Social Media = Sharecropping? — Regina Anaejionu

Social media is similar to sharecropping :

• We’re "renting" space on a platform we don’t own


• We’re paying for that space by becoming “the product” whose attention is sold to the highest ads bidder


• Our attention is also being usurped by the makers of the platform and what they’ve programmed their algorithm to show us, and


• Our data is being collect

... See more

That labor amounts to constant self-promotion in the form of cheap trend-following, ever-changing posting strategies, and the nagging feeling that what you are really doing with your time is marketing, not art. Under the tyranny of algorithmic media distribution, artists, authors — anyone whose work concerns itself with what it means to be human — ... See more

What’s more, nothing on social media belongs to us. Our art, our ideas and our relationships are reduced to data to be mined and exploited by tech corporations, sometimes even used to train A.I. models. We have no backups, either: Few people still keep address books or mailing lists, much less diaries or photo albums. When we lose access to social ... See more

“The stream has dominated our lives since the mid-2000s,” Caulfield says. But it means people are either posting content or consuming it. And, Caulfield says, the internet as it stands rewards shock value and dumbing things down. “By engaging in digital gardening, you are constantly finding new connections, more depth and nuance,” he says.