https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674987692
Social media is no longer authentic so you’re seeing a slowly growing backlash against it.
https://seoulphilosophy.wordpress.com/2015/06/19/charles-tay...
When a new trends starts organically, it's all impulsive and genuine, then people start to profit on it and the game is over.
I think I have seen the same argument about anime conventions. The idea is that a trend starts with a small group of passionate people, as things get bigger and more popular, followers arrive. Followers are not really passionate, they just jump on the bandwagon, but will leave and jump on another bandwagon as the thing gets less trendy. With the followers come people who will try to profit on them since they represent a sizable market. Among the "exploiters" are former members of the original group, who see a find a way to monetize their passion, taking advantage of their deep knowledge of the field.
So the idea that "people start to profit and the game is over" is mostly right, but the dynamic is more complex than just having a small number of people ruining it from everyone else.
And it is not all bad. While the community is less genuine, it is also more productive, if anything, just from the sheer numbers.
I am among the ones responsible for that downfall. Simply, I moved on with my life, I stopped staffing, then I stopped attending, and so did the friends I made there, except for a few of them who somehow turned it into a job. The "new generation" is certainly passionate, but they have less to offer, simply because most of it is mainstream now. They don't have the budget for doing big things like the big commercial players, and they can't ignore copyright because owners actually care. As a result, their events are more like private clubs, for those that still exist.
On the bright side, we now have anime licensed and even produced in the west, we get to see major personalities, coming straight from Japan, and many things that were unthinkable when we started out.
And it’s basically just a natural and recurring cycle:
Phase 1: Novel thinker creates something new
Phase 2: Early adopters pick it up
Phase 3: General public joins in
Phase 4: Early adopters get crowded out by newcomers and turned off by lack of ‘authenticity’ and either retreat to obscure niches or leave in search of the next trend
The assumption seems to be that only the early adopters care, but that seems unnecessarily elitist.
Which means, that even if they only want to be companies, they (unfortunately for all) indeed are the "social media" in some sense. Sometimes even borderline with "essential infrastructure".
Nonetheless, they do. Medium is the message and all that.
What you describe is simply the nature of a trend, it's happened with everything from modern Occupy movements to the teachings of Jesus. Something original and authentic becomes stale after it's been repeated a million times over.
The problem is with trends themselves, the original idea is authentic, but then it passes like a wave in the frenzy of a "trend".
"The spectacle presents itself as something enormously positive, indisputable and inaccessible. It says nothing more than "that which appears is good, that which is good appears. The attitude which it demands in principle is passive acceptance which in fact it already obtained by its manner of appearing without reply, by its monopoly of appearance."
"False choice in spectacular abundance, a choice which lies in the juxtaposition of competing and complimentary spectacles and also in the juxtaposition of roles (signified and carried mainly by things) which are at once exclusive and overlapping, develops into a struggle of vaporous qualities meant to stimulate loyalty to quantitative triviality."
Do you personally think that is a good offer?
I genuinely think that the fact academic work is hidden inside ridiculously expensive books and publisher paywalls is a reason why some people have given up on trying to change the world. They literally can't afford access to the tools that will support them or they can argue against.
The independent researcher is at best five years behind current theories, and at worst dead.
It really is unfortunate though, that there are a great many books one can only get a physical copy of for many times what they originally cost.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_Genesis [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sci-Hub
Has it ever been? Well, maybe before it got called 'social'.
And I think it’s really interesting if there is really a social undercurrent, especially in new generations, that political and social engagement is futile, and instead people are trying to invent new disengaged futures.
It resonates with me, at least.
No, he just covered a general trend about authenticity and examples up to his time.
TFA covers the specifics of today and is about different aspects than what Taylor covered.
I don't even like texting. Email is a letter replacement. Call me and pickup when I call, or GTFO.
Faceblock, Twatter, Instaglam, Discard, Snapper, TikTak, LinkedOut can all listen to the flushing sound of me deleting their advertising monetization. "Buh buh all of your Ivy and Pac12 associations that made you look important on a résumé." Too bad, I haven't talked to most of those people in years anyhow.
At some point, I just want a private platform that is paid for using microcredits, no ads/data harvesting, requires verified named people with faces (improved communication quality), connections only stay alive if you actually interact with them IRL, doesn't automatically share everything with everyone in a single context, and doesn't promote dangerous behaviors for likes/shares. The only purpose of hidden rating tags (in lieu of likes and shares) should be that a viewer's own incoming content gets slightly prioritized. Oh and no instant notifications, no news link sharing/"retweeting", no messaging or chat (there's email), and a user only gets to look at it twice a day. Basically, solve many of the societal and social problems FB exploits and creates.
BBSes: Those tables of phone lines, usernames, and passwords.
Usenet: human conversations maybe decreasing, while data volume keeps increasing: porn, warez, and media IIRC.
IRC: important things still happen.
Just need a DMC-12 and a flux capacitor.
How many times have you googled an obscure error, to find no answers?
And then after some time... you solve it, and want to add a comment or make it easier for the next lost soul...and its non trivial.
I would argue for a large amount of problems that are interesting to people doing practical things, you want to allow drop ins to your community. How you keep the riff raff out is then unsolvable.
That's the one that made me laugh out loud.
And I don't think of it as a personal preference: async information exchange is objectively less intrusive, which is why it should be preferred when possible (which isn't always the case, because it's also objectively less fluent). Unless you are some girl I'm mindlessly infatuated with, I'm probably not waiting for you call all day long, so when you are forcing me to interrupt whatever I was doing, because you are calling to say something as simple as "so, you asked me about X the other day, the answer is yes" or to ask a simple question without any follow up (or, my favourite: a courtesy call with no actual information exchange): I'll be polite, of course, but I'll hate you.
If you want to ask or tell me something short: send me a text, I'll read and respond in 5 minutes, so that I don't have to interrupt what I'm doing right now. If it isn't short and you are too lazy to type: no problem, send me a voice-message. If you just want some chit-chat: ask me to go grab a beer (via text). If it's complicated and we'll need some back-and-forth, we should call each other, but I'll appreciate if you'll send a text/voice first, asking me to talk over the phone about X. And only if it's URGENT you call me right away. And because it's just sensible thing to do, when you are suddenly calling me, I'm already assuming it's URGENT: in fact, that's the only reason to answer you when you are calling, and not to call back when I'm in the mood. So when it turns out that it really wasn't, you are already an asshole, even if I don't show it.
If not: don't answer, silent mode, or power off, or appreciate human contact when you do. If people are "calling too much," it's because you failed to train them how to interact with you. And, now you're resenting their assuming it was okay because you were too "nice" to be honest. Instead of mind-reading, communicate (edit: communicate your preferences of communication) perhaps. It's probably you, not them. Sorry, bud.
Edit: Let's inquire curiously rather than name-call or get snarky, because that degrades the site and discourages understanding.
> Sorry, bud.
This makes you sound like a jerk.
I'll go again: there are 2 modes of interaction, sync for urgent stuff, async for everything else. If I'll go silent mode, I won't be answering ANY of your calls, even if you'll die when I don't pick up right now. You won't be able to choose between sync and async.
If I'm not in the silent mode: it's a courtesy to you, and you should treat it respectfully. Since I don't know if it's urgent when I pick up, I'm trusting you to make the right choice between urgent and non-urgent (because, again, if I don't trust you to make the right choice, you won't be able to interrupt me when you really-really, oh-god-please-make-him-to-pick-up, really need to interrupt me). If you abuse it, you are an inconsiderate asshole, and not a "cool social guy, who is fun to talk to: I must be, because I've never heard people say otherwise!" If you abuse it too much, I'll be forced to tell you that you are abusing it. Which is not a polite thing to tell, and can be considered an act of agression, which is why many (most, perhaps) people will be hating you with a smile, instead of telling you that. That's why they'll resort to a seemingly more polite, but actually less productive act of passive agression: they'll actually go into silent mode (maybe for your phone number selectively) and you won't have a choice between sync and async anymore.
And, let's be clear: everybody (me included) wants their emails, calls, texts, anything to be answered immediately. The fact is that it's not always convenient for the other guy because he has both other texts/emails/calls, and unless he is a sales agent, also has stuff to do besides talking to phone (actually, no: even sales agents aren't on the phone 24/7). Ignoring that simple fact is being an asshole, not a custodian of "nearly forgotten the true and only art of real™ human interaction". Sorry, bud.
I wish voice messages were more common though. In iMessage you could simply place your phone near your ear and start talking to send a voice message. I don’t see many people use that or even aware of that.
Those aren’t what is keeping iMessage memos from being used however they frustrate me as I have gotten used to Otter.ai and Telegram years earlier.
At least, in my limited experience.
Now, if I turn on notifications I realize just how annoying and distracting they can be.
I also block any phone calls that aren’t on my contact list. Others can leave a message.
Best thing I’ve done for my mental health.
I want to be able to indicate my availability or lack thereof to any of my regular contacts before they send a message, indicate how urgent a message is when sending it, and control what level of urgency triggers a notification (with an option to put urgency limits on specific contacts if they misuse it).
I want to be able to pre-notify all senders that I won't be replying quickly so there's no confusion. In an ideal world, I could set this in one place on my phone or desktop and the 8 different chat apps I use would all get respect it. Of course SMS can't support it, but nobody who has anything important to say to me would send me an SMS.
And I'm just as annoyed when someone keeps sending me texts when a 5 minute call would have been far more efficient. If we have sent more than 3 back and forths in text, it's time to switch to a call.
For me, the twenty-somethings are terrible about this. They are just absolutely allergic to voice communication.
Your idea of efficient may vastly differ from someone else's.
On the flipside, text-only conversation often simply doesn't include that nuance at all. I can't count the number of times I've completely misunderstood someone's tone over text when it would have been blindingly obvious over voice. Key and Peele even did a skit about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naleynXS7yo
Voice and text have different strengths and weaknesses as communications media. Both are appropriate in different situations. I will admit, however, to being somewhat "allergic" (as another commenter put it) to voice, probably to an unreasonable extent, because I selfishly value my ability to focus on what I'm doing right now instead of giving it to someone else for a couple of minutes.
But at the same time, I've often found that someone older who didn't grow up with easy text-based communication will use a phone call when a text would have been more than sufficient, and this can be quite irritating at times. I suspect it's in reaction to this that younger people tend to avoid voice communication even when it would probably be a better choice.
The other problem is that "voice" is social interaction--text isn't.
So many people are stunned when I can call up someone professionally and ask for a favor and they're happy to oblige. To which my response is generally: "When was the last time you spent friendly time talking to your people?"
People are normally starved for interaction with people who give them friendliness and even a modicum of respect (Generation Text in particular is really bad about snark--newsflash: once you become 25 years old, only your buds think snark is funny--a lot of professionals just find it annoying. Funnily enough, if you're really good at returning snark, Generation Text finds it equally annoying.). Covid has made that hellaciously worse--people desperately want to bend my ear for an hour or more when I have a 5 minute request. And I'm normally happy to let them.
I don't regard this as a "waste of time" as so many in Generation Text do.
What you really want is a secretary between you and everyone else.
Async communication by txt not only avoids interruptions to what Im currently doing (often difficult programming / analysis tasks) but also. with txt there's not the expectation of immediate answers like there is with voice. With txt I can reference material (code, results, calendar) and or think deeper about a response, consider angles and second order effects and THEN respond. This leads to much deeper conversations and more well thought out execution.
I see a call as rude generally, because what its saying is "Stop what you are doing, give me all of your attention and talk to me about my topic right now, and answer me right now" and 99.99999% of the time, nothing is that urgent
What about the human on the other end of that call. They must always cater to your whims and requests?
Calling only when it's time sensitive and simply dropping a note otherwise is more respectful of the other person's time.
So it's likely a direct conversation would have NOT been as smooth, because I wouldn't have been able to state my thoughts clearly all at once, trying to satisfy the immediate responses that direct, realtime voice calls require.
I have also found that by not taking immediate calls then I dont get those annoying, reactionary type phone calls of people asking me things they:
- Could have thought of themselves had they stayed inside their own head for a moment
- Could easily type into google and get a faster answer
- Stopped getting calls from those people that fill their calendars and days with pointless busy-work, convinced that they are productive because of the noise they generate.
- My friends can type basically as fast as they talk, so there's not really a speed issue, the only person that still voice calls me is my grandmother, because she's too blind to see the mini keyboard
If you think that sounds rude and bad, maybe reconsider your approach to conversation when it's not face-to-face — because that's how it comes off to a fair slice of the population.
I like chat programs used as email - that is, non-real-time. I have lowered my anxiety a lot by realizing that texts are not realtime in my life 98% of the time, and to treat them accordingly: Checked on upon occasion. Don't stress about whether the person on the other end will be upset if you don't get back right away.
Planning something? Need someone right away? Set the expectation of response beforehand or just call them.
Textual for details, and not for human clarification. It's often a terrible idea to wrestle in emotional or clarification contexts without hearing or seeing someone else in realtime.
Attention is a finite resource that ought to vary with actual urgency; hopefully, with fewest emergencies.
I don't exist at your beck and call. Text me and respect that I have a life beyond hanging on the telephone, or I don't care to distinguish you from the billions of autodialers who are the only ones still rude enough to make such demands on my time.
BTW, cute misspellings. Little jugs got big ears, I suppose.
Well, no... but depending on context you might have to deal with it. Privately people can do whatever they want, in business, the customer gets to decide. I work as a consultant, if a customer prefer a phone call, then I pick up the phone. If I'm busy a co-worker answers.
In a previous job I was the customer, and I refused to do Skype meeting, because I didn't want to spend 10 minutes figuring out why audio wasn't working. If you didn't want to call me, then I just took my business else where.
I found most of my business communications naturally moved to email. The few hangouts seem to mostly be time wasters, people that reach for the phone before they start thinking.
How about a nice game of chess?
I wouldn't demonize the very poor as addicts; drunks, sure. A dry hobo is likely to whip your ass and mine at chess. There are a good fraction of sane, teetotaling, drug-free hobos who are merely poor and itinerant without magical bootstraps.
I love texting. And email is basically texting.
I'm thinking of getting one of those wrist phones so I can voice-text everything.
I'd be leery of "friends" who want attention and interaction on demand. Only my wife has that right.
If you're married, of course you should prioritize your immediate family - a lot of people get more distance on existing social relationships or lose track of friends at that stage of life for that reason. It's not really a bad thing, it is what it is - the loss of an active friendship.
MMMMM
I really hoped that Clubhouse would corral all the hardcore narcissists away from all other social media, but it's made them worse, they spend all their time on Twitter bragging about how they're on Clubhouse now. Pathetic.
Also the initial roll out allowed certain people to become pseudo super users who are leaders of many clubs.
Also, the follower count is still a huge metric. Even more of one because there is no like.