My Internet: Elamin Abdelmahmoud
My Internet: Elamin Abdelmahmoud
The culture writer and podcast host says Millennials are the boomers of the internet.
Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, written by Kate Lindsay and edited by Nick Catucci.
Most weeks, we quiz a “very online” person for their essential guide to what’s good on the internet.
Today we welcome Elamin Abdelmahmoud, a culture writer and host of the entertainment podcast Commotion. He is also the author of the bestselling New York Times notable book Son of Elsewhere. Elamin plays Halo while listening to podcasts, loves his wholesome For You page, and fears that if he made TikToks he would be a serial abuser of the Millennial pause.
EMBEDDED: What’s a recent meme or post that made you laugh?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: I CACKLED at this, because I absolutely am a “this is us” guy
EMBEDDED: What shows up on your TikTok For You page?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: I love my FYP. I have an incredibly wholesome FYP, to be honest. My FYP page is filled with stuff that is really nice.
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: Let me demonstrate. IN ORDER, these are the TikToks that came up first: a Dad Harmony video, which is literally just dads harmonizing with each other; Morgan Jay, an autotune comedian who fascinates me (exactly what it sounds like); and these lads singing at a bar. The fourth is from this account that lets strangers try their luck at a basketball shot. It’s nice!
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EMBEDDED: Do you make TikToks? What format works best for you?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: I don’t really make TikToks! I’ve made a couple, but the visual grammar is not intuitive to me. I would be a serial millennial pause abuser, for instance. I like watching TikToks but it’s not immediately obvious to me how I could make a good one. I don’t think it’s my medium. I did make this one, though.
EMBEDDED: Do you still tweet? Why?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: I will be the last one tweeting. First one in, last one out of the club. I can’t tell whether tweeting resembles my brain, or if I’ve adjusted my brain to behave like Twitter, but to me Twitter is still the platform that most mimics how disposable and ephemeral and passively amusing the majority of our thoughts are.
These are not the thoughts you develop into a pitch or a piece or a book—they are the interstitials, the lost-time thoughts. You fire them off, and you keep it moving. Twitter is an invitation to put those thoughts somewhere, and hang out with other people’s thoughts of the same nature.
EMBEDDED: Have you found any good alternatives to Twitter? Do you have on opinion on Threads?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: I was a Threads skeptic, but I do think it has solidified into its own tone and internal language. Compared to Twitter, it’s fairly earnest. But then again, I don’t think Twitter’s snarky environment needs to be recreated. Congratulations, Threads, for carving out a place in the ecosystem: Like Twitter, for people who sometimes check LinkedIn.
EMBEDDED: What do you use Instagram for?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: Checking in on friends. I really love Stories, I think it’s underrated as a passive vibe check on people you know—not even necessarily what they’re doing, but more so what news are they sharing, what’s connecting with them, what memes are they reposting, where’s their head at?
EMBEDDED: What types of videos do you watch on YouTube?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: It brings me no pleasure to report that I watch West Wing clips. Like… a lot of them.
EMBEDDED: Where do you tend to get your news?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: There are news apps and podcasts I check daily. News apps: I’m a subscriber to The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, NYT. I just got a Haaretz subscription to follow the war in Gaza. And I subscribe to a number of Substack newsletters.
Daily podcasts (I don’t listen every day; it depends on the topic): Front Burner, The Decibel, This Matters, Vox Today.
Other podcasts: Ezra Klein Show, Ones and Tooze.
EMBEDDED: How do you keep up with the online discourse? How important is it to you to do this?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: I highly recommend you find people who are more plugged in than you, then keeping an eye on what they’re talking about. I tend to be in the second wave of people who find out about a topic in the discourse, which is still quicker than a lot of people.
It is worth keeping in mind that for the last eight years or so, a direct part of my job has been keeping up with online discourse. So it’s important to me if I want to do my job well.
EMBEDDED: Where do you usually discover or learn about online trends?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: A combination of Twitter and TikTok! Mostly Twitter, though, to be honest. And it’s not because Twitter is a good place to originate trends, but it tends to have a robust snark culture that is always ravenous for something to pounce on. So trends come across my feed like that.
EMBEDDED: How do you find recommendations for what to watch, read, and listen to?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: This is the least glamorous answer possible but: find critics and culture writers you trust and watch what they’re talking about/what they’re writing about. I don’t even mean full-length reviews, I just mean if you follow a music writer on Twitter or Instagram, notice what they’re putting on their stories or tweeting about, etc.
This isn’t to say you’ll like all their recommendations! But you should pursue a contrast with their sensibility. Like you’re having conversations about the same things, if you will.
EMBEDDED: What’s something that you have observed about the online behavior of Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, and/or Boomers?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: Millennials are the boomers of the internet. They are constantly policing norms on the internet for generations older and younger than them, which strikes me as an exhausting way to live. Not sure where we get this superiority from, but we walk around like we own the place.
EMBEDDED: If you could create your own social media platform, what would it be like?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: It would be Twitter of 2015. So full of promise! And a shared sense of working towards a common, generally For The Best internet.
EMBEDDED: What are your favorite Substack or other independent newsletters?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: Heather Cox Richardson’s
EMBEDDED: Do you have any favorite media company newsletters?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: Politico Canada’s newsletter is great! Axios AM is great! Morning Brew is great!
EMBEDDED: What’s one positive media trend? What’s one negative trend?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: One negative media trend: these layoffs. They don’t signal a healthy short- or medium-term future for media.
EMBEDDED: Are you into any podcasts right now? How and when do you usually listen?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: Podcasts are my primary form of media consumption. I listen to a lot of podcasts. I listen in the morning, on my way to work, sometimes I listen for work. A couple of days a week, I’ll go for a long evening walk and listen to my fav. podcasts. I don’t want to overwhelm you, so let me just name a few:
The Ezra Klein Podcast – I think Ezra is trying to have evolved conversations in an emotional register that is needed right now. The topics matter, yes, but the tone is also a balm.
On Being - The greatest to ever do it. A whole podcast on the meaning of being a person in the world.
Curse of Politics – Canadian politics podcast! They curse, they analyze political strategy, they have a good time, and you do too.
60 Songs that Explain the 90s – every episode is a dive into the context of one song, and they all add up to explaining the 90s.
Sandy and Nora talk politics – great analysis of Canadian issues, social and political.
Honest to god, I could list more, but this is sufficient.
EMBEDDED: Have you had posts go viral? What is that experience like?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: I’ve had a few, but I’m perhaps most delighted this one and this one. Mostly because these two are just me sharing something that brought me joy and then people responding with that joy back.
EMBEDDED: Have you ever been heavily into Snapchat? Do you miss it?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: I regret to report that my Snapchat use commands the present tense. Controversial opinion: Snapchat is fine! Great, even! It’s nice because it’s ephemeral communication like the way most of our communication in life is.
I don’t want a permanent record of all the selves I’ve ever been, available at a moment’s notice—that sounds like a bad time. Snapchat is literally just: here’s who I am today, who will be tomorrow?
EMBEDDED: When was the last time you browsed Pinterest? What for?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: Oof. Tumbleweeds, buddy.
EMBEDDED: Do you have a take on Tumblr?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: Tumblr was a special garden that really allowed personality to flourish, and it gave birth to a lot of how we talk on the internet now, and I don’t think we give it enough credit for that.
EMBEDDED: Are you in any groups on Reddit, Discord, Slack, or Facebook? What’s the most useful or entertaining one?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: Most of my Reddit use is passive. Big fan of the Marriage subreddit and the TrueOffMyChest subreddit—oof!
EMBEDDED: How has using LinkedIn benefitted you, if at all?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: I get some work through LinkedIn—as someone who also freelances, I receive some assignments or speaking engagements through it.
EMBEDDED: Do you typically start searches on Google, Reddit, TikTok, or another source? Have you tried AI-powered search on Bing or elsewhere?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: I start searches on Google because I am old-fashioned. I haven’t tried the AI-powered search! I think it’s because my brain is trained on scanning for relevant sources, I want to do the work of sifting through for what I need.
EMBEDDED: What most excites you about AI chatbots and text and art generators? What most concerns you?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: I think what most concerns me is the implicit trust. I hear a lot of AI optimism which is fine, but I puzzle over the implicit faith that AI is going to feature prominently in news media. But so far the results are shoddy. Why are we so sure it can create analysis that compares to human analysis? What is going on there?
EMBEDDED: Are you currently playing any console, computer, or phone games?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: I am the worst Xbox user ever, in that I game probably a couple of days a week, but only ever play Halo! With the sound off. Quite often, it’s my podcast listening time.
EMBEDDED: Do any of your group chats have a name that you’re willing to share? What’s something that recently inspired debate in the chat?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: Heavens no! The group chat’s name is sacred.
EMBEDDED: What’s your go-to emoji, and what does it mean to you?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: I’m big on the Grinning Face with Sweat emoji. I love to smile but I am also slightly embarrassed at the condition of being alive. That’s the move.
EMBEDDED: Do you text people voice notes? If not, how do you feel about getting them?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: I receive voice notes more than I send them. My general feeling is they’re great, except when I’m at work and I’m around people, then I’m not going to get to your voice note for a while!
EMBEDDED: What’s a playlist, song, album, or style of music you’ve listened to a lot lately?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: I listen to a lot of country! I’ve been playing the new Waxahatchee song “Right Back To It” a lot these days.
EMBEDDED: Do you pay for a music streaming service, and if so, which one? When was the last time you bought a music download or vinyl record, CD, or tape?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: I have both Apple Music and Spotify! Apple Music for music, Spotify primarily for podcasts and smart speakers.
EMBEDDED: If you could only keep one streaming service for TV and/or movies, which would it be, and why? In general, do you prefer to get ads or pay more for ad-free tiers?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: Wherever Moneyball is. If Moneyball is on Netflix, it’s Netflix. If Moneyball moves to Prime, it’s Prime. I’ll pay to go ad-free.
EMBEDDED: What’s your favorite non-social media app?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: The games section of The New York Times app, baby! I think they should do two Connections puzzles a day.
EMBEDDED: What’s the most basic internet thing that you love?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: SNL clips on YouTube. Y’all, it’s a nice time, what do you want from me?
EMBEDDED: Is there any content you want but can’t seem to find anywhere online?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: Longform culture writing! Remember that? Look, I know it exists, but it exists in far fewer outlets than it used to. To me, this is deeply saddening. Part of the joy of the internet used to be the broad range of tones and points of view on the same story. It’s a shame that it’s harder to access that range now.
EMBEDDED: Have you recently read an article, book, or social media post about the internet that you’ve found particularly insightful?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: This conversation from the podcast Search Engine was really insightful. So is Naomi Klein’s book Doppelganger.
EMBEDDED: What’s the last thing that brought you joy online?
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD: This crowd singing “Cruel Summer” at the top of their lungs.
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