"We should always communicate with intention,... We should produce messages that carry a reality within them..." Yes, we should, but how is this any different from saying corporations SHOULD prioritize the well-being of their consumers and communities over short-term profit? In other words, it's easy to say what people and entities should do, but what they will do is respond to the incentive structures within which they exist. Until those structures are changed, all the shoulds in the world won't add up to anything.
yes very important distinction!! the ultimate goal should of course be building new incentive structures, but that requires intention in the short term. I meant this as the way we have of fighting back in this current moment, when alternative structures for mass communication are still lacking.
I think this piece misses a major mark: just because the creators may not have intended for it to have meaning, it doesn't mean it doesn't. Its audience surely attributes meaning to it, which is that of edgy, controversial entertainment. Users both a) are fed this contend and b) enjoy and consume it because they engage with it and the algorithm knows. There's a message in the piece that a viewer infers and co-authors, like with all media/art. Even if all the engagement this type of content gets is from disgusted and enraged viewers (which I extremely suspect is not the case), there's a message there. You yourself called it racist and this is something you know from engaging with it. For a lot of people this will be disgusting and reprehensible but for a lot of other people it is cool and edgy and something that speaks deeply to them, and these people are validated from seeing this type of content everywhere. In other words, I wish there was no message; this is actvely harmful.
The way this trend is described reminds me a lot of this video by Folding Ideas (https://youtu.be/LKp2gikIkD8), and how platforms have an incentive to support this virality because it keeps people (even small children) watching their screens, which means they're watching more ads.
One of the things I'm consciously trying to do these days is filter out consumption for its own sake - easier said than done, of course! When you start looking at content as a method to absorb ideas or concepts that are new to you or help you grow, it becomes easier to identify and filter out sources that give you nothing back in exchange for the attention you are providing.
I love the quasi exchange of views between you here and Erik Hoel on the semantic collapse (you both are two of ~8 substacks I read).
One of my own favorite depictions of a "simulacra" driven world is the satire novel England, England by Julian Barnes. If you and folks here are interested in a fiction treatment (written presciently in 1998) of what hyperreality can produce, then you'll find it in this novel. "Give the consumers what they want" as economic policy and profitable pursuit "as inspired by" actual art, history, and humanity.
The incentive structure will come from a new technology, or at least a new feature, which comes from effort & money.
80% of my group chats have moved to Signal. Obviously I'm not the only one. That's because the tech for Signal is better (encrypted, ad free).
Similarly, we all moved from Facebook to TikTok, because the Tech was better.
We need a "new" TikTok that focuses on Intention. Like, why are you showing me cat videos when I'm trying to learn Spanish right now??
These social media apps don't have sufficient technology to adapt to our different Intents as we scroll.
If they did, these outrageous garbage memes would shrink to a single news page & fade away. But it takes an app that pays better attention to your goals & commitments, and responds to them better.
It's just so wild to me that people make things with no message, their only goal being to go viral. What's the point of going viral without a message? Attention is nothing without having something to say. I get chasing money, but attention without a message is just a waste of everybody's time.
It's clearly filling a need for these people, as they're motivated to make their content, but I hope they find a more useful way to get what they're looking for 🙏
Sometimes the message is not having a message, right? Wasn’t that the cornerstone of movements like Dadaism? In some ways this feels like a modern (unintentional?) reincarnation of that movement.
Interesting perspective for sure. Brings more questions than answers, but it would make sense that people are rebelling against the commercialisation of the internet by making meaningless content, although I'm sure in most cases people would be unaware that's what’s motivating them.
True, but it’s almost more interesting that they’re optimizing for social inflammation/engagement at all costs and what that actually means. Every choice someone makes when curating/creating does represent intent and cultural context, and how you measure that is equally fascinating. This is a strange example, but I encountered a generative porn AI a while back, and it was interesting how it represented sexuality. It was effectively Kronenberged, having random extra limbs show up, inconsistent genitalia, but it was always smooth and glossy in those conventional porny ways. At the same time, it represented an amalgamation and aggregation of “sexy” data, as if all human sexuality online can be boiled down to just shiny lumps and holes. Yes, I’ll admit that it is all annoying and generally garbage, I also think most modern art movements are garbage, however I’ve always been taught that art is supposed to challenge your beliefs and this is certainly doing that.
In a world where people don't feel they can compete with corporate interests, they're left to optimise for social capital. After all, that's the commodity of value in this social media digital age of ours. Views, likes, and engagement are forms of capital, just not monetary ones.
I would agree that art is supposed to challenge one's beliefs. However, I feel that statement has been decontextualised. Sure, art is supposed to challenge beliefs, but for what purpose? For what reason would one want their beliefs challenged other than to communicate a point. To just "challenge beliefs" in the abstract with no clear vision seems like an exercise in confusion to me.
A lot of modern art is challenging to one's beliefs because it lacks clear messaging. A vacuum of meaning will always challenge our beliefs, but why bother challenging if there is nothing to be gained other than the challenge itself.
1. Social capital has always == corporate capital == political capital
2. Artists are contrarians, for many of them just being able to create debate and upset people is the point. I’ve attended many art classes, and “what is art” was often the core tenant of it in most academic circles, so I’m not relaying novel opinions here so much as regurgitating the academic art worldview (at least the modern art view) and how this aligns with that. That said, what you’re expressing about a “vacuum of meaning”, and the point of it - that’s exactly what Dadaism was and what it covered, and I know many people have written better discourse than I can about that already.
Well, I guess it just comes back to different perspectives then, doesn't it?
I have no doubt that art without a message is still art (imo), I just can't fathom the point of being contrarian for the sake of it, but I guess there is no point, that is the point.
And if that's what does it for some people, then good luck to them. But I would love to hear from the mouths of the artists why they create the way they do. Maybe it's a product of nihilism?
If life is meaningless, so then is art. Whereas I come from a more existential framework, imbuing my art with my own meaning, a reflection of my own philosophical stance on life.
Maybe this whole art debate is really a philosophical one.
What does any of this have to do with etymology, "Etymology Nerd"? Content creators should "stay in their lanes". Make a new channel or rebrand. Just my $0.02...you'll hate it. Well, bye
Definitely will have to give Simulacra and Simulation a read.
The fact that we're talking about this issue in the context of engagement almost feels on the border of the described "hyperreal" phenomenon. The platforms track engagement and reward it, so that's what the conversation centers around.
But by doing so the conversation seems to hop over the reasons for engagement as a metric, namely advertising.
I do wonder how the rise in AI slop will impact how companies decide to advertise and shift that revenue stream at all.
This trend seems to have parallels to the elsagate situation. Taking recognizable and marketable characters and then mass producing videos of them in vaguely or overtly fetish like scenarios. I don’t recall if racism was a part of the elsagate stuff or not but there’s a lot of similarity regardless.
an interesting read. but i do think that people using LLMS/ image generators isnt creativity because those models are trained on the works that get taken from real artists and writers, often causing them to lose their jobs. there is also no soul to it, but that is just my opinion. i do think it can definetly be a slippery slope to normalising ai in a way that replaces humans.
Well said, it makes me think how maybe we should be fighting against the social media algorithms that push this type of content forward, rather than the use of AI itself. While these creators might not realize it, pushing this content with these stereotypes is actually harming society, and the platforms need to do more to stop it.
and thus the real villain is rampant commodification of everything again
"We should always communicate with intention,... We should produce messages that carry a reality within them..." Yes, we should, but how is this any different from saying corporations SHOULD prioritize the well-being of their consumers and communities over short-term profit? In other words, it's easy to say what people and entities should do, but what they will do is respond to the incentive structures within which they exist. Until those structures are changed, all the shoulds in the world won't add up to anything.
yes very important distinction!! the ultimate goal should of course be building new incentive structures, but that requires intention in the short term. I meant this as the way we have of fighting back in this current moment, when alternative structures for mass communication are still lacking.
I think this piece misses a major mark: just because the creators may not have intended for it to have meaning, it doesn't mean it doesn't. Its audience surely attributes meaning to it, which is that of edgy, controversial entertainment. Users both a) are fed this contend and b) enjoy and consume it because they engage with it and the algorithm knows. There's a message in the piece that a viewer infers and co-authors, like with all media/art. Even if all the engagement this type of content gets is from disgusted and enraged viewers (which I extremely suspect is not the case), there's a message there. You yourself called it racist and this is something you know from engaging with it. For a lot of people this will be disgusting and reprehensible but for a lot of other people it is cool and edgy and something that speaks deeply to them, and these people are validated from seeing this type of content everywhere. In other words, I wish there was no message; this is actvely harmful.
The way this trend is described reminds me a lot of this video by Folding Ideas (https://youtu.be/LKp2gikIkD8), and how platforms have an incentive to support this virality because it keeps people (even small children) watching their screens, which means they're watching more ads.
yes there are so many parallels to Elsagate!!
One of the things I'm consciously trying to do these days is filter out consumption for its own sake - easier said than done, of course! When you start looking at content as a method to absorb ideas or concepts that are new to you or help you grow, it becomes easier to identify and filter out sources that give you nothing back in exchange for the attention you are providing.
I love the quasi exchange of views between you here and Erik Hoel on the semantic collapse (you both are two of ~8 substacks I read).
One of my own favorite depictions of a "simulacra" driven world is the satire novel England, England by Julian Barnes. If you and folks here are interested in a fiction treatment (written presciently in 1998) of what hyperreality can produce, then you'll find it in this novel. "Give the consumers what they want" as economic policy and profitable pursuit "as inspired by" actual art, history, and humanity.
do they get paid to do this? I don't see the point if they're not even trying to send out a message
yes they're making money off the reels bonus program
I thought deleting social media was going to he difficult, since I was basically raised by social apps, but honestly it was the best decision.
The incentive structure will come from a new technology, or at least a new feature, which comes from effort & money.
80% of my group chats have moved to Signal. Obviously I'm not the only one. That's because the tech for Signal is better (encrypted, ad free).
Similarly, we all moved from Facebook to TikTok, because the Tech was better.
We need a "new" TikTok that focuses on Intention. Like, why are you showing me cat videos when I'm trying to learn Spanish right now??
These social media apps don't have sufficient technology to adapt to our different Intents as we scroll.
If they did, these outrageous garbage memes would shrink to a single news page & fade away. But it takes an app that pays better attention to your goals & commitments, and responds to them better.
It's just so wild to me that people make things with no message, their only goal being to go viral. What's the point of going viral without a message? Attention is nothing without having something to say. I get chasing money, but attention without a message is just a waste of everybody's time.
It's clearly filling a need for these people, as they're motivated to make their content, but I hope they find a more useful way to get what they're looking for 🙏
Sometimes the message is not having a message, right? Wasn’t that the cornerstone of movements like Dadaism? In some ways this feels like a modern (unintentional?) reincarnation of that movement.
Interesting perspective for sure. Brings more questions than answers, but it would make sense that people are rebelling against the commercialisation of the internet by making meaningless content, although I'm sure in most cases people would be unaware that's what’s motivating them.
True, but it’s almost more interesting that they’re optimizing for social inflammation/engagement at all costs and what that actually means. Every choice someone makes when curating/creating does represent intent and cultural context, and how you measure that is equally fascinating. This is a strange example, but I encountered a generative porn AI a while back, and it was interesting how it represented sexuality. It was effectively Kronenberged, having random extra limbs show up, inconsistent genitalia, but it was always smooth and glossy in those conventional porny ways. At the same time, it represented an amalgamation and aggregation of “sexy” data, as if all human sexuality online can be boiled down to just shiny lumps and holes. Yes, I’ll admit that it is all annoying and generally garbage, I also think most modern art movements are garbage, however I’ve always been taught that art is supposed to challenge your beliefs and this is certainly doing that.
In a world where people don't feel they can compete with corporate interests, they're left to optimise for social capital. After all, that's the commodity of value in this social media digital age of ours. Views, likes, and engagement are forms of capital, just not monetary ones.
I would agree that art is supposed to challenge one's beliefs. However, I feel that statement has been decontextualised. Sure, art is supposed to challenge beliefs, but for what purpose? For what reason would one want their beliefs challenged other than to communicate a point. To just "challenge beliefs" in the abstract with no clear vision seems like an exercise in confusion to me.
A lot of modern art is challenging to one's beliefs because it lacks clear messaging. A vacuum of meaning will always challenge our beliefs, but why bother challenging if there is nothing to be gained other than the challenge itself.
1. Social capital has always == corporate capital == political capital
2. Artists are contrarians, for many of them just being able to create debate and upset people is the point. I’ve attended many art classes, and “what is art” was often the core tenant of it in most academic circles, so I’m not relaying novel opinions here so much as regurgitating the academic art worldview (at least the modern art view) and how this aligns with that. That said, what you’re expressing about a “vacuum of meaning”, and the point of it - that’s exactly what Dadaism was and what it covered, and I know many people have written better discourse than I can about that already.
Well, I guess it just comes back to different perspectives then, doesn't it?
I have no doubt that art without a message is still art (imo), I just can't fathom the point of being contrarian for the sake of it, but I guess there is no point, that is the point.
And if that's what does it for some people, then good luck to them. But I would love to hear from the mouths of the artists why they create the way they do. Maybe it's a product of nihilism?
If life is meaningless, so then is art. Whereas I come from a more existential framework, imbuing my art with my own meaning, a reflection of my own philosophical stance on life.
Maybe this whole art debate is really a philosophical one.
What does any of this have to do with etymology, "Etymology Nerd"? Content creators should "stay in their lanes". Make a new channel or rebrand. Just my $0.02...you'll hate it. Well, bye
Definitely will have to give Simulacra and Simulation a read.
The fact that we're talking about this issue in the context of engagement almost feels on the border of the described "hyperreal" phenomenon. The platforms track engagement and reward it, so that's what the conversation centers around.
But by doing so the conversation seems to hop over the reasons for engagement as a metric, namely advertising.
I do wonder how the rise in AI slop will impact how companies decide to advertise and shift that revenue stream at all.
This trend seems to have parallels to the elsagate situation. Taking recognizable and marketable characters and then mass producing videos of them in vaguely or overtly fetish like scenarios. I don’t recall if racism was a part of the elsagate stuff or not but there’s a lot of similarity regardless.
Good job
an interesting read. but i do think that people using LLMS/ image generators isnt creativity because those models are trained on the works that get taken from real artists and writers, often causing them to lose their jobs. there is also no soul to it, but that is just my opinion. i do think it can definetly be a slippery slope to normalising ai in a way that replaces humans.
Well said, it makes me think how maybe we should be fighting against the social media algorithms that push this type of content forward, rather than the use of AI itself. While these creators might not realize it, pushing this content with these stereotypes is actually harming society, and the platforms need to do more to stop it.