My Brain Has 47 Tabs Open and the Algorithm only wants one
If you're new to my blog, or even if you've visited more than one post, you may or may not know that I have a very neurodivergent mind, meaning I'm interested in alot of topics (I wanted to write "alot of shit") but that seemed uncouth (I wrote it anyway, soooo...now you have a sample view from both versions of how I think). For that reason, I don't really fit into the main circle of alot of social arenas. They all want everyone to be just One thing all the time...a comedian, a satirist, a movie junkie, a pop culture slop commentarian, a tech enthusiast, an ai doom anarchist, etc...I can do all those things and more, so the traditional algorithm literally hates me, and it's only on a merciful day, when the universe is smiling upon my creativity, that I can break through the hold line.
I created my own website to lay down my thoughts in a space that's safe from a computer deciding if others will see my body of thoughts or not. If you find this post, then you're probably like me, both wondering about everything and nothing all in the same moment, floating between reading Einstein and The Dark Tower series, then somehow self soothing to sleep with endless Insta reels every night.
Either way, I'm happy you found me and my thoughts. It really is a dying internet out there, so let's be sure to band together and survive the technocratic apocalypse together.
Quiana (key-ah-na), writer editor and founder, The Reel Diary.
Ps, why is my blog called Pearls and coffee cups? I thought that would be easy for you to figure out. I'm girly so I wear a cute set of fake pearls M-F, and I have an obsession with collecting coffee mugs :)
If you're interested in watching the last bridge between the old world and the new fade away, subscribe to my blog or buy me a coffee.
THE REEL DIARY
Because contemporary life feels like an unscripted movie.
The October Issue · Issue No. 2
REEL FEEL
October is here, and the Reel Diary got a lot busier. There are new movie and TV takes, two editorials about the strange metrics of being online, and a tech story that moved fast. Below is everything new, then a catch-up on the September posts that came after the last issue.
MOVIE DIARY
Talamasca wasn't very good. Episode one of AMC's Anne Rice spinoff kept switching tones, and I never felt the pull to press play on episode two. Read it · Watch the video
'Sweet Bobby': A Journey into Psychological Torment A catfishing documentary that opens on a hopeful voice and builds to a betrayal that's hard to forgive. Read it · Watch the video
Love & Lazer Beams: LANTERNS Continues to Dominate Streaming TV Episodes 4 and 5 recapped and reviewed: the Martian Man Hunter reveal, a deadly car crash, and John's shocking choice. Spoilers ahead. Read it · Watch the video
The Rich Flu, or Eat the Rich A sci-fi drama where a deadly flu hits only the wealthy, and why it left me with dread and catharsis instead of satisfaction. Read it · Watch the Short
EDITORIAL
Performance metrics are brain slop. And, the big D word. Two creator stories where the numbers, good and bad, ended in disaster, and a third way to measure a good day. Read it
They changed the view count metric but I didn't notice anything YouTube changed how it counts long-form views, the comments panicked, and then, nothing. Read it · Watch the video
JOURNAL
Astra pulled. Dots is live. Meta is watching. OpenAI shelved its next model, GPT-6.1 Astra, after safety testing turned up unsettling results. A day later it unveiled Dots, always-on AI agents aimed at Meta's Muse. Would you hand an assistant like that the keys to your day? Read it · Watch the Short · The news brief behind it
Below, a fishing town, and something in the water Netflix's six-episode limited series landed October 8. Josh Hartnett plays a fisherman in a Newfoundland island town where an unidentified creature starts terrorizing the community. More on the Journal page
WHAT YOU MISSED IN SEPTEMBER
These went up after the September issue was sent.
What's opening this September, a stacked month for horror Pumpkinhead 2, Backrooms on HBO Max, the Resident Evil reboot, Parasomnia, Don't Move, and Family, across theaters, streaming and VOD. Read it
Two AI features, two rollbacks Google's Earth AI overlay and Instagram's Muse Image both launched and were pulled within days. A look at the pattern, plus a Waymo fleet update. Read it · Watch the Short
The Internet is Boring (or Web 1.0 is Still Alive) Web 2.0 is a repetitive scroll of the same bits, while a preserved galaxy of Web 1.0 is still standing and browsable. Read it · Watch the Short
The irony of being called not human by an AI Called a bot by readers and flagged as an AI narrator by YouTube, a human is still writing. Read it
THAT'S THE REEL
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