Yet, the hidden machinations behind everyone’s favorite social media and search platforms are engineered to exploit our primal instincts for validation, status, and mimetic desires (adopting or pursuing preferences and aspirations based on the influence of others rather than our intrinsic motivations), morphing into a manipulative force that feeds... See more
the internet era of culture is a contest between the old model of top-down elite tastemakers telling you what's good and the new numbers-driven viral creator ecosystem in which algorithmic feeds tell you what you like
we fucked up when we switched from excellent metaphors like web-surfing and hyperlinking and internet exploring and netscape navigating. We were voyagers. Now yall doomscroll. wtf is that. If you’re gonna face the doom, be a doomsurfer. a doomslayer. [BFG Division theme hits]
But if some shadowy global elite really wanted to keep a population docile, impotent, and entertained, what better tool could they ask for than the iPhone?