The Year of Garbage Internet Trends - Vox
Even when the Internet appears to be nostalgically churning through the cultural past, it’s still hunting for “old newness.” A familiar video clip from 1986 does not possess virility; what the medium desires is an obscure clip from 1985 that recontextualizes the familiar one. The result is a perpetual sense of now.
Chuck Klosterman • But What If We're Wrong?: Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past
So there’s a weird thing going on where there’s abundance, and yet, at the same time, we’ve become really conservative about our own styles, because people fundamentally don’t want to adopt things that feel inauthentic to them, or will be judged inauthentic.
And because culture is so ephemeral, there’s just more stuff that people are worried that —
... See moreDan Frommer • How the internet changed culture — and what it means
Memes may dominate how we communicate online, but in the last few years, their rapid spread has also necessitated the birth of a parallel, shadow ecosystem, where the best ideas are paradoxically harder to find. Not everyone wants their ideas to go viral anymore. One friend writes a newsletter that he asks people not to share around. Another publis... See more
Introducing: Antimemetics (my new book!)
