Severin Matusek

“You have to be embedded in the culture that you’re critiquing, in order to mirror the techno-dystopic landscape that we live in“ – Siâna-Leann Douglas

It used to feel really chaotic to me. I used to be like, how do we make sense of all this stuff? There's so much stuff. There's so many different moods, tones, attitudes, no cohesive narrative. But then once you get enough distance and look in the rearview you realize: that's a body of work.

the ‘collaborative play’ (as Default Friend phrases it in the above tweet) aspect of TikTok really becomes apparent.

This is tragic. The loss of friction deprives people of something crucial. What happens between imagination and creation is ineffable—it entails struggle, iteration, joy, and frustration, disappointment, and pride. It is the process through which we enact agency. It is how we make meaning and move through the world. To lose that, I fear, is to... See more

“Like we’ve created a really positive space on the internet,” Wylie added. How many people can really say that? A place where earnestness was a function not a bug, while managing to retain its cool. An almost impossible task, in other words, which Blackbird Spyplane continues to make look easy.

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All these points in AI’s favor prompt some nervous reappraisals. Essays that began in bafflement or dismay wind up convinced that the technology marks an epochal shift in reading and writing.