MK
@mkay
MK
Part of the reason social media has felt even more “flattening” to one’s identity
Is because social media has shown its benefit towards economic mobility
You can’t sell 50 things. You gotta sell 1, really well. And when that “widget” is the self -> you gotta package it neatly
Reggie Jamestwitter.comFor most, the pleasures of digital cultural consumption are uncoupled from the exertions of curatorship. Today’s digital consumers are no longer being fed a limited diet of standardized cultural products, but they are still being fed. Consumption may be personalized, but it would be a stretch, in most cases, to call it self-directed — and it is
... See moreRogers Brubaker • Hyperconnected Culture and Its Discontents
On the old internet, you could show a different side of yourself in every forum or chat room; but on your Facebook feed, you had to be the same person to everyone you knew.
Noah Smith • The Internet Wants to Be Fragmented
Vigorously participatory curatorial subcultures certainly exist, but in practice, they require too much time and energy to have a broad appeal. People enjoy sharing their discoveries with friends, and they may at least occasionally rate and review items. But most people, most of the time, leave the hard work of curation to others — or to
... See moreRogers Brubaker • Hyperconnected Culture and Its Discontents
Flattening and taste
The flip side of that coin also shines. On social media, everyone believes that anyone to whom they have access owes them an audience...
Ian Bogost • The Age of Social Media Is Ending
Moreover, as the critic Rob Horning has argued with respect to TikTok, algorithms do not simply discern what we want and serve it to us; they train us to want what they can serve us. Successful platforms do not just discover what consumers want — they produce the consumers and the forms of consumer desire that they need.