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Alex Newhouse

@alexbnewhouse.bsky.social

2.1K followers 340 following 3.5K posts

PhD candidate in Political Science at CU Boulder. Biker, climber, runner, skier, homebrewer, writer, coder. email: alex [dot] newhouse [at] colorado [dot] edu

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Alex Newhouse @alexbnewhouse.bsky.social · Aug 12

New peer-reviewed research from me and @drkowert.bsky.social!

We introduce the concept of "performative infighting" to describe the ways that extremists fabricate fragmentation and internal conflict to build collective identity. Here we focus on Steam. 1/

www.frontiersin.org/journals/psy...

Frontiers | Extremist identity creation through performative infighting on Steam

The video game marketplace Steam has long hosted a lively social network for the purpose of connecting game players and game developers. Over the past 5 year...

www.frontiersin.org

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Alex Newhouse @alexbnewhouse.bsky.social · 5h

1% of yearly income to post a TikTok video

Alex Newhouse @alexbnewhouse.bsky.social · 5h

On Day 1 as Supreme Czar, I'm passing a mandatory 30s cooldown period between Posts and Scrolls

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Alex Newhouse @alexbnewhouse.bsky.social · 5h

yes but have you considered that the real goal is just to post guillotine memes as much as possible and that political victory would be inconvenient

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Alex Newhouse @alexbnewhouse.bsky.social · 1d

man I need to play this game

Disco Elysium Quotes @discoelysiumbot.bsky.social · 1d

MEASUREHEAD - “THE PAST IS MADE OF STATIC IMAGES, DISTORTED MEMORIES, DEMENTED NOSTALGIA. THIS, THE PRESENT -- WITH ALL ITS POSSIBILITIES, INNUMERABLE HITS AND MISSES -- IS FAR SUPERIOR. IT IS A *LIVING* ORGANISM.”

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Alex Newhouse @alexbnewhouse.bsky.social · 6d

many people are saying that ljubljana has good examples of human-centric urbanism

Alex Newhouse @alexbnewhouse.bsky.social · 6d

was in ljubljana for a few days last week, Slovenia is absolutely wonderful

platinumretriever @platinumretriever.bsky.social · 6d

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Alex Newhouse @alexbnewhouse.bsky.social · 15d

I was standing in the middle of the road just looking perplexed at a jeep waiting to drive by me because they could've easily and quickly driven down 4th to a better cross street

Alex Newhouse @alexbnewhouse.bsky.social · 25d

but it is also The Question of our time: what causes people to sort into mutually exclusive realities, and what are the ways to mitigate that epistemic opposition?

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Alex Newhouse @alexbnewhouse.bsky.social · 25d

man ive been trying to figure out how to frame a research question/argument that would enable me to study epistemic collapse and its limits but it's actually really hard to specify a research design on this type of thing

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 25d

“.. There’s a new recognition certainly among White House folks, some GOP folks on the Hill, and elsewhere that we have a problem, and that lecturing the American people and telling them, ‘No, things are actually fine,’ is just not going to work.”

@politico.com
www.politico.com/news/2025/09...

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Alex Newhouse @alexbnewhouse.bsky.social · 26d

the real secret here is that these types of people went to college--where ideas are actually challenged, interrogated, unraveled, and examined--and realized that they couldn't just spout off on a soapbox, and they decided it was everyone else's fault that they felt sad

Secretary of Defense Rock @sodrock.bsky.social · 26d

I’m convinced all the people that write these pieces didn’t actually have any fun in college

Paul Crider @paulcrider.liberalcurrents.com · 26d

"In the same way that madrassas radicalize jihadis, America's campuses are among the places in the U.S. *most* hostile to disagreement and debate."

You have got to be kidding me. Truly, Quillette walked so the Free Press could run.

"Je Suis Charlie." Yeah, Bari Weiss, we know. All too well.

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Alex Newhouse @alexbnewhouse.bsky.social · 26d

man charlie is one of the valiant writers out there actually grappling with epistemic collapse as it is happening and as we are all experiencing

Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 26d

Wrote about the week. How the shooter's ID didn't appear to matter to ppl. How the discourse takes place in very same spaces that incubate/perpetuate hate & violence. How shooters now know that their acts will be flattened, analyzed, argued over & amplified. How all of this feels so dark & poisonous

Something Is Very Wrong Online

Our political conversations take place in very same spaces that incubate and perpetuate unthinkable violence.

www.theatlantic.com

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Reposted by Alex Newhouse

megan farokhmanesh @megannicolett.bsky.social · 26d

“It's pretty indicative of general speech associated with the deep parts of internet culture, in particular the types that are very much into irony posting and edgelord humor," says extremism researcher @alexbnewhouse.bsky.social

With @makenakelly.bsky.social

www.wired.com/story/charli...

But in the aftermath of this shooting and others like it, Alex Newhouse, a researcher at the University of Colorado at Boulder who studies extremism, says any critiques of gaming culture in this instance must be contextualized. “It's not a specific game, but it's rather the use of gaming references. It's not the specific meme, but rather the use of online memes,” he says. “It's not the specific ways that things are written on the gun, but that they’re writing something on the gun at all.”

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Alex Newhouse @alexbnewhouse.bsky.social · 26d

I want $1 trillion for making our air clean and safe. I want hundreds of billions to rebuild our cities into green-pedestrian paradises. I want a dedicated bike path for every commuting thoroughfare. I want native plants to adorn each skyscraper roof top.

Alex Newhouse @alexbnewhouse.bsky.social · 26d

my "war" against anti-democratic bigotry and political violence is to make life worth living. I want kids going on field trips to the symphony twice a year. I want teens to have every woodshop and auto shop and culinary class they could ever want. I want families going to free planetarium shows.

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Alex Newhouse @alexbnewhouse.bsky.social · 26d

we need to collectively start swinging for the fences. I want to see a 100x increase in the capacity of the national endowment for the humanities. I want literally every town in america to have a youth center, a senior center, and a library. I never want to see a music program get cut ever again.

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Alex Newhouse @alexbnewhouse.bsky.social · 26d

the national park service budget is roughly $5 billion. those are rookie numbers. amateur hour. I want President Pritzker to be using all of his political capital to get to $50 billion. I want 100 new national parks. I want maglevs from cities to visitor centers.

Alex Newhouse @alexbnewhouse.bsky.social · 26d

the central pillar of my philosophy: build rec centers and build libraries and build schools and fund after school programs and sports teams and clubs and literally never stop building more of them

🎃scarecrowcialism👻 @swolecialism.bsky.social · 26d

I should really write it up (I will never write it up) but the defining thing, to me, is not being Online, it's being Only Online. a family or other social graph in your offline life is grounding and fundamentally a basic human need.

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Alex Newhouse @alexbnewhouse.bsky.social · 26d

intel not having a spine and caving to the gamergaters is the small domino

Alex Newhouse @alexbnewhouse.bsky.social · 26d

this is in line with my increasingly strongly held belief that friction in sociotechnical systems is not just Good but is a Necessity

The Ass is the father of the legs @internethippo.bsky.social · Nov 10

The problem with every post-Millennial generation is they got to go straight to high speed internet. Of course you'll get computer madness that way. Make them start with those old screeching modems and work their way up

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Alex Newhouse @alexbnewhouse.bsky.social · 26d

a main critique/revision on Putnam's thought is that associations can be REAL bad if they entrench homophily... but they are near panacea level if they can achieve cross-cutting heterogeneity

Alex Newhouse @alexbnewhouse.bsky.social · 26d

we must fear the backyard of a church but celebrate the backyard of the YMCA

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Reposted by Alex Newhouse

Stephen C. Rea @stevierea.bsky.social · 26d

@zephoria.bsky.social was really onto something re: the closure--if not elimination--of public spaces for youth due to media-fueled predators panic (sigh)

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Alex Newhouse @alexbnewhouse.bsky.social · 26d

we must fear the backyard of a church but celebrate the backyard of the YMCA

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Alex Newhouse @alexbnewhouse.bsky.social · 26d

I really hope we get some pressure on the next dem administration to excessively fund a rewilding/climate corps and literally just give young people $100k/year to touch/plant grass

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Alex Newhouse @alexbnewhouse.bsky.social · 26d

broke: touch grass
woke: plant grass
bespoke: regenerate grassland

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Alex Newhouse @alexbnewhouse.bsky.social · 26d

yes with the exception of BJJ dudes, who have to pay $1000/month to the nearest library

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Reposted by Alex Newhouse

🎃scarecrowcialism👻 @swolecialism.bsky.social · 26d

that's right. and the gym should be free

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