hyperreality
When you can pay someone else to deal with the grocery store rush, when you can buy access to a highway lane without traffic, when you can skip urgent care and book a concierge doctor, you’re probably not going to invest in improving our broken systems. You’ve, “found a way to route around collapse. Life still works, but only in zones that are... See more
We’re Desperate For Potency
we haven’t completely eradicated friction, only in small expensive zones
On the flipside of hyperfantasy, there also lies hyperreality. Borne out of our desire to return to what’s fundamentally human in the age of AI and our growing distaste for the distraction economy that’s predicated on entertainment imperative and seamlessness, we are seeking realness in what we consume and do. Honesty and friction triumph.
A humanism that responds to the collapse of Big Authenticity will be sexier . As Magdalene Taylor recently wrote, “Real things and actual human experiences are hot, even in the written form. They have a libidinal energy that’s been drained from us in the current technological era. And we’re going to want to get that energy back.”
Daisy Alioto • Yearn in Review
bringing back the full textures of living IRL, a subversion of everything the internet had bestowed upon us: immediacy, abundance, hyper-connectivity and entertainment
What disappeared along the way was not just trust, but also the micro-doses of potency that came from navigating everyday risk. Choosing a restaurant without a thousand reviews, booking a room in an unfamiliar city - these were small but vital leaps of faith. They required us to extend ourselves beyond certainty, and in doing so they injected... See more
We’re Desperate For Potency
The internet used to be an escape from reality.
Now, reality is an escape from the internet.
Earlier this year, Dirt contributor Michelle Santiago Cortés wrote about “yearnposting”, examining the trend of Instagram and TikTok content for people that “want to be devastated (in a good way).” These posts, “combine the warmth of a wholesome meme with the hope of a motivational post and the raw emotion of a trauma meme,” like a video by noted... See more
Daisy Alioto • Yearn in Review
What we’re starving for is intensity, and that’s hard to admit because it means the ease we’re so precious about has also made us numb.
We’re Desperate For Potency
What people really want is permission to feel and act in ways that ordinary life doesn't allow, and this is the right time to start pushing your experiences into uncomfortable territory.