Collin G Brooke

language can do so much to squash independent thinking, obscure truths, encourage confirmation bias, and emotionally charge experiences such that no other way of life seems possible.

There is a sort of magic that we are losing. If you introduce viewers to your private life, you lose the magic of distance that is core to charisma, this stardust you can never touch. There is a difference between being a godlike character and the illusion of a guy you can have a beer with. The sheer amount of access makes it less exciting.

it does involve a kind of close reading, a careful attention to the forms that organize texts, bodies, and institutions.

What we did not understand was that misinformation and disinformation was their business and that they had no intention of using us or anyone else to curb it. A low reliability score next to an article posted on one of the platforms from that website would be an impediment to exactly the sharing and enhanced engagement that the platforms wanted.

the life of thought, holding a position is like that: there’s a proper firmness of belief that lies between the extremes of rigidity and flaccidity.

The hijackers, Democrats and Republicans alike, have acted as if the idea that self-government depends on people being able to count on independent providers of information is a quaint relic and that the new media channels present new opportunities that creative political operatives must seize.

The reason why our pervasive cultural irony is at once so powerful and so unsatisfying is that an ironist is impossible to pin down.