aron
@aronshelton
aron
@aronshelton


The landscape of information online is time-independent yet observer-relative. My interaction with content is shaped by my unique digital context – my online habits, frequented sites, and chosen links. This reminds me, in an unscientific manner, of Einstein’s relativity, where time and space are relative to the observer's position. The meaning and significance of online information change based on the viewer and their vantage point. No wonder the internet feels like a vast, contentious discussion space, with everything existing in all states and variances simultaneously. In real life, things change over time, but perhaps in the physics of the internet, it's all about the relational dynamics of data, defined by its current network of relationships and connections.
When I post online, I add basic metrics to track views. But I never know the contexts or the viewers. Suddenly, this information exists in multiple states of interpretation and misunderstanding, yet in a seemingly timeless way. It appears in various timelines and communities, creating different contexts and associations by proximity alone. This makes me think of information entanglement, where separate pieces of content, or even fragments, once removed from their original context, become intrinsically linked in the minds of others, existing all at once in myriad forms. The data becomes the medium. Like a quantum particle, understood only in layman's terms, it exists in multiple states of interpretation, misunderstanding, and relevance simultaneously, collapsing into a specific state only upon interaction (viewing, sharing, commenting, etc.).
Despite the presumption that we're each in our own algorithmic bubbles, served up bespoke content — when something strikes a nerve, our networked lives ensure the signal travels instantaneously. It reaches all. Sometimes: the good. Often: the bad. And most likely of all: the ugly.
Storytelling and Media Studies
I think maps and recipes are often good comparative structures.
A good map highlights where you’d want to go. You’ve seen the image of the peak of a trail and along the way it might highlight things worth seeing. Thus, it invites the hiker towards the destination. Simultaneously, it’s not as they say the “territory” itself. While some of us do enjoy just browsing Google Maps for fun, it’s not a replacement for the journey. Surprise is still necessary for a good and enjoyable hike.
A bad map doesn’t drag you in to explore it. It can also be too dense.
A great recipe shows you the food which is the end of your planned narrative. The ingredients are partly visible in it and the journey takes you through the process. A poor recipe is unable to foreshadow what you might eat and leaves out gaps in preparation such that the logic or plot of the preparation leaves you frustrated or lost (resulting in an undercooked mess).
Sometimes, a recipe might show you something that’s unattainable for an average cook, in the same way that a map might deceptively lure you into a direction with information and visuals that don’t match reality.
So, great (direct or indirect) foreshadowing and non-linear storytelling relies on:
Setting a novel, realistic, and clear future event
which from the setup of ingredients available at the start
leaves a viewer surprised in how the start gets to the unique end.
“So much of the beauty, so much of what propels our pursuit of truth, stems from the invisible connections—between ideas, between disciplines, between the denizens of a particular time and a particular place, between the interior world of each pioneer and the mark they leave on the cave walls of culture, between faint figures who pass each other in
... See moreWarm Cookies of the Revolution, needn’t say more.
“Vibes are like the sun: we know that they exist, but we can't ever look at them directly. Concepts like community, mentorship, love, happiness, culture, education, progress, and paradigms are similarly resistant to hard definitions. Like the sun, we can feel their warmth, see them skittering around the periphery of our vision...but most of us know
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