The Hong Kong Protesters Are Making Excellent Use Of Instagram-Ready Art

What defines the protests in the public’s memory might just be the art, including statues likening protesters to the Statue of Liberty and pop-art posters of Chinese officials and the city’s leader, Carrie Lam. “Street art and graphic design are defining features of the pro-democracy demonstrations that have roiled the semiautonomous Chinese territory since June. Artists often work quickly and anonymously, and present their oeuvres either in Reddit-like internet forums or public places with heavy foot traffic.” – The New York Times

Students At A U.S. University Burn A Campus Speaker’s Book

One student recorded the burning of author Jennine Capó Crucet’s novel, which Georgia Southern had chosen as a campus read: “These people decide to burn her book because ‘it’s bad and that race is bad to talk about,'” she tweeted. Other outlets reported that “a group of apparently angry students had gathered outside” the author’s original hotel, so the college moved her to a different one. (The college’s response has been, shall we say, a bit tepid.) – Remezcla

The New Movie Tech Of Making Will Smith Look Like He’s A Quarter-Century Younger

Apparently this is, or was, a new process; “Digital humans have been put into shots before, but, according to Guy Williams, a visual effects supervisor at Weta who is quoted in the film’s press notes, ‘this is the first time where one of the leading characters of the film is a totally recognizable human.'” The details are new, but the fountain of youth for established actors isn’t (think, if you will, of Samuel Jackson’s Nick Fury and Clark Gregg’s Agent Coulson in the set-in-the-early-1990s Captain Marvel). Will Smith’s digitally ageless baby face might be a harbinger of many, many movies to come. – The New York Times

The Internet And Texting Are Changing Language – But Not For The Worse

IDEK why ppl think txting & emojis aren’t language. “Any concerns about what the internet is doing to our collective mental health must be set against the poetry that it has simultaneously unleashed – the sheer range of textual innovation and expression that you can find on Tumblr or Twitter or even TikTok, the way three dots, or a question without a question mark, or ‘idk lol’ can become loaded with meaning – The Guardian (UK)