editor & scholar. Pop music, gender, philosophy. Books: GOOD VIBES ONLY; THE FUTURE OF ROCK & ROLL; THE SONIC EPISTEME; RESILIENCE & MELANCHOLY. Writing a 33 1/3 on The Breeders. Bylines Jezebel, Guardian, LARB, Real Life, etc. its-her-factory.com

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Robin James @robinjames.bsky.social · 8h

It’s the political economy, stupid

www.its-her-factory.com/2025/10/ordi...

Robin James @robinjames.bsky.social · 8h

Thales, the first philosopher, was so busy contemplating the heavens while walking that he fell into a hole. A Thracian girl laughed at him.

ktb ⧉ @kevinbaker.bsky.social · 8h

in the past 2 months, I have seen--in person--two different people looking at their phones run straight into a utility pole.

Reposted by Robin James

Robin James @robinjames.bsky.social · 14h

Robin James @robinjames.bsky.social · 14h

Robin James @robinjames.bsky.social · 16h

is the alt-in alt-rock the alt- in alt-right

The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · 16h

Turning Point USA announced it will host counterprogramming to the Super Bowl halftime show, called “The All American Halftime Show,” as MAGA critics have been enraged over the selection of Bad Bunny as the 2026 headliner.

MAGA rage over Bad Bunny at Super Bowl sparks an alternative show

Counterprogramming hosted by the group that Charlie Kirk founded spotlights the growing political polarization surrounding one of the biggest events of the year.

www.washingtonpost.com

Robin James @robinjames.bsky.social · 16h

I wrote about Alex Warren's "Ordinary," the phenomenon I call "ordinary slop," and reactionary centrism:

www.its-her-factory.com/2025/10/ordi...

Ordinary Slop & Reactionary Centrism, or what Alex Warren’s hit “Ordinary” has in common with AI and Adelle’s “Hello”

www.its-her-factory.com

Robin James @robinjames.bsky.social · 20h

I’m in this month’s print issue of @thewiremagazine.bsky.social writing about what I take to be the limitations of the concept of hauntology — read online here:

reader.exacteditions.com/issues/14422...

reader.exacteditions.com

Robin James @robinjames.bsky.social · 22h

This Sunday from 5-7p eastern at Inhailer.com I’ll take us back to 2005 to celebrate my 20th wedding anniversary on the 15th by consulting with my wedding DJ, pictured below, about what indie fans were really listening to back then - tune in for some forgotten bangers!

Reposted by Robin James

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 1d

repost this if an editor has ever saved you from yourself

violent alien @blipstress.bsky.social · 1d

An actual hot take: Too many authors are afraid of editors watering down their voice or whatever and not afraid enough of editors letting you put any old slop on the page.

Robin James @robinjames.bsky.social · 1d

Ordinary slop is different from a mass-produced commodity because it produces a different kind of flattening - not the normalizing homogenization of a mass or population, but the evacuation of shared feeling and experience into privatized self-management (which it shares w right wing AI slop)

Robin James @robinjames.bsky.social · 1d

The one issue I could see is managing rights and permissions. I would think someone I. The library could help with this. But thats also part of the cost (and service printers provide) in putting together a course pack.

Robin James @robinjames.bsky.social · 1d

Overheard in the office restroom: young millennial women dissing the new TS album

Robin James @robinjames.bsky.social · 1d

Liz Pelly’s book comes to mind

Robin James @robinjames.bsky.social · 1d

Just as one of the functions of AI is to break social connections & fabric, the summer of blah is about breaking the ‘distribution of the sensible,’ publics called into existence through art; just privatization all the way down

Robin James @robinjames.bsky.social · 1d

Interesting that the summer of blah came after the summer where three women, each w very distinctive sounds, had a number of bangers and drove The Discourse

Robin James @robinjames.bsky.social · 1d

The right has AI slop, the reactionary center has “Ordinary,” and the rest of us are listening to tons of new and weird stuff that has about as much success breaking through the mainstream as left ideas have of getting covered in mainstream media

Robin James @robinjames.bsky.social · 1d

Yep

Robin James @robinjames.bsky.social · 1d

The right has AI slop, the reactionary center has “Ordinary,” and the rest of us are listening to tons of new and weird stuff that has about as much success breaking through the mainstream as left ideas have of getting covered in mainstream media

Robin James @robinjames.bsky.social · 1d

In the 10 years since I wrote this, the “reactionary center” represented by “Hello” is still here but musically it’s been evacuated of anything good or catchy enough to paper over its ideological status. It may not be AI but it’s still kinda slop.

thenewinquiry.com/hello-from-t...

Hello From the Same Side

Adele’s single is the musical equivalent of the desire for experiential homogeneity that Trump satisfies.

thenewinquiry.com

Robin James @robinjames.bsky.social · 2d

I remember back in the late 90s and aughts when institutions like Hypatia and the California Roundtable on Philosophy and Race really felt like "well its all us weirdos here we better stick together bc there's nowhere else for us in the field"

Robin James @robinjames.bsky.social · 2d

Tbh I don’t get the whole (mostly British) wing of haunty-Marxists, even wrote a thing about it in this months The Wire

Robin James @robinjames.bsky.social · 2d

i think what I'm saying is enshittification has hit corporate pop in a very legible way so the biggest stuff rn is v bland even while tons of weird bangers bubble just underneath

Robin James @robinjames.bsky.social · 2d

feels like the "why no song of the summer this year?' and the "why did TS's album flop?" questions are related

1. the chaotic political/econ context & all the noise it makes in ppl's lives puts their attn elsewhere
2. weird music is doing fine (Kpop DH), but gulf grows btw it & bland chart toppers

Robin James @robinjames.bsky.social · 2d

it's exceptionally brutal out there rn, worst humanities job market possibly ever, and I saw 08 and COVID.

Robin James @robinjames.bsky.social · 2d

yep, which is basically 3k words

Robin James @robinjames.bsky.social · 2d

Starting in the late 90s, American continental philosophers have been trained a a pluralists who work across gender studies, Black studies, Lat Am studies, etc. this equips us better than our British counterparts to analyze pop culture.