Channeling her inner McLuhan, Virginia Heffernan tells us that, for companies, user-generated content is hard work—you have to “scaffold the experience for the user so intensely.”

Amazing! During a recent lecture, pop culture speaker Chuck Klosterman is asked what he thinks about Snooki. It’s a random and oddly specific question, but Chuck is game: his answer encompasses a short history of reality television, a recommendation of David Shield’s 2010 book Reality Hunger, and a probing look at the concept of…reality itself.