A weekly newsletter from journalist and author Charlie Warzel.

Warzel is a writer and reporter who covers the intersection of technology, politics, and culture. Formerly a writer-at-large for the New York Times Opinion page and a senior technology writer at BuzzFeed News, he was the recipient of a 2019 Mirror Award for his reporting on Facebook's privacy struggles.

Galaxy Brain explores how technology changes everything it touches, specifically, how the modern internet harnesses huge pools of collective attention and influences the way that we behave.

Galaxy Brain

Charlie Warzel is a writer and reporter who covers the intersection of technology, politics, and culture. Formerly a writer-at-large for the New York Times Opinion page and a senior technology writer at BuzzFeed News, Warzel was the recipient of a 2019 Mirror Award for his reporting on Facebook's privacy struggles.

Charlie Warzel

"Is Facebook killing people?" is the wrong question.

The Biden vs Zuckerberg conversation and its focus on whether the site is killing or saving people is a perfect example of a damaged information ecosystem.

This instalment of Galaxy Brain explores the back and forth between Facebook and the White House, reflecting on why this argument shows how social media influenced discourse is causing so many global issues. Here, Charlie Warzel offers a more effective approach to this currently unproductive argument.

Karl Miller

The Biden/Facebook fight is part of the problem

He could quickly lose interest.

Elon Musk is set to purchase the platform for $44billion. But, as this news breaks, one question is standing above others: what does the future hold for Twitter? In this instalment of Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel looks at different possibilities, including comparisons to Twitter’s recent past, to analyse what the site could look like under Musk. 

"As one former senior Twitter employee put it to me... Musk’s musings about [Twitter] are mostly 'highly solipsistic things that are only about his experience of the product as a user with 80 million followers and a consent decree with the SEC.'"

The worst-case scenario for Elon Musk's Twitter

Could the internet be changing our cognition?

Keeping reminders of important moments in our lives is not a new phenomenon. However, thanks to technological advancements, the volume we can now amass and the ease of doing it is. Charlie Warzel discovered when scrolling through his phone's camera roll that revisiting moments he might otherwise have forgotten can be an introspective and poignant experience.

But, he also felt a greater sense of time — and himself — slipping by. It is likely that, as our technology improves, our brains will adapt and change in ways we're not fully aware of, and in this reflective piece, Warzel speculates what the long-term effects of this infinite memory could be.

Confessions of an information hoarder

Russia's online propaganda is not as effective as it seems.

The online fight between Russia and Ukraine has already surprised propaganda experts. It may only get more chaotic. In this instalment of Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel to experts who have been observing the digital attics of the war. Here, he reveals what has surprised them and argues for updated terminology when discussing 'the information war'.

The information war isn’t over yet

Why does the internet create phantom-like qualities of parts of culture>

This instalment of Galaxy Brain was is a reflection of a New York magazine “Vibe Shift”, where writer Allison P. Davis details her discovery of the so-called shift in culture in New York, without fully explaining where this shift will end. In line with this thinking, Charlie Warzel explores the idea of the premature declaration of trends and how that can be applied to the Web3 and the Metaverse.

I found the tech angle on the vibe shift

Why it's so hard to process new COVID information.

Research shows that the first pieces of information we hear on a new subject become incredibly hard to shake, even if they turn out wrong. This instalment of Galaxy Brain reflects on how this has made people react towards the pandemic and why information can be so sticky. 

Here, Charlie Warzel relates his findings to argue that institutions need to focus on how people think rather than on what is seen as good or bad.

The bad ideas our brains can't shake

Why are near-billionaires trying to invent a 4chan meme?

The pandemic has highlighted how the current version of the internet can be so disappointing. This instalment of Galaxy Brain considers how the static nature of the web has led to the desire for a genuinely immersive internet, but why this is also a concern. Charlie Warzel also explains the intricacies of the Wordcel-versus-Rotator meme that’s found popularity on Twitter and in the Silicon Valley venture-capital crowd.

Wordcel vs. rotator brainworms

Ignoring the game and its fans should be easy — and yet, here we are.

What fuels the online dynamics of Wordle? And what happens when simple time-fillers become very popular? In this instalment of Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel argues that the world’s obsession with a game like this is only possible in an environment where there is simply just too much information.

The internet is eating Wordle alive

What do synthetic uteruses and Web3 technologies have in common?

Current concern about declining fertilities rates makes sense. However, a recent Twitter debate involving Elon Musk and Vitalik Buterin highlights a general misunderstanding of many of the world's problems. 

In this instalment of Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel weighs in on the logic behind synthetic uteruses, why Web3 matters, and the surprising success of Wordle in a world that values monetisation over inherent value.

Builder brain

The American struggle shouldn't be viewed through the lens of a history book.

There are a lot of opinions about the current political discourse in the USA, ranging from coherent to bizarre. In this edition of Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel discusses the opinion piece "We are in a new civil war … about what exactly?" by John F. Harris, where he voices concerns about potential institutional backlash and how the current public discourse on the Omicron variant reflects broader societal issues.

The Michael Bay theory of history

Focusing on silver-bullet solutions over comprehensive ones.

Apple and Google announced an unprecedented partnership to build a Bluetooth-based contract tracing system and offered the tech for free to the CDC as well two administrations to no avail. Why was it ignored?

In this instalment of Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel interviews Myoung Cha, a former leader on the exposure notification team. They discuss the roadblocks to adoption and how digital exposure notifications could have worked effectively to give people better information in an omicron world.

The US digital-contact-tracing debacle

Interviews with extreme power users.

Many platforms churn out a lot of data, and it's easy to forget that there are people with stories behind those numbers. In this instalment of Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel explores the stats behind some impressive Spotify Wrapped and explains how the pandemic changed streaming habits in exciting ways.

How to spend 432,870 minutes on Spotify in a year

Uncertainty is one thing that humans don’t do well.

By the time the United States shut down to battle COVID-19, the virus had already got its hooks into every aspect of our lives, including social media. In fact, pandemic related news almost mirrors the properties of the virus.

In this edition of Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel explores why the current information environment has created a worrisome vacuum that can lead experts to communicate poorly, leading to mass anxiety.

The Omicron information vacuum

How a vicious cycle becomes virtuous.

Work culture has been broken for a long time. But as many of us work around the issues we face, it helps employers continue to mislead us that the system is healthy. Charlie Warzel argues that “our current dysfunctional relationship to work is not some natural state; it’s a culture we’ve forced on ourselves" and reveals ways in which we need to fight back against this pattern.

We are running in 'degraded mode'

Dispatches from a weird economy.

The polarisation surrounding crypto can make it incredibly difficult to understand. This instalment of Galaxy Brain is an interview with a true believer in the crypto realm that hopes to bring some further nuance to a complex environment. Charlie Warzel interviews journalist Aaron Lammer to understand what people deep into the world find exciting or transformative about this stuff.

“People might assume that crypto is just full of die-hard libertarian non-compromisers, but I think, having spent time in it, that it really reflects a diversity of opinions on those topics. It attracts a diversity of opinions around the world. The Korean Ethereum audience doesn’t think about decentralization the same way the American Ethereum audience thinks about it, and yet we’re all on the same blockchain doing things that have an impact on what the other side does and sees. I think of it as a giant game, and what’s exciting is that when you come to one of those forks in the road, you have a little more agency. You feel like an active participant.”

A crypto true believer makes his case

There are infinite channels, but nothing’s on.

Facebook’s 2021 transparency report hid the truth about its most popular content by highlighting the more peculiar. For this edition of Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel explores the mindless, clickbait spam and questions what the conversation surrounding Facebook might look like if it acknowledged itself for the vast algorithmic wasteland that it is.

Facebook’s vast wasteland

The professional is personal and the personal is professional.

This instalment of Galaxy Brain is an interview with HR expert Ben Jackson. He talks to Charlie Warzel about the future of work and why the pandemic has left many company cultures fractured.

  "After years of being told to 'bring their whole selves to work,' now people are doing that. As employees and managers and leaders brought more of their whole selves to work it’s revealed some of the divisions that weren’t really visible."

On the front lines of the Great Resignation

Charlie Warzel reflects on his 10 years of analysing Facebook. 

This instalment of Galaxy Brain is a scattered analysis of journalists working with a huge set of internal Facebook documents. Here, he argues that the documents should be made public, that Facebook has a 'global problem' and on the concerning future of the social media giant.

So... what now?

(We all lose)

This instalment of Slow Boring explores how our media ecosystems can take even relatively boring exchanges and turn them into useless spaces that helps basically nobody. Here, Charlie Warzel reflects on how the ways in which the  COVID culture war plays out in our can tell us about our faulty mediasphere.

Joe Rogan destroys CNN you won't believe what happens next

The working from home debate continues.

This instalment of Galaxy Brain is a reflection of what workplace fun is for CEOs and regular employers; it is seen as a privilege that is not usually extended to employees. However, Charlie Warzel reveals why statistics now show that those unhappy with working arrangements are more likely to quit than ever before.

Chris Brinkley

Who gets to have fun at work?

Why the whistleblower saga matters.

This instalment of Galaxy Brain explores ex-Facebook product manager Frances Haugen’s congressional testimony. Here, Charlie Warzel reflects on her comments surrounding algorithm amplification design and not just censorship, and why misinformation feels like an advancement on the more crucial critique that many close followers have been hoping for.

Changing the Facebook conversation

It has to go somewhere.

Throughout the pandemic, Charlie Warzel has observed many examples of COVID rage: burnout, resentment, and a terrifying sense of foreboding. In this instalment of Galaxy Brain, he questions what will happen with all our emotions once the pandemic subsides. 

What do we do with all this rage?

Understand the internet's original sin.

Reporting on the world of digital advertising is incredibly complicated to dissect. To write successfully about this murky landscape requires deep attention to detail. But, Shoshana Wodinsky's dedication to research makes her pieces some of the most comprehensive and easy to understand about this part of the net.

In this instalment of Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel interviews the tech reporter covering major social networks' financial and societal impacts. She discusses the complexities of keeping tech journalism engaging, the internet's interconnected nature, and why she's optimistic about the world she reports on.

"I talk about Facebook a lot and they're the easy bad guy when it comes to privacy stuff. For good reason! But one thing they do very well is they constantly remind lawmakers that small businesses depend on them for targeted ads. It is absolutely, true. Many small businesses would probably have a very difficult time surviving in 2021 without dumb Facebook ads. And so we're left with this problem where, when we try to dismantle the Facebook targeted ads machine to make it a more privacy-centric thing, small businesses could suffer. It's a cold, hard fact."

The internet's original sin

What do you do about Facebook?

The Wall Street's investigation series called "The Facebook Files" revealed the company knows a lot about the negative impacts it has on the world.

This instalment of Galaxy Brain focuses on why the organisation tried to alter its News Feed algorithms to promote "Meaningful Social Interactions" to alleviate users consuming content that was harmful to their health yet failed to implement changes successfully. Here, Charlie argues that the platform is broken and will need considerable changes to keep it healthy.

The algorithm tweaks won't save us

In our current landscape, it's a valid question to ask.

What does it mean to pursue a career? In the world of COVID-19, the definitions seem to be up in the air. On one side, there are 'careerists', a term with often negative implications used to describe those who care only about climbing the professional ladder more than the jobs themselves. On the other, there are those who simply "are fed up with their jobs, and they’re quitting in droves."

In this instalment of Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel takes a deep dive into the latter, asking questions to fully understand what the drive behind this recent but rapidly growing line of thinking is.

What if people don’t want "a career"?

Will we ever understand the social network?

Facebook’s recently shared “Widely Shared Content” report list of its most-viewed links is a baffling assembly of unrelated links that resemble a junk mail folder. This instalment of Galaxy Brain explores how this report is indicative of Facebook's real user experience. 

Here, Charlie Warzel argues that this strange insight into the platform reveals how internally organized the tech giant is.

Michael Satow

What happens on Facebook?

A reflection on COVID changes.

Before the prevalence of the delta variant and vaccine hesitancy, Charlie Warzel was sceptical of the prospect of a “hot vaxxed summer” and the idea that the world was ready to re-enter COVID times with more abandon than ever before. A society in denial? 

In this instalment of Culture Study, he reflects on whether we are ready to acknowledge the global grief of the pandemic.

Never going back again

The diminishing returns of constant covid news.

This instalment of Galaxy Brain reflects on why Charlie Warzel has found himself scouring the internet for new information on the pandemic and the delta variant. Here, he reveals why his recent cycle of scrolling is fuelled by a need for validation but worries that more personal sacrifices lie ahead.

I need to stop scrolling

People are complicated, but there are silver linings.

This instalment of Galaxy Brain reflects on the difficulties of lumping Americans into binary groups - the pro-and anti-vax - which has damaged the prospects of the nationwide vaccination campaign. Here, Charlie Warzel argues that vaccine hesitancy happens for various reasons and that the actions from leaders, media groups and individuals should amend their strategies to reflect that.

Reasons for vaccine optimism

How bad is wildfire smoke? An air quality specialist explains.

Wildfire smoke is choking huge parts of the western United States. This episode of Galaxy Brain uncovers much actionable information for places where wildfire smoke is becoming common in the summers. Charlie Warzel interviews Sarah Coefield, an air quality specialist with the Missoula City-County Health Department. They discuss air purifiers, the long term effects of smoke on health, and why the pandemic is partly responsible for a positive change in air quality in public spaces.

‘These extreme smoke events have been getting longer, bigger, and more people are affected. 10 to 15 years ago, it was happening in small, small rural mountain valleys. Now, we have these massive wildfires. The Bootleg Fire in Oregon is insane right now. It is impacting far more people than have ever been impacted by smoke. We’re starting to see this awakening. Right now we don’t have the policy to address smoke response but we do have the technology.’

"Air will find a way"

On the climate crisis and other hyperobjects.

The Capitol Riot on the 6th of January offered insight into how traditional conceptions of journalism can be broken down. 21st-century existence is characterised by a constant presence of complex existential problems without straightforward or easily achievable solutions, known as hyperobjects. 

This instalment of Galaxy Brain voices concerns over how we often overlook the impact of their consequences. Here, he reveals why the media's coverage of the climate offers the clearest picture of this dynamic.

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