Severin Matusek

Perhaps one way to motivate and encourage regulators and enforcers everywhere is to explain that the subterranean architecture of the internet has become a shadowland where evolution has all but stopped. Regulators’ efforts to make the visible internet competitive will achieve little unless they also tackle the devastation that lies beneath.

Metaphors mixing mind with machine proliferate across pop psychology—not least in subliminal fan communities, where the videos are seen as programmes that can delete, rewrite, and generate new “programming.” That a behaviour can be ‘soft-’ or ‘hard-coded’ is useful shorthand for nurture and nature—programming from parents, society, and environment ... See more

Creator platforms algorithmically incentivize us to create at the pace Wall Street and the market demand. This is why we’re pushed to create more and more. Not because our audiences are asking for it. Not because the world needs more of what we have to say. Because we as artists, the platforms, and their investors desire, to varying degrees, growth... See more

To me, it’s very important to think about speculative fiction and worldmaking as two approaches for better orienting ourselves to the present, rather than conjuring escapist utopian futures that will never arrive.

As awful as all this is, the workarounds themselves are often delightful and clever, testaments to the wit and grace of marginalized communities. For example, sex-workers call themselves "accountants." Homophobia is called "cornucopia" and "LGBTQ" becomes "Leg Booty."

This creativity isn't limited to people I admire or agree with: anti-vaxers have a... See more

Whoever controls infrastructure determines the future. If you doubt that, consider that in Europe we’re still using roads and living in towns and cities the Roman Empire mapped out 2,000 years ago.

The way that we engage with media on the internet has become laden with fandom energy. All narratives on the internet have become subsumed under the umbrella of‘content’, no matter their scale or veracity. They all have the potential to gather lore, because they can all be read the same way—like fictional media franchises. Thisincludes everyday soc... See more