The Medium Is The Message

Human expression was perfected into pithy thought-capsules (Twitter, LinkedIn), glamour shots (Instagram), and performative soundbites (TikTok), all perfect carriers for human emotions and — most importantly — ADVERTISING, which we were also now expected to do, newly equipped with our “personal brands.”

The dominance of these formats and mindset... See more

What’s amazing is that things like hashtag design—these essentially ad hoc experiments in digital architecture—have shaped so much of our political discourse. Our world would be different if Anonymous hadn’t been the default username on 4chan, or if every social media platform didn’t center on the personal profile, or if YouTube algorithms didn’t... See more

.@jesslivingston’s blog post “The Sound of Silence” (2017) perfectly summarizes my frustrations and feelings towards social media. At some point, you realize there might be diminishing returns to being public which is an unfortunate... See more

At present, we seem to be suffering from a widespread failure of literary imagination. We have become worse at imagining the experiences of other people, less inclined to credit these experiences as being as valid and real as our own. Why is this? In part, I think, because of the methods by, and pace at which, we acquire our stories. After all,... See more

The largest companies today are obsessed with generating content in a completely de-ritualized context. But content always exists in tension with form. Ritual is the form we have abandoned in our relentless quest for content.