social media in 2026 and beyond
the new social is coming, and we aren't quite prepared for it
social media in 2026 and beyond
5. Optimization diminishes our humanity.
Our myopic obsession with efficiency and the optimize-everything (including our self) mindset forces us into consistent, productive, linear beings when in fact we are human because we are not. We need businesses to design for non-linear, non-binary, inconsistent, incoherent selves.
Our myopic obsession with efficiency and the optimize-everything (including our self) mindset forces us into consistent, productive, linear beings when in fact we are human because we are not. We need businesses to design for non-linear, non-binary, inconsistent, incoherent selves.
REPEAT: we are non-linear, non-binary, inconsistent, incoherent selves.
1. Original thinking begins at the origin.
As we imagine the future, it’s worth returning to the past—honoring the masters and elders, drawing from ancient philosophy and Indigenous wisdom, practicing age-old rituals, and seeing artificial intelligence as ancestral intelligence.
As we imagine the future, it’s worth returning to the past—honoring the masters and elders, drawing from ancient philosophy and Indigenous wisdom, practicing age-old rituals, and seeing artificial intelligence as ancestral intelligence.
The return to first principles!
this is not about anti-technology or anti-ambition. It is pro-focus, pro-intention, and pro-discernment in how we understand broader historical contexts and apply the affordances of modern technology and media to our own ambitions. This is a call to reclaim our attention as a finite, precious resource.
Matt Klein • The Art of (Attention) War
Understanding reality isn’t about infinitely chasing truth with our finite attention. It’s about understanding which worlds are becoming more or less consequential .
Matt Klein • The Art of (Attention) War
Much of today’s commentary now looks less like real cultural analysis and more like white collar fan fiction and conspiracy theories about what’s happening “backstage.”
Matt Klein • The Art of (Attention) War
social today
Right now, we are seeing IG and TT all being overrun by what can be termed as the intellectual influencers, all who are parading and shilling their expertise as a type of content to buy into. However, Reddit is the one platform that, given its veil of anonymity, preserves that spirit of community in the sense of wanting to help and offer guidance
... See morePerhaps being pointedly low-key on Instagram speaks to a different kind of hustle: the effort to escape the allure of the screen and build clout in physical spaces. Keeping your follower count down is its own kind of discipline.
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a new aspirational signal
The professionalization of social media itself is a big reason why accumulating tons of followers can now seem like a mark of bad taste. Whereas social media in the early twenty-tens tended to be a hobby or a personal passion project, today the relationship between follower and followee has become rampantly commodified. Personal social-media... See more
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Grace Clarke, the head of community at a large e-commerce tech company, told me, “Audience-amassing is actually no longer ‘expensive,’ a.k.a. hard or rare. It’s easy to game.” At the same time, users have been drawn to more individualized digital publishing platforms, ranging from YouTube to Patreon, where small and devoted audiences can congregate... See more
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We are just drifters on big social. It doesn’t quite matter as much who we follow there, but it’s in the niches, the smaller social platforms that truly reflect what we love to consume and are actively engaged in.