What we're seeing is an end of the race to the bottom.
What's happened is that most of the major social networks only hire and promote people who make decisions primarily based on analytics. As a result these sites no longer have any real communities or organic content, and have been completely hollowed out by math-friendly refrigerator magnet... See more
There isn‘t a clean way to get around the idea that personal expression is always at least in part performative. Expression is partly fun because it’s performative.
It’s also not like this type of behavior is a new thing. There has always been the type of person who is performative of their own interests or pursues their work because of the kind of... See more
I’ve heard we’re all comprised of two selves: the experiencing self and the narrating self. The experiencing self submits always to our circumstances—it feels, needs, desires. The narrating self, meanwhile, is removed—it reflects, rearranges, regales. These modes of being may directly concern a way of living, like being present versus being... See more
"Life in the Instagram bubble requires a constant calibration of how it will be viewed from outside. That need to make life itself aesthetic, to ask, over and over “What will this look like in a square?” exerts a slow, constant pressure of its own." (Jacob Mikanowski)