Another Four Miles

In her piece about Trump as a “podcast bro,” Tressie McMillan Cottom notes that “if you tune out their words (and who among us doesn’t tune out when listening to a podcast) you are still consuming the cadence and texture of the podcast bro style.” That texture remains the same regardless of the content or its political valence; McMillan Cottom like

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This contrast between the interactive content that “people crave” and the “traditional media” that has become outmoded has taken on a political cast since the election. In a New Yorker item, Joshua Rothman argues that “Democrats preach while Republicans riff” — i.e. Democrats operate like the nattering nabobs of traditional media while Republicans

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In the ambiance of simulated co-presence, all the isolates project their own terms of recognition onto the leader and pretend that they are somehow self-fulfilling. Meanwhile moribund politicians cling to “messages drafted by institutions” that “don’t rise above the sea of information.” They are tuned out because they have nothing of the livestream

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talking about A.I. and surrounded by amiable chitchat, I wondered whether, someday soon, conversations with human beings would be deemed lacking if they didn’t exhibit chatbot-like speed and responsiveness. Maybe there are some circles, in tech or elsewhere, where the quality of “the median conversation you can have with a person” is already measur

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