Ben Serrette
benserrette.bsky.social
Ben Serrette
@benserrette.bsky.social
Fighting for Truth, Justice, and the American way.

IT Director for the Observatory on Social Media

https://osome.iu.edu/
https://benserrette.com
Reposted by Ben Serrette
We're wrapping up the semester with THREE OSoMe Awesome Speakers!

📅 November 12 @ 12 PM ET
Petter Törnberg, University of Amsterdam

📅 November 19 @ 12 PM ET
Michelle Amazeen, Boston University

📅 December 3 @ 12 PM ET
James Evans, University of Chicago

Register: osome.iu.edu/events/speak...
October 29, 2025 at 5:26 PM
It's been a long Monday, and somehow it's still Monday.
October 28, 2025 at 1:15 AM
I'm not behind at work this week. I'm just ahead of schedule on next week's stress.
October 23, 2025 at 1:48 PM
Being an extrovert with social anxiety is wild. I crave people, then panic the second I find them. Thank God for drugs. Prescribed legally, of course...

#mentalhealth
September 26, 2025 at 2:51 PM
Airports work not because of control, but because strangers choose to collaborate (and usually complain together).
September 24, 2025 at 3:09 PM
Good teams don't run on fear. They run on trust, curiosity, and shared purpose. Fear might get obedience, but trust builds results that actually last.
September 23, 2025 at 3:14 PM
Collaboration is king because dictators make poor project managers.
September 22, 2025 at 6:22 PM
Friday is the weekend's boss fight. Now is the time to use all those elixers you've hoarded over the week.
September 19, 2025 at 1:21 PM
#protip: Before you return your nice new TV because the HDMI eARC doesn't work, make sure that you're using a 2.1 HDMI cable.
September 18, 2025 at 11:54 PM
Mondays are the tutorial level for the rest of the week.
September 8, 2025 at 3:34 PM
Is it still a snack if it's the size of a full meal but eaten standing up in the kitchen?
September 6, 2025 at 2:41 PM
Friday's code: more bugs than features, but at least it compiles. Maybe I'll deploy before I head out. Try to make my Monday more interesting.
September 5, 2025 at 5:52 PM
Every project has a "quick fix" that lives in production for the next 5 years. If you're lucky.
September 4, 2025 at 1:05 PM
Every project has two codebases: the one in GitHub, and the one in everyone's head. Only one of them ever compiles. I'll give you one guess as to which one that is.
September 3, 2025 at 1:22 PM
Debugging isn't just for code. Broken CSS and broken communication both require the same thought process: what changed, what's the state, how do we fix it?
September 2, 2025 at 8:13 PM
Tech debt is like credit card debt. Except the interest rate is your weekends.
August 28, 2025 at 9:53 PM
Reposted by Ben Serrette
🚨 First OSoMe Awesome Speaker of the year! 🚨

📅 Sept 12 | 12pm ET
🎤 Patrick Warren (Clemson University)
📍 Zoom

Measuring the Impact of a Large State-Sponsored Narrative-Laundering Campaign: The case of the Storm-1516 attack on Zelensky

🔗 Register: iu.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
August 28, 2025 at 4:00 PM
Reposted by Ben Serrette
We’re kicking off this year’s OSoMe Awesome Speakers with Patrick Warren!

📅 September 12 | 12pm ET
🎤 Talk: Measuring the Impact of a Large State-Sponsored Narrative-Laundering Campaign: The case of the Storm-1516 attack on Zelensky

🔗 iu.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
August 27, 2025 at 4:14 PM
I like to think web development trained me pretty well for management. After all, both involve duct tape solutions and last-minute fixes.
August 27, 2025 at 12:41 PM
Burnout isn't solved by free snacks. It's solved by saying no.
August 26, 2025 at 10:33 PM
Reposted by Ben Serrette
Reposted by Ben Serrette
You can now donate to support OSoMe!!
osome.iu.edu/about/donate
Donate
Your donation empowers the Observatory on Social Media to advance research, education, and open-source tools that illuminate social media dynamics for the...
osome.iu.edu
August 5, 2025 at 6:11 PM
Based on taking my own advice from yesterday... I'm now incapable of reading anything that has a smart quote in it. AI slop is real.

Wish I had gotten there first for the easy money/clout. 😭
August 5, 2025 at 3:27 PM
My advice on detecting AI written content: Count the number of em-dashes (—) and smart quotes (’, “, and ”). MS Word might auto-correct them and you can always use HTML entities, but I can't imagine most people wasting time to copy and paste single characters you can't type with a keyboard.
August 4, 2025 at 3:35 PM
I feel like the problem with Trending topics on social media is that by the time I see that they're trending, the stream is already spammed with things like, "*logged on to see Hopscotch was trending*" and a bunch of crypto scams stuffed with the trending keywords.
July 29, 2025 at 3:17 PM