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Nancy Baym

@nancybaym

30+ years of digital media research. Wrote a few books. Dog, lake, and mountain lover, embroiderer, taker of nature snapshots, campervan enthusiast, sweet on music. She/her.

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05.05.2023
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Latest posts by Nancy Baym @nancybaym

Just saw someone use the phrase “this storm is a teacup” which is such an adorable way to mess up “tempest in a teapot” that it will now join my idiomatic repertoire.

10.03.2026 13:27 👍 5 🔁 0 💬 2 📌 0

Insta is sending me ads for houses for sale in New Zealand.

I hadn’t been considering this move, but, given all the horrors, maybe the algos are on to something.

09.03.2026 14:14 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
How does ChatGPT work? Or rather, language models in general- Part 1 attempting a lay explanation.
How does ChatGPT work? Or rather, language models in general- Part 1 attempting a lay explanation. YouTube video by Casey Fiesler

I'm creating a series of short form videos about how language models work technically. The goal is to be something in between "you know it's next token prediction" and "now you've taken a machine learning class." I'd love your thoughts so here are the first few! 🧵

www.youtube.com/shorts/VZB8X...

08.03.2026 13:30 👍 144 🔁 38 💬 7 📌 2
Preview
In a tiny Colorado town, infighting dissolved the government. Now the water’s running out. A tangled web of interpersonal feuds has left the town of Hartman with no clear path out of a situation that’s not covered by any state law.

This is a wild and sad story of a tiny town where no one can get along and as a result they’re about to run out of water. No one wants to help them and they don’t want help.

www.dailycamera.com/2026/03/08/h...

08.03.2026 14:37 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Thanks, Jill!

07.03.2026 12:15 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Introducing our 2026 Interns! We are delighted to have two interns joining us this summer. Spencer Kaplan is a PhD Candidate in sociocultural anthropology at Yale University. He is currently writing an ethnography of AI researc…

Introducing our 2026 interns @julienporquet.bsky.social and @spencerkaplan.bsky.social

Thank you everyone who applied.

socialmediacollective.org/2026/03/06/i...

06.03.2026 16:38 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Thank you, Dan.

06.03.2026 01:45 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
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It’s Bad: What Now? - Nancy K. Baym, 2026 This essay reflects on a decade of worsening social media harms—inequality, algorithmic power, precarious labor, and data extraction—arguing for renewed interdi...

An absolute banger of an article by @nancybaym.bsky.social out today in Social Media + Society. She astutely captures so much of what I've felt and observed about social media these days.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

05.03.2026 17:22 👍 22 🔁 5 💬 1 📌 0

My brother and I remain deeply grateful to the U of I library for recognizing and honoring the value of our Mom’s work and giving her collection a worthy home.

05.03.2026 13:16 👍 10 🔁 2 💬 2 📌 0

I wrote a short reflection on the last decade of social media. Come for the use of “schmauthenticity,” stay for the delicate balance of hope and fury.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

05.03.2026 13:06 👍 11 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 0

@stevenfrost.bsky.social gave me a tiny loom and some yarn and he didn’t even know it was my birthday ☺️ Amazing how many ways there are to do seemingly simple things badly! Happiness in the learning.

05.03.2026 01:21 👍 5 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Public AI Inference Utility A nonprofit, open-source service to make public and sovereign AI models more accessible.

Did you know that there is a swiss AI called Apertus, nonprofit, developed and owned by public institutions, open source, GDPR compliant, available here?

publicai.co

04.03.2026 13:02 👍 24 🔁 11 💬 1 📌 5
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Announcing Alondra Nelson as the 2026 History of Science Frederick A. Jakobiec Lecturer | Department of the History of Science

Pleas save the date, Cambridge-Boston friends histsci.fas.harvard.edu/announcing-a...

04.03.2026 13:12 👍 109 🔁 27 💬 5 📌 0

huge +1

04.03.2026 03:27 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Static page to organize and make access to my publications easy, preferably easy for me to update myself. I have very outdated one, needs total refresh. Using Kirby.

03.03.2026 23:35 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Anyone got a good website maker to recommend? Human preferred.

03.03.2026 22:55 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
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Peer Influence Can Make or Break Your AI Rollout AI adoption stalls not because of weak tools or insufficient training, but because learning remains invisible. Generative AI requires employees to redesign their own workflows, and in uncertain enviro...

New article from me and collaborators just dropped.

hbr.org/2026/03/peer...

03.03.2026 20:18 👍 11 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0

Relatedly I did not start strength training until end of my 40s. It is never too late to get stronger.

02.03.2026 16:57 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

My love language turns out to be my strength trainer telling me he’d put me against any woman my age and I’d “smoke them.”

02.03.2026 16:56 👍 6 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Tough call when the latter uses the former

01.03.2026 17:14 👍 5 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

I am going to link to organizations that I know for sure are helping trans Kansans. This thread will develop slowly as I either know people or will vet them.

At this point we have not heard from anyone being helped via relocation resources. These exist, but I assume they are overwhelmed.

01.03.2026 03:55 👍 570 🔁 473 💬 4 📌 17
Edwin Starr - War (Original Video - 1969)
Edwin Starr - War (Original Video - 1969) YouTube video by Stream Crops

If ever there were a song that I wish would lose its relevance.

War! What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing
Say it again

m.youtube.com/watch?v=01-2...

28.02.2026 12:35 👍 9 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0

If you have children, may you have the good fortune to get a child-in-law who says things like “We should all go to Costa Rica together and adore leaf cutter ants!”

27.02.2026 14:05 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

the license criminalization scheme in Kansas...stripping immigrants of their legal status...

all of this shows, and is meant to show, that the legal rights of disfavored groups are conditional and can be rescinded at will

such discriminatory chaos is incompatible with a real inclusive democracy

26.02.2026 13:32 👍 940 🔁 371 💬 5 📌 6

Appreciate that there is a small thing I can do to help our beloved trans siblings.

26.02.2026 13:29 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

According to The Advertising Algorithms I am a man experiencing menopausal weight gain who suffers the kind of anxiety that would benefit from wearing weighted stuffed animals around the house and who should also become a meditation instructor.

26.02.2026 00:52 👍 7 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
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AI Economy Institute​ - Microsoft Research The AI Economy Institute (AIEI) is Microsoft’s flagship think tank dedicated to shaping an inclusive, trustworthy AI economy. We building a network of scholars and convening that network with our subj...

Opportunities for funding and more from Microsoft's AI Economy Institute

www.microsoft.com/en-us/resear...

25.02.2026 02:13 👍 6 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0

Posted an embroidery pic to an embroidery forum and someone said it’s like if Bob Ross did embroidery in a good way. Not sure whether to be pleased or mortified but I guess I’m no edgy artist.

22.02.2026 15:57 👍 5 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

My phone just autocorrected “wellbeing” to “well worn.” And there you have it.

21.02.2026 03:58 👍 11 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Can you spot the differences between these photos?

20.02.2026 15:36 👍 143 🔁 61 💬 6 📌 3