Saved by Joe Maceda
The Post-Reality Era
As the emotional texture of daily life is increasingly influenced by generative systems, people will lose access to shared context. Truth will no longer be a negotiation—it will be a feed selection. Culture fragments into narrative stacks, each optimized to reinforce a specific emotional arc: rage, hope, smugness, awe, grief, transcendence.
People assume that generative AI will lead to a tsunami of garbage content. I think the opposite problem is more interesting: what if you were drowning in amazing content? What if you’re so inspired and overwhelmed by awe that it’s stressful and addicting and life disorienting?
New Feelings is a column devoted to the desires, moods, pathologies, and identifications that rarely had names before digital media