Meg Pillow
LightNews LightNews
banner
megpillow.bsky.social
Meg Pillow
@megpillow.bsky.social
5.5K followers 1.6K following 3.3K posts
Writer | Dr. | Project Manager for Roxane Gay | Co-editor The Audacity | 🌈😷| Rep’d by Alyssa Jennette | Free Palestine 🇵🇸
Posts Replies Media Videos
megpillow.bsky.social
So about Sarah Kendzior’s suspension. I really would like for you to consider who in this moment has credibility, and who you should actually believe. Is it the folks banning Palestinians and trans ppl, or the scholar on authoritarianism?

As I said before, I’m with Sarah.
A screenshot of a post made Sarah on Substack: I was suspended from BlueSky for defending the honor of Johnny Cash. I wish I were joking. In early October, I referenced I’m the “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die” lyric of “Folsom Prison Blues” in response to a terrible Wall Street Journal article saying that Johnny Cash was uncool. I quote-tweeted the article and everyone understood the reference. There was no outcry. I stand by my assessment that Johnny Cash is cool. I do not like being the subject of so much attention, especially when I cannot see the discussion. But the BlueSky admins are now claiming that I wrote a post saying, out of nowhere, “I want to shoot the author of this article just to watch him die”. They are not posting a screenshot of the actual tweet, which shows that I am quote-tweeting an article about Johnny Cash, and that my post is obviously not a threat but a play on “Folsom Prison Blues.” BlueSky is lying and saying I posted this line on November 10. I did not. I posted it in early October, when the WSJ article came out. You can see that they are lying about the date from this page showing my last BlueSky tweets: I was not given any explanation for my suspension the first two times I inquired. Later I was told it was for the “Folsom Prison Blues” reference, and I asked for clarification but did not receive it. I thought it might be a prank until a reporter reached out this morning and confirmed it. BlueSky’s behavior is bizarre and unwarranted. I have lost access to friends and all my posts and photos. I am incredibly grateful for the outpouring of support here on Substack and also on BlueSky — though I cannot see it, because I am suspended. To quote another Johnny Cash song: "I ain’t never done nothin' to nobody/ I ain’t never got nothin’ from nobody, no time/ And until I get somethin' from somebody, sometime, I don't intend to do nothin' for nobody, no time." As for BlueSky… (image of Johnny Cash shooting the bird)
November 12, 2025 at 9:53 PM
megpillow.bsky.social
Did Ross Douthat make me decide in my middle age that the opinions of cishet white men are useless and irrelevant?
An image of Ross Douthat and a woman at a table with podcast microphones and smiling smugly. The headline reads “Interesting Times with Ross Douthat” and below it: “Did Women Ruin The Workplace?”
November 7, 2025 at 1:29 PM
megpillow.bsky.social
7 days. 29,796 words cut. 29,293 new words written. 175 pages revised. 19 miles hiked in the West Virginia wilderness. And a thousand thanks to @ellenweeren.bsky.social
for the most restful and productive residency of my life.

Brief thread:
Image of a backyard from the top of large stone step. Down below is a stretch of grass and then the tree-lined bank of the Shenandoah River. A bedroom with tall windows and curtains. To the left is a large wooden desk wth a lamp and laptop. To the right is a massive leather chair before a large bed with a massive wooden headboard and footboard. A close-up of the large wooden desk. It holds a lamp, flowers, drinks, rows of colored post- its, and laptop. 5 Adirondack chairs line the riverbank of the Shenandoah. Three on the left are brown. One in the middle is white. One on the right is tan. Trees frame them on either side.
November 5, 2025 at 4:48 PM
megpillow.bsky.social
I’m so very sorry. Josie was such a beauty, and I can tell she was beloved. Reminds me a little of my sweet Lucy, who passed in February 2022. She was so special to me. Sending you care and support.
A photo of a black and white dog, likely a terrier, with a bearded face and bushy eyebrows. She is sitting down on a tile kitchen floor like a good girl, waiting for her nightly treat.
October 24, 2025 at 2:33 PM
megpillow.bsky.social
Treating myself to sushi and the opera tonight. Yes, it’s grocery store sushi that cost $15, and the opera is this $6 copy of Carmen. I’ve never been to the opera live, but with this, I have a front-row seat at the Met any time I want. Pretty good for a single mom.
Image is the cover of a DVD copy of Georges Bizet’s Carmen, live at The Metropolitan Opera in 1989, starting Agnes Baltsa, Jose Carreras, Leona Mitchell, and Samuel Ramey, with James Levine conducting. The cover is held by a pale band; in the background, a cream and turquoise geometric patterned rug.
October 24, 2025 at 1:16 AM
megpillow.bsky.social
My mentor’s mentor died this week. I didn’t know Gurney Norman well, but I admired his beautiful writing and his tremendous generosity, which helped my mentor Frank X Walker become a writer, just as his mentorship did me. It is an honor to be one small part of their lineage of craft and mentorship.
A photo of the late, great Appalachian writer Gurney Norman. He’s sitting down in an office, with several shelves of books behind him. He is an older white man with gray hair; he is smiling and wearing glasses. He’s wearing a white shirt, orange sweater, and dark pants. A photo of poet and writer Frank X Walker from the mid-chest up. He is a Black man clad in a black sweater; he is looking to the left of the camera lens; his face is in repose, and he has his chin resting on one arm. The background is a nondescript tan or cream with what appears to be a doorway or break in the wall to the left of the photo. A screenshot of an article from Keeneland Magazine, winter 2019, about Frank X Walker, where it discusses his mentorship by Gurney: “More than any one person Gurney Norman is the reason I’m a writer. It was because of his class that I changed my major to English and decided to take every creative arts class I could get ahold of. It was because of him that I never stopped writing.” In turn, Norman effortlessly recalls the young student Frank. “He had a quiet, earnest presence in the classroom. His knowledge of his hometown and his extended family and his intense feelings about them were evident immediately. He had a fine writing talent, a strong voice, and I recognized how truly articulate he was with his rich mix of standard and colloquial and folk language. He was a natural storyteller,” said Norman.
October 17, 2025 at 7:56 PM
megpillow.bsky.social
Yes, in fact, we are!
A screenshot of the “are we the baddies” moment from That Mitchell and Webb Look where the men play Nazis and realize they are the bad guys of World War II.
October 17, 2025 at 2:47 PM
megpillow.bsky.social
So for everyone who has said that comparisons between HIV and COVID-19 are inflammatory and irresponsible, I’m sharing this new article in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine that does just that and finds some clear parallels:

www.ajpmfocus.org/article/S277...
A screenshot of article highlights: • HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 are preventable infectious diseases with chronic systemic impacts including immune system dysfunction. • Chronic inflammation, immune exhaustion, and accelerated biological aging are shared hallmarks of HIVI/AIDS and Long COVID/PASC. • Tissue reservoir persistence drives long-term damage in both HIV and SARS-CoV-2. SARS-CoV-2 mirrors HIV-1 in its ability to evade immune defenses and cause chronic infection. • SARS-CoV-2 -associated neurological disorders (SAND) parallel HIV-associated neurological disorders (HAND). • Both pandemics exhibit failures in global solidarity and reveal inequities in healthcare access.
October 15, 2025 at 4:43 PM
megpillow.bsky.social
A still from the infamous “my ex cheated on me so I fucked his mom” TikTok, which as you well know, means that you should be careful about what kinds of questions you ask because you got no idea how truly unhinged people are out here.
October 13, 2025 at 5:40 PM
megpillow.bsky.social
On October 17, one of my favorite people in the world is selling some of his incredible collection of vinyl, posters, and prints to benefit former Black Panther and political prisoner Dhoruba bin Wahad. If you’re interested, follow kingofthedancefloor on IG!
Image of Dhoruba bin Wahad, a former member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberarion Army and a former political prisoner, speaking at an event in support of political prisoners. More BPP members are behind him. Date unknown; the Black Panther Party was active from 1966-1982, and the image appears to be on the earlier end of those years.
October 10, 2025 at 2:13 PM
megpillow.bsky.social
Watching the financial gurus finally catch up to what us neurodivergents with solid pattern recognition skills have known since the beginning is really wild.

Better put down those chatbots and pick up some shovels because we’re about to get hit with a mountain of shit

www.ft.com/content/6cc8...
Quote from the attached Financial Times article reads: Despite mounting threats to the US economy — from high tariffs to collapsing immigration, eroding institutions, rising debt and sticky inflation — large companies and investors seem unfazed. They are increasingly confident that artificial intelligence is such a big force, it can counter all the challenges.   Lately, this optimism has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The hundreds of billions of dollars companies are investing in AI now account for an astonishing 40 per cent share of US GDP growth this year. And some analysts believe that estimate doesn’t fully capture the AI spend, so the real share could be even higher.   AI companies have accounted for 80 per cent of the gains in US stocks so far in 2025. That is helping to fund and drive US growth, as the AI-driven stock market draws in money from all over the world, and feeds a boom in consumer spending by the rich. Since the wealthiest 10 per cent of the population own 85 per cent of US stocks, they enjoy the largest wealth effect when they go up. Little wonder then that the latest data shows America’s consumer economy rests largely on spending by the wealthy. The top 10 per cent of earners account for half of consumer spending, the highest share on record since the data begins.
October 9, 2025 at 2:41 PM
megpillow.bsky.social
I read this with more than a little glee. It’s so nice to see the tide turning and ppl calling this garbage tech exactly what it is
Quote from the linked editor’s essay in n + 1. It reads: “Whatever nuance is needed for its interception, resisting AI’s further creep into intellectual labor will also require blunt-force militancy. The steps are simple. Don’t publish AI bullshit. Don’t even publish mealymouthed essays about the temptation to produce AI bullshit. Resist the call to establish worthless partnerships like the Washington Post’s Ember, an “AI writing coach” designed to churn out Bezos-friendly op-eds. Instead, do what better magazines, newspapers, and journals have managed for centuries. Promote and produce original work of value, work that’s cliché-resistant and unreplicable, work that tries — as Thomas Pynchon wrote in an oracular 1984 essay titled “Is It OK to Be a Luddite?” — “through literary means which are nocturnal and deal in disguise, to deny the machine.”
September 29, 2025 at 9:07 PM
megpillow.bsky.social
Something we are going to have to deal with at some point is that our country’s entire landscape - politically, legally, technologically, culturally - is the product of white men getting their feelings hurt.

www.wired.com/story/silico...
A quote from the WIRED piece that reads: “By daring to challenge the tech industry, Biden threatened the moguls’ business plans. Even worse, he hurt their feelings. “It’s impossible to exaggerate how offended they were,” says Nick Clegg, who was Meta’s president of global affairs until early this year. In July 2024, Andreessen and his partner Ben Horowitz announced that they would be donating their dollars to Trump.”
September 25, 2025 at 3:10 PM
megpillow.bsky.social
I disagree with this strongly but I don’t want to shame OP.

This mindset is what built the hyperindividualism that’s killing us.

We’re here to discover and learn, to make art, to help and love one another, to find meaning. Joy is an essential part of that but it’s not the reason for our lives.
Screenshot of a skeet reading “my problem with everything is that I know for a fact that the purpose of life is frivolity. It is to fool around & pursue joy.”
September 22, 2025 at 1:37 PM
megpillow.bsky.social
Mood
An image of a white car bumper and a bumper sticker. The bumper sticker is a black rectangle with a white border. On the left hand side of the sticker is an image of a smiling Grim Reaper holding a top hat. The bumper sticker looks like a ballot with three options and reads: Republican Party (box unchecked), Democratic Party (box unchecked), Funeral Party (box checked).
September 18, 2025 at 3:57 PM
megpillow.bsky.social
There is literally no better example of survivorship bias than this argument right here
This is the image often used to illustrate selection or survivorship bias: the World War 2 airplanes that returned from missions riddled with holes and the thinking that where the holes were were where the planes needed more armor. In fact, the planes needed more armor where the holes were NOT because it was those planes shot in those places that never returned.
September 5, 2025 at 7:47 PM
megpillow.bsky.social
There are over 4 million kids under 18 in my home state of Florida. If your response to this is “they’re getting what they’ve voted for” or “fuck them,” then I have some news for you about the kind of person you are
Screenshot of a headline: Florida Says It Plans To End All Vaccine Mandates: the state will be the first to scrap requirements that children be vaccinated to attend school, among other roads.
September 4, 2025 at 2:37 PM
megpillow.bsky.social
Sir, objectively, this is a wild thing to say lol
A quote from the article in Nature linked in the first skeet. It reads: “Using data to objectively measure societal events “is the new paradigm for studying human dynamics”, says Walter Quattrociocchi, a computer scientist specializing in complex systems at Sapienza University of Rome, who has studied the spread of misinformation online. The study focuses on “something that we can measure”, he notes. “So, it’s science. It’s not only speculation.”
August 28, 2025 at 4:53 PM
megpillow.bsky.social
Just gonna drop this little nugget here, in case anyone is still clinging to the absurd idea that leftists are at fault for the outcome of the 2024 election.

www.thenation.com/article/poli...
A quote from the August 22, 2025 article in The Nation. It reads: “Right now, voters see, feel, and sense a party that more aggressively opposes its own anti-genocide voters and a new wave of progressive, pro-Palestine politicians than the authoritarian regime in Washington. Martin and the DNC are part of the problem. It’s in their interest to change that.”
August 27, 2025 at 4:27 PM
megpillow.bsky.social
Just got this utterly gorgeous copy of @taylorbyas.bsky.social’s new book in the mail. Everyone should buy this. Happy Pub Day, my friend ❤️

Link in the thread!
Copy of Taylor Byas’s new book RESTING BITCH FACE, held by a pale hand against a leaf green background.
August 26, 2025 at 6:22 PM
megpillow.bsky.social
Oh look @jysexton.bsky.social it’s another case study
Screenshot of a new piece at Jared Yates Sexton’s Substack, Dispatches from a Collapsing State. It reads: Fascism is Impossible Without Active Denial: Authoritarians aren’t the only ones responsible for what’s going on. Fascists rely on people denying the reality right in front of them to consolidate power.
August 26, 2025 at 4:56 PM
megpillow.bsky.social
More firmly convinced than ever after reading this that Trump and the others in power are a private equity firm and the U.S. is Toys R Us
Screenshot of the cover of Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream by Megan Greenwell
August 17, 2025 at 1:26 PM
megpillow.bsky.social
Thinking already is a luxury good. We’re already here.
Photo of an excerpt from the guest essay “Thinking Is Becoming A Luxury Good” linked here. It reads: “But as new generations reach adulthood having never lived in a world without smartphones, we can expect the culture to stratify ever more starkly. On the one hand, a relatively small group of people will retain, and intentionally develop, the capacity for concentration and long-form reasoning. On the other, a larger general population will be effectively post-literate — with all the consequences this implies for cognitive clarity. What will happen if this becomes fully realized? An electorate that has lost the capacity for long-form thought will be more tribal, less rational, largely uninterested in facts or even matters of historical record, moved more by vibes than cogent argument and open to fantastical ideas and bizarre conspiracy theories. If that sounds familiar, it may be a sign of how far down this path the West has already traveled.”
August 10, 2025 at 2:57 PM
megpillow.bsky.social
Finally listening to @swordsjew.bsky.social’s newest as I drive back from summer camp drop off, and it reminds me why I immediately distance myself from ppl who call other ppl “demons.”

Read this excellent book so you can underarms the full scope of the demented batshittery we’re up against
A screenshot of Talia Lavin’s Wild Faith, audiobook version.
July 16, 2025 at 1:38 PM
megpillow.bsky.social
Imagine having so much money that you could solve childhood poverty or pay off everyone’s medical debt or fund a cure for cancer and you choose this instead
Quote from the referenced Gizmodo article. It reads: “Forget chatbots. Zuckerberg’s vision is much grander. He is betting that within a few years, AI will not just be answering your questions or writing your emails. It will be managing your schedule, anticipating your needs, running your home, helping you make decisions, and maybe even guiding your career. Call it Life-as-a-Service, powered by Meta.”
July 1, 2025 at 1:31 PM