As someone with very little surface area with X, Instagram and TikTok, this all seems so profoundly stupid, but sadly with very real consequences through the effects on politics. I wonder what the future holds for democratic decisions when an increasing fraction of voters have such a low-quality media diet. Populists with dismal aptitude for actual governing are having a field day.
Concerning Larry Ellison - I believe what he's building could be much more influential in the media space than anything that Elon Musk has ever done. He strikes me as a highly intelligent, absolutely ruthless kind of person who is not given to make such stupid mistakes like Elon keeps on making in public.
I dont get why ppl say “I dont care abt privacy, I just care abt my own happiness” and then they dont engage in politics at all. Is it because they dont see the connection?
The flip side is that as a megarich guy, Ellison has a very material stake in the stability of the existing system, and he's not totally beholden to profitability either. Kyla presents Ellison as the problem, but he could just as easily be the solution as well. Hard to say.
That depends on what you’re referring to by “stability”. For example, one might say that we’re in an incredibly unstable time right now, but it’s an Excellent time to be rich, and the rich have somewhat unprecedented power to literally bribe the government. So it’s a balance between social stability and the power of the wealthy, and they seem to be willing to leverage a significant amount of social instability in order to gain more power. The equilibrium point is not located at “very stable”.
Great article as always Kyla! I loved your point at the end about focusing on the fact that this is a structural economic problem rather than just a media misinformation problem, and it’s never going to be solved on a case-by-case basis. I am once again convinced that I should delete my socials once and for all… maybe this time it will stick.
For anyone interested in learning about Larry Ellison’s media empire in much greater detail, check out the Drey Dossier (here on Substack).
Platforms will always inherently profit off of greater attention, but today, more than ever, I think there is an appetite and opportunity for a "good platform" that puts user health and true connection over ragebait and profits.
It of course won't be at the megascale of a Meta or X but there is still inherent value to sharing our stories with each other.
That was the “money quote” for me too. If only she were Elon Musk and could mobilize millions of followers, manipulate the algorithm and buy government regulators.
I'm quite concerned about the "delete your socials" advice. Seems like it has the potential to create adverse selection amongst the remaining social media users.
I was pleased to hear Morris (he of Strength in Numbers here on Substack), in conversation with Paul Krugman, say that he no longer does social media. Kyla is absolutely right that it's a structure/incentives problem, not a contents problem. Bottom line, however, depriving them the eyeballs is the only thing that will make a difference.
Love this as always Kyla. Maybe I'm overly optimistic, but I am surprised that there hasn't been a push already to formalise digital literacy education in High Schools / Colleges already. Not digital literacy like, how to use Microsoft Word, but exactly what you describe. Helping people understand media systems and how they've been warped, and what impact that has on your life. Surely that is the best education someone can have in today's world
This is the job of librarians and “information professionals”. As a specialized librarian who was once a public school educator, we need to be given more visible roles. I try to be an advocate for our services and profession both at work and when I’m off the clock. And because I’m a film and media librarian, I can’t help but share a new word I discovered from the new FX show “The Lowdown”: ‘truthstorian’. Everyone can be one. But you need someone to teach you a few things, and that’s where institutional knowledge comes into play.
I was going to add that my young kids (12-16) are way better at reading headlines and determining if articles are trustworthy, real, etc, probably because of people like you, than my mother. It's kind of appalling, but I'm thankful because she listens to her sweet grandkids better than her children.
From my experience, some schools are teaching digital literacy, but I'm not sure how widespread that is. I graduated from a good public high school recently (in the past 5 years) and we were taught digital literacy, but I do also think I had exceptionally good teachers
In Europe, at least one nonprofit is bringing working journalists into schools to teach media literacy to kids and students: https://www.lie-detectors.org
we discussed source evaluation using some of the methods on this site: https://guides.lib.uchicago.edu/c.php?g=1241077&p=9082320 and whenever we had to write a paper for a class we usually had to do "annotated bibliographies" for a handful of sources where we evaluated their reliability. also, most AP exams require source evaluation (e.g. mentioning how a source might be biased) in the extended response section to get full credit for the written questions. i distinctly remember that being a requirement for AP US History which is probably one of the most common AP classes across the country
i'm not sure how they're handling ai and bots though since that's become a bigger thing since i graduated
This is really cool - was there anything more pointed towards social media / news / information ecosystem that was more geared towards real life as opposed to a class? Like life skills, not history lessons?
(1) Read and reread history. Read a biography of Lincoln if you want to understand how a man of integrity holds a nation together. Hint: He does not do it by hating his opponents.
Read about how empires fall. Learn how authoritarians rally the populace to their side. I like Eric Hoffer's "The True Believer."
(2) Read the books by the authors Kyla listed in this article. Read Orwell's essay "Politics and the English Language."
(3) Read newspapers and substacks. Always look for buried ledes. Look for what is left out.
(4) Know and define your values. There is a lot of wisdom literature. C.S. Lewis' "The Screwtape Letters" is a fun place to start.
(5) Question political rhetoric. Is the speaker appealing to your emotions, or are they making cogent arguments? Do they repeatedly "other" groups of people as enemies. Are they accumulating power and lining their own pockets at the same time.
(6) Don't fall for arguments based on "whataboutism" or ad hominem attacks.
I can't help but add that the 'Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission" decision added another level of corruption to the information system, providing companies (or rather the individuals who own them) unlimited influence. These individuals, Musk, Bezos, Ellison, Murdoch and the like have the money to legally bribe policy makers and the technogy to spread their ideologies with bots and AI.
They influence legal and policy decisions, and democracy fades to whatever cluster fuck we are in now. Not a good look.
Wonderful piece. One thing that struck me: your hierarchy of information only includes digital information. So, e.g., there’s no mention of sensation or perception in the physical world—an important informational “ground” (in multiple senses) for most of us humans, and a key differentiator between us and bots (and AI, too, FWIW). Also, your structure implies a broadly inferential flow, starting from raw data and moving “up” toward understanding and wisdom. But that’s not how human thinking typically works in the wild. The data we find are, in part, a function of what we look for. Each of us is a constitutive component of the media we consume at every level and at every moment. Therein lies our precarity but also our opportunity.
Epistemic collapse is at the core of everything. Even reading this, I'm not sure what you do about it. Dismantle the social media companies. Turn antitrust on media. Tear up the telecommunications act. I doubt that's a day one agenda for a Democratic president in an optimistic scenario in 3 years. We should all lock arms and walk hand in hand off the platforms.
Kyla, it is easy to get on board with the message you are conveying, as you deeply understand both the issues and the severity of the challange. So what do we do about it? Who are the leaders fighting back, and how do we join in? Please keep up the good work. You are an amazingly good communicator. Thanks
Good outline of the problem. What would McLuhan say? Contemplating my social media experiences, I realized that the initial problem is that the "foreground" statements were divorced from any "background" content. This promotes a solipsism where the "background" is filled in by individual personal experience to create a wild narrative precluding any judgement of general meaning, just a transference to an object innocent of one's pre-existing dread or desire. Any path to meaning or wisdom is cut off, while scapegoats and fetishes thrive. Just turn off your TV. I'm surprised you didn't mention Noam Chomsky or Rene Girard. Thank you! So far, my meditation on these experiences is more limited.
Honest observation, as I am not a partisan. But almost all of your examples of people doing bad things are of those on one side of the political spectrum. I noticed this for each of the last several posts you've made.
It would be surprising to me if this were fully representative / the full picture of the sources of our problem(s). A general lack of examples of where folks on the other end of the spectrum might also be causing trouble in the body politic increases my skepticism of your broader conclusions. In case helpful.
There are no benevolent billionaires buying or owning media conglomerates who intend to let reporters be reporters. Larry Ellison has an agenda, it’s scary and he happens to be sharply right wing. Like Murdoch. Sinclair. Who on the ‘left’ is Kyla supposed to call out who also has the billions to impose their worldview? And the differences of that worldview on rights and corruption are stark (you won’t find anyone left of hard right publicly saying they don’t care about $50k bribes).
Having that much money/power is inherently corrosive to the human soul, ergo, there is no such thing as a good billionaire. People with an inclination to be socially cooperative (ie, most people) tend not to have the "Dark Triad"-esque traits required to amass that much ill-gotten wealth.
Thank you for writing this article, it’s one of those rare pieces that I feel like I can share with my close family members who may not agree with me on everything. If the US has one unifying thing right now, it’s either “the rent is too damn high” or “information sucks to obtain”. It’s kinda funny in a sad way that we can almost all agree that the thing that makes us not agree (social media, bot farms, etc) is a bad thing.
Odd. I just posted the following comment to your last newsletter, but it somehow seems to continue to be pertinent to this newsletter. So, I'll post it here, too ; )
Thanks for the excellent newsletter.
You cover a lot of ground, and I disagree with this and agree with that and I am not sure that I can recognize a consistent theme other than a generalized examination of integrity and performativity (two words that are difficult to define and are not mutually exclusive) and how they function in social psych that has become more unstable/less recognizable when influenced by that catalysts of tech-powered social media... which is all fine, as you, me, everbody are all molding something here that is as yet difficult to recognize with a progression toward completion... anyway, there were two things (one a person and the other a movie) that kind of kept rising to mind. One was Anne Hathaway and the other was Mickey 17. I like and liked Anne Hathaway well enough. Maybe never my favorite actor, but she has and still has a great deal going for her, which... good for her. But I guess I kept thinking about the short period in time when the social/media consuming public turned on her en masse (to some extent), for no particular reason... I am not privy to exactly why this happened, but it didn't have anything to do with some sort of ethical or moral scandal, and more to do with overexposure and maybe some sense that she somehow didn't quite deserve it (which is like, say what now?)... but it was that arbitrary turn relative to exposure that was bifurcated from reality, that maybe somehow manifested (more in the psychoanalytic sense between the latent and manifest content of dreams, and less in the sense of "new age" / self-help manifestation) in a form of aesthetic exhaustion on the part of the panoptic audience. This turn that sort of occurred against the singular Ms. Hathaway (which was just a bogus thing to happen to someone with a lot of talent, advantages and appeal, who seems like a generally decent person) seems to have not occurred yet in the current zeitgeist (that isn't a great word choice here, but I can't draw upon a better one) on a multiplicitous scale. Maybe the overturn of the govt in Nepal is a partial example. Maybe the current executive regime is another... though that seems something different especially in relation to the 2008 GFC and the actions and inactions following. What seems to come to mind that is relevant is Mickey 17. The film portrays a future world dystopia fueled by the illogics of our experience of capitalism in the present (arguably, but humor me). What generally occurs is a form of social tragedy (dystopia) that in its perpetuation becomes a farce... but as the film continues, all the characters mutually come to recognize the truth of the farce and, counterintuitively, that the truth of their experience is a farce and that it just simply becomes ridiculous to perpetuate the normativity the suborns it... if I am making any sense I guess I am really saying that the emperor has no clothes and that the structure that upholds the farce that s/he does is absurd... in both the case of Ms. Hathaway and the film there is a social rupture of mass illusion where multiple levels of audience just stop suspending their disbelief... while I very much doubt that this possible phenomenon of disillusion / demystification will occur in the form of the rapture that seems to have gained some traction, I am not unconvinced that this particular traction doesn't have inaccurate signifiers for a signified social sense of absurdity. This center doesn't seem to be able to hold, so maybe there will be a turn... I don't know, pure speculation, but if you watch the scene in Antonioni's Blow Up where the Yardbirds play the Ricky-Tick Club and the formerly sedate crowd goes berserk to obtain Jeff Beck's broken guitar... and when the protagonist of the film reaches the street with the souvenir and realizes that no one is pursuing it/him anymore, he just drops it and moves on as the bits of broken guitar signify nothing and have no use or exchange value... it becomes denuded by the lack of attention. Maybe this where we are heading? I don't know, but this overexposure we seem to be experiencing is going somewhere and I am somewhat optimistic that it will be a possible corrective (that will be very different than The Rapture), I guess... though it will take far more cooperation and effort to sustain than the Rapture narrative conveniently makes unnecessary... but what do I know? Thanks again and all the best of luck and skill to you
I do my level best to read “both sides” of most issues these days. Especially on Substack since it feels like folks here are somewhat less unhinged. Maybe that’s just because there are (hopefully) less bots here. Anymore I see articles talking about how this side or that side is calling for violence or what not. Each side seems to have decided that the other has declared “open season” or some nonsense. What I don’t see in my day to day life is people in public actually calling for violence and I live in one of the most liberal cities in America. Everyone I know was horrified by the death of Charlie Kirk even if they didn’t really like the guy. These platforms (X, Facebook, etc..) are selling not only attention and outrage for profit but a hallucination of reality that poisons us to what is occurring.
As a member of the boomer generation I appreciate this sort of analysis. The information / attention economy, the technology of bots driving attention and opinions, and the influence of investment and ownership wagging the tail of our discourse; these are fundamentals we need to understand.
The rapid evolution of information technology over the past 30 years has created a diverse range of understanding of its influence, between and within generations. We need this knowledge to be wise citizens, while being discriminating consumers of information. Thanks
As someone with very little surface area with X, Instagram and TikTok, this all seems so profoundly stupid, but sadly with very real consequences through the effects on politics. I wonder what the future holds for democratic decisions when an increasing fraction of voters have such a low-quality media diet. Populists with dismal aptitude for actual governing are having a field day.
Concerning Larry Ellison - I believe what he's building could be much more influential in the media space than anything that Elon Musk has ever done. He strikes me as a highly intelligent, absolutely ruthless kind of person who is not given to make such stupid mistakes like Elon keeps on making in public.
Simon P. agrees with Simon V.
(I am not a bot I promise!!1!1)
I dont get why ppl say “I dont care abt privacy, I just care abt my own happiness” and then they dont engage in politics at all. Is it because they dont see the connection?
The flip side is that as a megarich guy, Ellison has a very material stake in the stability of the existing system, and he's not totally beholden to profitability either. Kyla presents Ellison as the problem, but he could just as easily be the solution as well. Hard to say.
That depends on what you’re referring to by “stability”. For example, one might say that we’re in an incredibly unstable time right now, but it’s an Excellent time to be rich, and the rich have somewhat unprecedented power to literally bribe the government. So it’s a balance between social stability and the power of the wealthy, and they seem to be willing to leverage a significant amount of social instability in order to gain more power. The equilibrium point is not located at “very stable”.
Great article as always Kyla! I loved your point at the end about focusing on the fact that this is a structural economic problem rather than just a media misinformation problem, and it’s never going to be solved on a case-by-case basis. I am once again convinced that I should delete my socials once and for all… maybe this time it will stick.
For anyone interested in learning about Larry Ellison’s media empire in much greater detail, check out the Drey Dossier (here on Substack).
Thank you!
Platforms will always inherently profit off of greater attention, but today, more than ever, I think there is an appetite and opportunity for a "good platform" that puts user health and true connection over ragebait and profits.
It of course won't be at the megascale of a Meta or X but there is still inherent value to sharing our stories with each other.
That was the “money quote” for me too. If only she were Elon Musk and could mobilize millions of followers, manipulate the algorithm and buy government regulators.
I'm quite concerned about the "delete your socials" advice. Seems like it has the potential to create adverse selection amongst the remaining social media users.
I was pleased to hear Morris (he of Strength in Numbers here on Substack), in conversation with Paul Krugman, say that he no longer does social media. Kyla is absolutely right that it's a structure/incentives problem, not a contents problem. Bottom line, however, depriving them the eyeballs is the only thing that will make a difference.
You could just use an ad blocker.
Love this as always Kyla. Maybe I'm overly optimistic, but I am surprised that there hasn't been a push already to formalise digital literacy education in High Schools / Colleges already. Not digital literacy like, how to use Microsoft Word, but exactly what you describe. Helping people understand media systems and how they've been warped, and what impact that has on your life. Surely that is the best education someone can have in today's world
This is the job of librarians and “information professionals”. As a specialized librarian who was once a public school educator, we need to be given more visible roles. I try to be an advocate for our services and profession both at work and when I’m off the clock. And because I’m a film and media librarian, I can’t help but share a new word I discovered from the new FX show “The Lowdown”: ‘truthstorian’. Everyone can be one. But you need someone to teach you a few things, and that’s where institutional knowledge comes into play.
I was going to add that my young kids (12-16) are way better at reading headlines and determining if articles are trustworthy, real, etc, probably because of people like you, than my mother. It's kind of appalling, but I'm thankful because she listens to her sweet grandkids better than her children.
Digital literacy programs would also be helpful in the community, especially among the retired.
From my experience, some schools are teaching digital literacy, but I'm not sure how widespread that is. I graduated from a good public high school recently (in the past 5 years) and we were taught digital literacy, but I do also think I had exceptionally good teachers
In Europe, at least one nonprofit is bringing working journalists into schools to teach media literacy to kids and students: https://www.lie-detectors.org
Interesting! Very curious to hear what sort of stuff was being taught?
we discussed source evaluation using some of the methods on this site: https://guides.lib.uchicago.edu/c.php?g=1241077&p=9082320 and whenever we had to write a paper for a class we usually had to do "annotated bibliographies" for a handful of sources where we evaluated their reliability. also, most AP exams require source evaluation (e.g. mentioning how a source might be biased) in the extended response section to get full credit for the written questions. i distinctly remember that being a requirement for AP US History which is probably one of the most common AP classes across the country
i'm not sure how they're handling ai and bots though since that's become a bigger thing since i graduated
This is really cool - was there anything more pointed towards social media / news / information ecosystem that was more geared towards real life as opposed to a class? Like life skills, not history lessons?
Here’s an example of sample assignments using generative AI from the Office of the Superintendent here in Washington State: https://ospi.k12.wa.us/sites/default/files/2024-03/sample-ai-assignment-classroom-level-matrix-educators.pdf
What to do, some thoughts:
(1) Read and reread history. Read a biography of Lincoln if you want to understand how a man of integrity holds a nation together. Hint: He does not do it by hating his opponents.
Read about how empires fall. Learn how authoritarians rally the populace to their side. I like Eric Hoffer's "The True Believer."
(2) Read the books by the authors Kyla listed in this article. Read Orwell's essay "Politics and the English Language."
(3) Read newspapers and substacks. Always look for buried ledes. Look for what is left out.
(4) Know and define your values. There is a lot of wisdom literature. C.S. Lewis' "The Screwtape Letters" is a fun place to start.
(5) Question political rhetoric. Is the speaker appealing to your emotions, or are they making cogent arguments? Do they repeatedly "other" groups of people as enemies. Are they accumulating power and lining their own pockets at the same time.
(6) Don't fall for arguments based on "whataboutism" or ad hominem attacks.
Thanks for the thoughtful and profound analysis.
I can't help but add that the 'Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission" decision added another level of corruption to the information system, providing companies (or rather the individuals who own them) unlimited influence. These individuals, Musk, Bezos, Ellison, Murdoch and the like have the money to legally bribe policy makers and the technogy to spread their ideologies with bots and AI.
They influence legal and policy decisions, and democracy fades to whatever cluster fuck we are in now. Not a good look.
Keep up the good work
Wonderful piece. One thing that struck me: your hierarchy of information only includes digital information. So, e.g., there’s no mention of sensation or perception in the physical world—an important informational “ground” (in multiple senses) for most of us humans, and a key differentiator between us and bots (and AI, too, FWIW). Also, your structure implies a broadly inferential flow, starting from raw data and moving “up” toward understanding and wisdom. But that’s not how human thinking typically works in the wild. The data we find are, in part, a function of what we look for. Each of us is a constitutive component of the media we consume at every level and at every moment. Therein lies our precarity but also our opportunity.
Epistemic collapse is at the core of everything. Even reading this, I'm not sure what you do about it. Dismantle the social media companies. Turn antitrust on media. Tear up the telecommunications act. I doubt that's a day one agenda for a Democratic president in an optimistic scenario in 3 years. We should all lock arms and walk hand in hand off the platforms.
Kyla, it is easy to get on board with the message you are conveying, as you deeply understand both the issues and the severity of the challange. So what do we do about it? Who are the leaders fighting back, and how do we join in? Please keep up the good work. You are an amazingly good communicator. Thanks
Good outline of the problem. What would McLuhan say? Contemplating my social media experiences, I realized that the initial problem is that the "foreground" statements were divorced from any "background" content. This promotes a solipsism where the "background" is filled in by individual personal experience to create a wild narrative precluding any judgement of general meaning, just a transference to an object innocent of one's pre-existing dread or desire. Any path to meaning or wisdom is cut off, while scapegoats and fetishes thrive. Just turn off your TV. I'm surprised you didn't mention Noam Chomsky or Rene Girard. Thank you! So far, my meditation on these experiences is more limited.
Good insight
Check out The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff which focused on the financialization of personal data and info
Great book. Techno-Feudalism is another salient take.
Honest observation, as I am not a partisan. But almost all of your examples of people doing bad things are of those on one side of the political spectrum. I noticed this for each of the last several posts you've made.
It would be surprising to me if this were fully representative / the full picture of the sources of our problem(s). A general lack of examples of where folks on the other end of the spectrum might also be causing trouble in the body politic increases my skepticism of your broader conclusions. In case helpful.
There are no benevolent billionaires buying or owning media conglomerates who intend to let reporters be reporters. Larry Ellison has an agenda, it’s scary and he happens to be sharply right wing. Like Murdoch. Sinclair. Who on the ‘left’ is Kyla supposed to call out who also has the billions to impose their worldview? And the differences of that worldview on rights and corruption are stark (you won’t find anyone left of hard right publicly saying they don’t care about $50k bribes).
Having that much money/power is inherently corrosive to the human soul, ergo, there is no such thing as a good billionaire. People with an inclination to be socially cooperative (ie, most people) tend not to have the "Dark Triad"-esque traits required to amass that much ill-gotten wealth.
Brian Roberts would be a place to start.
Can you write an article about what we can do to fix this???
Thank you for writing this article, it’s one of those rare pieces that I feel like I can share with my close family members who may not agree with me on everything. If the US has one unifying thing right now, it’s either “the rent is too damn high” or “information sucks to obtain”. It’s kinda funny in a sad way that we can almost all agree that the thing that makes us not agree (social media, bot farms, etc) is a bad thing.
Odd. I just posted the following comment to your last newsletter, but it somehow seems to continue to be pertinent to this newsletter. So, I'll post it here, too ; )
Thanks for the excellent newsletter.
You cover a lot of ground, and I disagree with this and agree with that and I am not sure that I can recognize a consistent theme other than a generalized examination of integrity and performativity (two words that are difficult to define and are not mutually exclusive) and how they function in social psych that has become more unstable/less recognizable when influenced by that catalysts of tech-powered social media... which is all fine, as you, me, everbody are all molding something here that is as yet difficult to recognize with a progression toward completion... anyway, there were two things (one a person and the other a movie) that kind of kept rising to mind. One was Anne Hathaway and the other was Mickey 17. I like and liked Anne Hathaway well enough. Maybe never my favorite actor, but she has and still has a great deal going for her, which... good for her. But I guess I kept thinking about the short period in time when the social/media consuming public turned on her en masse (to some extent), for no particular reason... I am not privy to exactly why this happened, but it didn't have anything to do with some sort of ethical or moral scandal, and more to do with overexposure and maybe some sense that she somehow didn't quite deserve it (which is like, say what now?)... but it was that arbitrary turn relative to exposure that was bifurcated from reality, that maybe somehow manifested (more in the psychoanalytic sense between the latent and manifest content of dreams, and less in the sense of "new age" / self-help manifestation) in a form of aesthetic exhaustion on the part of the panoptic audience. This turn that sort of occurred against the singular Ms. Hathaway (which was just a bogus thing to happen to someone with a lot of talent, advantages and appeal, who seems like a generally decent person) seems to have not occurred yet in the current zeitgeist (that isn't a great word choice here, but I can't draw upon a better one) on a multiplicitous scale. Maybe the overturn of the govt in Nepal is a partial example. Maybe the current executive regime is another... though that seems something different especially in relation to the 2008 GFC and the actions and inactions following. What seems to come to mind that is relevant is Mickey 17. The film portrays a future world dystopia fueled by the illogics of our experience of capitalism in the present (arguably, but humor me). What generally occurs is a form of social tragedy (dystopia) that in its perpetuation becomes a farce... but as the film continues, all the characters mutually come to recognize the truth of the farce and, counterintuitively, that the truth of their experience is a farce and that it just simply becomes ridiculous to perpetuate the normativity the suborns it... if I am making any sense I guess I am really saying that the emperor has no clothes and that the structure that upholds the farce that s/he does is absurd... in both the case of Ms. Hathaway and the film there is a social rupture of mass illusion where multiple levels of audience just stop suspending their disbelief... while I very much doubt that this possible phenomenon of disillusion / demystification will occur in the form of the rapture that seems to have gained some traction, I am not unconvinced that this particular traction doesn't have inaccurate signifiers for a signified social sense of absurdity. This center doesn't seem to be able to hold, so maybe there will be a turn... I don't know, pure speculation, but if you watch the scene in Antonioni's Blow Up where the Yardbirds play the Ricky-Tick Club and the formerly sedate crowd goes berserk to obtain Jeff Beck's broken guitar... and when the protagonist of the film reaches the street with the souvenir and realizes that no one is pursuing it/him anymore, he just drops it and moves on as the bits of broken guitar signify nothing and have no use or exchange value... it becomes denuded by the lack of attention. Maybe this where we are heading? I don't know, but this overexposure we seem to be experiencing is going somewhere and I am somewhat optimistic that it will be a possible corrective (that will be very different than The Rapture), I guess... though it will take far more cooperation and effort to sustain than the Rapture narrative conveniently makes unnecessary... but what do I know? Thanks again and all the best of luck and skill to you
I do my level best to read “both sides” of most issues these days. Especially on Substack since it feels like folks here are somewhat less unhinged. Maybe that’s just because there are (hopefully) less bots here. Anymore I see articles talking about how this side or that side is calling for violence or what not. Each side seems to have decided that the other has declared “open season” or some nonsense. What I don’t see in my day to day life is people in public actually calling for violence and I live in one of the most liberal cities in America. Everyone I know was horrified by the death of Charlie Kirk even if they didn’t really like the guy. These platforms (X, Facebook, etc..) are selling not only attention and outrage for profit but a hallucination of reality that poisons us to what is occurring.
As a member of the boomer generation I appreciate this sort of analysis. The information / attention economy, the technology of bots driving attention and opinions, and the influence of investment and ownership wagging the tail of our discourse; these are fundamentals we need to understand.
The rapid evolution of information technology over the past 30 years has created a diverse range of understanding of its influence, between and within generations. We need this knowledge to be wise citizens, while being discriminating consumers of information. Thanks