If I can suggest a slight reframing -- the early internet had a different culture. Everyone was pretty much anonymous, pretty media-limited (text-centered), and sitting in front of a computer was something you could do for relatively short, discrete times of day. So no matter what you did (or even who you were) online, you were still pretty well-tied to your IRL identity most of the actual moments of your life. You could BE a node in a network, but the network could never take over and flatten you; you retained a texture and substance and meaning that the network couldn't erase.
What's most changed between then and now is that everyone online is tied to their real-life identities, we broadcast in such detail and so many details of the world have been documented that Twitch "stars" have to disguise the angles of their bedroom walls or someone will Zillow their way to their front door, and of course people are connected all the time. Which means you're now a node in a network that's been almost completely flattened and absorbed into the fabric of the larger machine. The machine is a profit-driven attention-attractor, with algorithms measuring "engagement" standing in for cultural mediators.
The "culture" this creates is one in which everyone is raised to believe they want to be famous. The desire for attention comes first, the "how can I GET that attention?" question comes after.
This is the flattening. Earlier un-flattened nodes (people!) had an idea of who they were and what they believed and what they wanted to create and if they created it they might step back and say, Yes, I want to Share This. But the new rules reversed that. Now it's "I share therefore I am; holy crap I haven't shared anything, I feel myself disappearing, I must share something or I will not exist, here I'll throw some crap together that caters to the algorithms' biases for grievance, conflict, memes, and *other things its seen before*, and oh sweet relief I've gotten likes, for five minutes I'll feel less insignificant.
So has our culture changed? Yes. I'd say MORE STUFF in general gets created (now that "content creation" is a phrase even eight year olds know), but MORE OF THAT STUFF is just sound and fury signifying nothing -- a tale told by an idiot, you might say. And I'd say those among us who are still somewhat grounded and aren't primarily driven by attention-seeking, who are creating art because we love it and mean it, we are kind of lost in that noise.
But I'd rather be lost in the noise than get my soul flattened into just more hype for ad-inflicted eyeballs. You look at the people who are most successful at internetting, and it's pretty clear, no one wants to become that.
This is a very uncool argument, but: on the one hand I'm sympathetic because a lot of stuff is admittedly very bland, and on the other hand I'm a Man of a Certain Age who grew up in an extremely uncool suburb and hearing other people talk about boredom makes me feel like Bane? Like, the new and scintillating is abundant, but it might require some effort that's a little at odds with the promise of the internet?
"Back in my day" I was excited to be able to buy an album at Blockbuster Music that I read about in an issue of Q at Barnes and Noble. My friends and I pooled money to buy overpriced anime at Suncoast. One Saturday afternoon one of our parents drove us into Houston to see Pi and we didn't shut up about it for at least a year.
Now I can watch a foreign gem like it's nothing. I can jump on Soundcloud or Bandcamp and hear a sound that has literally never existed before.
Maybe it’s because the two essays cited are more cultural critique rather than focusing on the actual technology underlying distribution methods but I was surprised to not see the words “algorithm” or “Big Data” appear anywhere.
When the primary funders of culture creation are driven solely by ROI and maximizing share value and the primary tools of distribution and discovery are powered by algorithms designed explicitly to give you more of what they think you like, nostalgia & homogeneity are unsurprising outcomes.
Mark Fisher has a great essay about contemporary culture’s “boringness”
“You could argue that the boring is ubiquitous. For the most part, we’ve given up any expectation of being surprised by culture — and that goes for “experimental” culture as much as popular culture. Whether it is music that sounds like it could have come out twenty, thirty, forty years ago, Hollywood blockbusters that recycle and reboot concepts, characters and tropes that were exhausted long ago, or the tired gestures of so much contemporary art, the boring is everywhere. It is just that no one is bored — because there is no longer any subject capable of being bored. For boredom is a state of absorption — a state of high absorption, in fact, which is why it is such an oppressive feeling. Boredom consumes our being; we feel we will never escape it. But it is just this capacity for absorption that is now under attack, as a result of the constant dispersal of attention, which is integral to capitalist cyberspace. If boredom is a form of empty absorption, then more positive forms of absorption effectively counter it. But it is these forms of absorption which capitalism cannot deliver. Instead of absorbing us, it distracts from the boring.
Perhaps the feeling most characteristic of our current moment is a mixture of boredom and compulsion. Even though we recognise that they are boring, we nevertheless feel compelled to do yet another Facebook quiz, to read yet another Buzzfeed list, to click on some celebrity gossip about someone we don’t even remotely care about. We endlessly move among the boring, but our nervous systems are so overstimulated that we never have the luxury of feeling bored. No one is bored, everything is boring.”
I think it comes down to oversaturation. In years past, entertainment and celebrity culture were seen as almost a higher power. Elusive, mysterious. You savoured any drop you got of it.
Now, with social media, everyone's 'real life' identity is tied to their online identity. It's easier than ever for people to churn out content (I'm aware of the irony of me having a substack), and for celebrities to be in our lives 24/7. Everyone has a mouth piece now, and it's getting too much in many ways.
So sorry I missed this until this moment! Thanks so much for the notice! FWIW we made our own tiny response to the current installment of the perennial boredom debate. It's a niche objection, but out of the gate I would object to any claim that starts with audience as the determinant of art. We can make it harder or easier to make or find art, but art ultimately comes from within. When it's reduced to its commercial determinants the spirit has left the building. Call me old fashioned … https://twitter.com/BookPostUSA/status/1567219470271238163
Here's a thought and it ties back to a psychological theory called the paradox of choice. In a nutshell, having too much choice may reduce happiness and increase anxiety because it forces a person to make more decisions. Could also lead to FOMO, but that's my suggestion. People may be seeking the familiar and conformity because it's an easier choice plus there is reinforcement arising from knowing that it's culturally acceptable.
I do find the idea of cultural sophistication no longer leading upward mobility to be quite plausible, too.
the thing I found most odd about the viral Hot Ones clip of Matt Damon lamenting no one buying DVDs anymore is that no one sharing it seemed to see themselves as part of their own problem.... which is kinda the way i feel when i hear people like Goldberg talk about how "bored" they are with "The Culture"...
Yes it did - or at least it fundamentally changed it, but I don't know how something like the internet could NOT have affected culture. Enjoyed the essay!
If I can suggest a slight reframing -- the early internet had a different culture. Everyone was pretty much anonymous, pretty media-limited (text-centered), and sitting in front of a computer was something you could do for relatively short, discrete times of day. So no matter what you did (or even who you were) online, you were still pretty well-tied to your IRL identity most of the actual moments of your life. You could BE a node in a network, but the network could never take over and flatten you; you retained a texture and substance and meaning that the network couldn't erase.
What's most changed between then and now is that everyone online is tied to their real-life identities, we broadcast in such detail and so many details of the world have been documented that Twitch "stars" have to disguise the angles of their bedroom walls or someone will Zillow their way to their front door, and of course people are connected all the time. Which means you're now a node in a network that's been almost completely flattened and absorbed into the fabric of the larger machine. The machine is a profit-driven attention-attractor, with algorithms measuring "engagement" standing in for cultural mediators.
The "culture" this creates is one in which everyone is raised to believe they want to be famous. The desire for attention comes first, the "how can I GET that attention?" question comes after.
This is the flattening. Earlier un-flattened nodes (people!) had an idea of who they were and what they believed and what they wanted to create and if they created it they might step back and say, Yes, I want to Share This. But the new rules reversed that. Now it's "I share therefore I am; holy crap I haven't shared anything, I feel myself disappearing, I must share something or I will not exist, here I'll throw some crap together that caters to the algorithms' biases for grievance, conflict, memes, and *other things its seen before*, and oh sweet relief I've gotten likes, for five minutes I'll feel less insignificant.
So has our culture changed? Yes. I'd say MORE STUFF in general gets created (now that "content creation" is a phrase even eight year olds know), but MORE OF THAT STUFF is just sound and fury signifying nothing -- a tale told by an idiot, you might say. And I'd say those among us who are still somewhat grounded and aren't primarily driven by attention-seeking, who are creating art because we love it and mean it, we are kind of lost in that noise.
But I'd rather be lost in the noise than get my soul flattened into just more hype for ad-inflicted eyeballs. You look at the people who are most successful at internetting, and it's pretty clear, no one wants to become that.
This is a very uncool argument, but: on the one hand I'm sympathetic because a lot of stuff is admittedly very bland, and on the other hand I'm a Man of a Certain Age who grew up in an extremely uncool suburb and hearing other people talk about boredom makes me feel like Bane? Like, the new and scintillating is abundant, but it might require some effort that's a little at odds with the promise of the internet?
"Back in my day" I was excited to be able to buy an album at Blockbuster Music that I read about in an issue of Q at Barnes and Noble. My friends and I pooled money to buy overpriced anime at Suncoast. One Saturday afternoon one of our parents drove us into Houston to see Pi and we didn't shut up about it for at least a year.
Now I can watch a foreign gem like it's nothing. I can jump on Soundcloud or Bandcamp and hear a sound that has literally never existed before.
Maybe it’s because the two essays cited are more cultural critique rather than focusing on the actual technology underlying distribution methods but I was surprised to not see the words “algorithm” or “Big Data” appear anywhere.
When the primary funders of culture creation are driven solely by ROI and maximizing share value and the primary tools of distribution and discovery are powered by algorithms designed explicitly to give you more of what they think you like, nostalgia & homogeneity are unsurprising outcomes.
Mark Fisher has a great essay about contemporary culture’s “boringness”
“You could argue that the boring is ubiquitous. For the most part, we’ve given up any expectation of being surprised by culture — and that goes for “experimental” culture as much as popular culture. Whether it is music that sounds like it could have come out twenty, thirty, forty years ago, Hollywood blockbusters that recycle and reboot concepts, characters and tropes that were exhausted long ago, or the tired gestures of so much contemporary art, the boring is everywhere. It is just that no one is bored — because there is no longer any subject capable of being bored. For boredom is a state of absorption — a state of high absorption, in fact, which is why it is such an oppressive feeling. Boredom consumes our being; we feel we will never escape it. But it is just this capacity for absorption that is now under attack, as a result of the constant dispersal of attention, which is integral to capitalist cyberspace. If boredom is a form of empty absorption, then more positive forms of absorption effectively counter it. But it is these forms of absorption which capitalism cannot deliver. Instead of absorbing us, it distracts from the boring.
Perhaps the feeling most characteristic of our current moment is a mixture of boredom and compulsion. Even though we recognise that they are boring, we nevertheless feel compelled to do yet another Facebook quiz, to read yet another Buzzfeed list, to click on some celebrity gossip about someone we don’t even remotely care about. We endlessly move among the boring, but our nervous systems are so overstimulated that we never have the luxury of feeling bored. No one is bored, everything is boring.”
I think it comes down to oversaturation. In years past, entertainment and celebrity culture were seen as almost a higher power. Elusive, mysterious. You savoured any drop you got of it.
Now, with social media, everyone's 'real life' identity is tied to their online identity. It's easier than ever for people to churn out content (I'm aware of the irony of me having a substack), and for celebrities to be in our lives 24/7. Everyone has a mouth piece now, and it's getting too much in many ways.
Too many cooks spoil the broth, so to speak!
So sorry I missed this until this moment! Thanks so much for the notice! FWIW we made our own tiny response to the current installment of the perennial boredom debate. It's a niche objection, but out of the gate I would object to any claim that starts with audience as the determinant of art. We can make it harder or easier to make or find art, but art ultimately comes from within. When it's reduced to its commercial determinants the spirit has left the building. Call me old fashioned … https://twitter.com/BookPostUSA/status/1567219470271238163
On a modestly related note, would be curious to hear your thoughts about PREY.
Here's a thought and it ties back to a psychological theory called the paradox of choice. In a nutshell, having too much choice may reduce happiness and increase anxiety because it forces a person to make more decisions. Could also lead to FOMO, but that's my suggestion. People may be seeking the familiar and conformity because it's an easier choice plus there is reinforcement arising from knowing that it's culturally acceptable.
I do find the idea of cultural sophistication no longer leading upward mobility to be quite plausible, too.
This was great. Thank you.
For anyone seeking entertainment aimed at adults, I recommend checking out the new Scenes From A Marriage with Isaac and Chastain.
as you predicted, got the letter at the end of my shift- just finished it after dinner
Enjoy the holiday everyone
the thing I found most odd about the viral Hot Ones clip of Matt Damon lamenting no one buying DVDs anymore is that no one sharing it seemed to see themselves as part of their own problem.... which is kinda the way i feel when i hear people like Goldberg talk about how "bored" they are with "The Culture"...
Yes it did - or at least it fundamentally changed it, but I don't know how something like the internet could NOT have affected culture. Enjoyed the essay!