Ernest Borowski
@bakblivv
Ernest Borowski
To step into the stream of any social network, to become immersed in the news, reactions, rage and hopes, the marketing and psyops, the funny jokes and clever memes, the earnest requests for mutual aid, for sign ups, for jobs, the clap backs and the call outs, the warnings and invitations—it can feel like a kind of madness. It’s unsettling, in the... See more
Mandy Brown • Coming Home
The word “essay” has a brilliant etymological journey. It is derived from essayer in French, meaning ‘to endeavour’ or ‘to attempt’ or ‘to do one’s utmost.’ An essay, in other words, is a humble, tentative effort. When we write essays we are simply trying to explain our thoughts, trying to share our feelings, trying to connect with others.
Will it be weird, to write this way? Probably. I’m tossing the same words into (currently) three totally different networks, each with their own affect and moods and characters of the day. I’m keeping my distance, such that I likely won’t hear the replies (at least, not with any timeliness) or see the ripples my words make, should they make any at... See more
Mandy Brown • Coming Home
Even when we live in cities, and no matter how socially busy we are, social media feels like a way to remind others, as much as ourselves: “Here I am! I matter!” And if we stop using it, we (or I) wonder if we might simply disappear into the forest, never to be thought of again
Social media is cooked
And so I remain at an unresolvable juncture: the intersection of the very strong belief that we must experiment with new modes and systems of communication, and the certain knowledge that every time I so much as glance at anything shaped like a social feed, my brain smoothes out, the web of connections and ideas I’m weaving is washed away, and I... See more
Mandy Brown • Coming Home
About the feeling of getting into social-media loopscrolling
Likes, comments, and shares almost completely boil down to a hallucination of action and importance. When we post about or reshare something that’s bigger than ourselves, we inherently feel we’re a part of it; that we’re actually aligned and/or part of the resistance. But unfortunately, unless your account has enormous scale (and even when it does)... See more
Social media is cooked
Only silence enables us to say something unheard of. The compulsion of communication, by contrast, leads to the reproduction of the same, to conformism:
So it’s not a problem of getting people to express themselves but of providing little gaps of solitude and silence in which they might eventually find something to say. Repressive forces don’t stop
Extinction Internet
Geert Lovink discusses the decline of internet culture, highlighting issues like entropy and platform dominance, while emphasizing the need for alternatives, degrowth, and a collective reimagining of digital spaces for a sustainable future.
networkcultures.org