MK
@mkay
MK
When we dress to be photographed, we increasingly dress to be distributed as an image, and thus transformed into a kind of ad.
Dirt • Dirt | Substack
Flat is in essence a process of homogenization. Today it doesn’t matter where an influencer lives, because she dresses like she’s from the internet, and that’s all that counts.
Dirt • Dirt | Substack
2020 was the first year when streaming services overtook "family and friends" as the primary channel for music discovery, with over 62% of music listeners in the US naming DSPs among their top discovery sources.
Music Tomorrow • Towards Recommender System Optimization: Our Data Tool for Algorithmic Optimization on Spotify [Part 1]
Inexpensive and user-friendly digital tools for manipulating text, images and sounds — think Photoshop or GarageBand — have dramatically broadened access to the means of cultural production and blurred the lines between amateurs and professionals. But the question is not just how many people engage in cultural production — it’s how people engage.
... See moreRogers Brubaker • Hyperconnected Culture and Its Discontents
Some invest a lot of time and skill in crafting TikTok videos, but neither time nor skill is required. If TikTok “enables everyone to be a creator,” as its former mission statement proclaimed, this is because creative labor on the platform has been automated and deskilled.
Rogers Brubaker • Hyperconnected Culture and Its Discontents
In a way, recommender systems have become some of the most important opinion leaders in the industry. The same way a recommendation from a trusted friend can go a long way — compared to, let's say, an ad you see on Instagram — a recommendation from a "trusted" algorithm brings about a sort of post-social proof.
Music Tomorrow • Towards Recommender System Optimization: Our Data Tool for Algorithmic Optimization on Spotify [Part 1]
Anybody can speak, but in an increasingly saturated cultural environment, nobody may be listening. Gatekeepers may no longer control what gets published, but algorithms control what gets circulated. Who sees what — in the domain of culture as well as news and commentary — is governed by opaque and proprietary software.
Rogers Brubaker • Hyperconnected Culture and Its Discontents
Flattening and taste
The whole idea of social networks was networking : building or deepening relationships, mostly with people you knew. How and why that deepening happened was largely left to the users to decide.