Future Tense Newsletter: The Great Real Housewives Emoji Debate

Sometimes, like a total eclipse, my two great passions--technology and reality TV--become one. It happened in November 2017, when, on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I cajoled then-Future Tense contributor Jacob Brogan into writing about the previous night's Teen Mom 2 episode. It grappled with a critical question: Is it OK to shoot down a drone flying above private property? The segment in question begins as (former) teen mom Jenelle prepares for her wedding to David, a very cool and normal dude who we will return to in a moment. David, stalking the property like an ornery bison, calls Jenelle, informing her that "some girls" were attempting to take pictures of the event before it began.