Armchair Sociology
Your Awkward Holiday Conversation Survival Guide
Here’s how to keep your next family gathering from turning into a minefield of awkward conversations.
Armchair Sociology
The Other Guy Didn’t Win; You Just Failed to Convince People
In politics, business, love and war, we’re tempted to reduce all conflicts to a winner and a loser. By doing this, we imply that one side’s argument (or army) defeated the other soundly. In reality, this rarely happens. That’s because the margin between victory and defeat is often just a Read more…
Social Media
How Social Media Destroyed Itself
To everyone who’s ever created something and shared it online, I’d like to say one thing: I’m sorry. See, those of us who’ve been doing this for awhile now — we’re the ones who invented blogging, and tweeting, and YouTubing, and social networking, and we’ve been preaching about “the digital Read more…
Armchair Sociology
The Commencement Speech I Wish Someone Had Given at My Graduation
I don’t remember a word from my graduation. I don’t even remember who spoke at it, much less what they said. That’s partly because I was exhausted (our art school staged our portfolio review and our graduation on the same day), but also because people rarely say anything memorable during Read more…
Armchair Sociology
What the Existence of Don Draper and Katy Perry Really Says About You
Why we need to stop living vicariously through our pop culture heroes and start living our own lives like we mean it.
Armchair Sociology
How to Live Your Life in a No-Bullshit Zone
NOTE: I wrote this years ago, but I took it down when I last redesigned my blog. Then a reader told me that this post helped her a lot over the years, and she asked me if I would consider reposting it. So, after a few small updates, I did. Read more…
Armchair Sociology
8 Ways to Lead a More Interesting Life
Facebook is making us boring. Our perpetual digital connectivity has warped our minds into believing that others are hanging on our every word… even when those words are all about our allergies, our retail woes, our opinions about pop culture, politics, and other inanities. In other words, the very stories Read more…
Armchair Sociology
10 Questions You Should Ask Yourself More Often
Life is short. We’re busy. Things happen. And then we die. In the meantime, here are 10 questions you should ask yourself more often, so you don’t end up running in place between now and then. What did the 18 year-old me think the current me would be doing? What Read more…
Armchair Sociology
3 Myths About Social Media Debunked
On Sunday nights, Mack Collier runs a Twitter-based group chat called #blogchat, which I highly recommend to anyone who wants to learn more about blogging while hobnobbing with their peers. But, based on the defensive reaction to some of my comments from several of the #blogchat participants, I’ve realized that Read more…
Armchair Sociology
Sorry Guys: When It Comes to Your Audience, Size DOES Matter
There’s a gentleman’s agreement in social media that needs to be debunked. We’re always supposed to judge ourselves by the quality of the conversations we have, rather than the sheer volume of our reach. Even Gary Vaynerchuck, who has more Twitter followers than anyone else who’s not “mainstream famous,” preached Read more…