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Liam Dillon
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@dillonliam

Liam Dillon

@dillonliam
Covering housing in Los Angeles and California @politico. DMs open; bsky.app/profile/liamjd…
Los Angeles, CA
liamjdillon.com
Joined April 2009
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  • @dillonliam
    Liam Dillon
    @dillonliam
    Aug 31
    Every story about a regular person losing themselves to the horrors of internet virality ends the same way..
    He also knew that there would be no coming back from it. “Those were my words,” he told me. “I said, ‘There’s no coming back from this.’ But I had to do it.”

Everything in Greg’s life had been leading to this moment: the Granite City factories closing; the stresses born from his medical problems and from being a single father; the lawn care work; the search engine optimization; the 100 million views. Greg was surrendering his life to YouTube and its algorithm, to what it indicated Greg should be.

“I had to become the third baby,” Greg said. “I had to turn myself into a baby.”
    For a long time, Tony was hesitant to lean into the hog stuff. It seemed crude. Off-brand. It was “nasty, locker-room humor,” he says, the kind of unvibrant masculinity the haters wanted. Only now that he’s broken the seal, Tony sounds happy. Maybe he should be. He says he was paid around $12,000 for the posts—not exactly Kardashian money but enough to cover rent and then some.

And yet: This was a chip that Tony could cash in only once. The “reveal” will not go viral a second time. There can’t be a second time. All of the comments, all of the cruel schoolyard taunts exploding in scale since the algorithm first chose him: This was the price for everything. Was it worth it?

Tony seems to brush my question off. Yeah, he says, he could have held out for $50,000, maybe even $100,000. But tonight, at least, those aren’t the numbers on his mind. “It felt really good,” he says, “to go viral again.”
    1
  • @dillonliam
    Liam Dillon
    @dillonliam
    Aug 31
    SB 1090, the @SashaReneePerez bill to temporarily ban 10-unit developments in Altadena's single-family-home neighborhoods rebuilding from LA's wildfire, passes Legislature unanimously. Background:
    Image
    POLITICO Pro: Senator narrows bill blocking dense rebuilding in Altadena
    From subscriber.politicopro.com
    10
  • @dillonliam
    Liam Dillon
    @dillonliam
    Aug 27
    Fascinating new @PPICNotes study found 2014's Proposition 47, which reclassified some drug and property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, increased California's street homeless population by 10 percent in the years following the initiative's passage
    Image
    The latest turn in Sacramento’s wildfire fight
    From politico.com
    4
  • @dillonliam
    Liam Dillon
    @dillonliam
    Aug 27
    Bay Area lawmaker @BuffyWicks' bid to advance a Los Angeles affordable housing development just passed the state Senate, leaving it an Assembly vote away from clearing the Legislature. Even though LA Mayor Karen Bass and others oppose the project they've not fought Wicks' bill.
    6
  • @dillonliam
    Liam Dillon
    @dillonliam
    Aug 27
    Gov. @GavinNewsom says home construction is up 59% in California It’s not!
    Image
    Newsom’s big housing claim is built on bad data
    From politico.com
    7
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