internet culture

It is not a critical approach towards values, policy, nor the subsequent consequences of these artifacts. We experience our political landscape through the veneer of our “ discourse interfaces” (that’s a Reggie phrase) .

So I’ll end with a very weird question: What does slow AI look like? We’ve automatically assumed that the way we interact with it is instantaneous. Are we sure that’s right? Would it be interesting to be able to say to an AI, Look, over the next three or four months, can you give me some ideas about holidays in Greece? Do we want to make that decis... See more

“The culture” as a phrase, has been unfortunately hijacked by the artistic class to mean the byproducts of their creativity. But this is an incomplete picture of our culture. Culture is the difference between car-centricity and walkable neighborhoods. Culture is the values we place on our food system. Culture is the quality of our public goods and ... See more

The vibes are off, but they’re off fundamentally because they focus only on feelings and emotional connections that have already existed. They don’t provide or imagine pathways to new futures; they allow only for an understanding of what feels good or bad based on experiences that have already happened, things that have already been seen.

While seemingly open-ended and allowing for an infinite recombination of elements, the idea of “vibes” is reductive. It discourages the more difficult work of interpretation and the search for meaning that defines human experience. It diverts attention away from narrative and moral implications in favor of foregrounding the idea of affect as inexpl... See more

The social standard this culture offers is one of controlled, placated solitude. Its narrative often insists that you’re surrounded by toxic people who are trying to hurt you, and the only way to ever become the person you’re meant to be is to cut them all off, retreat into a high-gloss cocoon of talk therapy and Notion templates, and emerge a non-... See more

Instead of withdrawing, I encourage my students to dive deeper, engaging with platforms as if they were close reading a work of literature. In doing so, I believe that we can not only better understand a platform's ideological premises, but also the inevitable cracks in a rigid software logic that enables the surprising, delightful messiness of hum... See more