THE BIG FLAT NOW: Power, Flatness, and Nowness in the Third Millennium
Flat is in essence a process of homogenization. Today it doesn’t matter where an influencer lives, because she dresses like she’s from the internet, and that’s all that counts.
Dirt • Dirt | Substack
MK added
This history of flatness is important because it shows that flatness has a history. The homogenization of Filterworld is not just a phenomenon of our own moment; it is a consequence of changes that happened long before algorithmic feeds and is just as likely to intensify in the future. After all, each time a…
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Kyle Chayka • Filterworld
Digital abundance is a mixed blessing: exhilarating, yet flattening and homogenizing. Culture is converted into “content” that blurs together as it flows through the same conduits and across the same interfaces in an endless stream. As we struggle to keep abreast of the accelerating flow of content, drawn by the perpetual lure of the new, we come t... See more
The vast interconnection enabled by digital platforms has ended up creating more of a sense of sameness than diversity. Users are subtly guided toward the same subsets of topics, urged on by recommendations that are designed not to serve their interests but to create profitable attention fodder to sell to advertisers. Instagram doesn’t care that yo... See more
Welcome to Filterworld｜Dirt
aron and added
In fact, for more than a decade before The World Is Flat, cultural theorists were already describing how globalization, particularly the accelerated version caused by the Internet, breeds sameness and monotony.
Kyle Chayka • Filterworld
In his book, Friedman wrote about various “flatteners,” forces that were knitting the planet closer together. Several of these were digital technology: affordable Internet browsers like Netscape; workflow software that enabled collaboration between international businesses and…
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Kyle Chayka • Filterworld
Flatness, like scalability, is efficient. The same culture flows through the same pipes to the same net-average consumer. But since when did efficiency become the sole metric by which we judge art? Filterworld represents the idea that the messiness of culture can be optimized and that only what is optimized for shareability is worthwhile. I disagre... See more
Welcome to Filterworld｜Dirt
Severin Matusek and added
The digital dominance of the 21st Century has sorted us into our own tailored versions of online reality, where we drown in ads and information. It's overwhelming, noisy, and ephemeral. It's hard to have a simple conversation, let alone align the globe on a future worth building.
cameronwiese.com • It's time to build: A New World's Fair
Keely Adler and added