The only ruling principle is the total absence of purpose or seriousness
Frustrated by a lack of work coming in, and seeing people with 1/100th of my knowledge, experience, and skill being lauded on LinkedIn and elsewhere, I complained to my wife. She said a bunch of things in return, but one of them was something along the lines of, “the thing you don’t realise is that people just want to be entertained.”
This ‘State of the Culture’ speech is very US-centric, but nevertheless captures something about the specific moment we’re facing. Not just a Thomas Friedman-style ‘flat’ world, but a flattened world. As Cory Doctorow says, it’s five giant websites filled with screenshots of the other four. When’s the resistance to all this going to come? Or are we too busy being amused ourselves to death?
Twenty years ago, the culture was flat. Today it’s flattened.
“Corporations didn’t intend to make the culture stagnant and boring. All they really want is to impose standardization and predictability—because it’s more profitable.”
I still participate in many web platforms—I need to do it for my vocation. (But do I really? I’ve started to wonder.) But now they feel constraining.
Even worse, they now all feel the same.
Instead of connecting with people all over the world, I now get “streaming content” 24/7.
Facebook no longer wants me stay in touch with friends overseas, or former classmates, or distant relatives. Instead it serves up memes and stupid short videos.
And they are the exact same memes and videos playing non-stop on TikTok—and Instagram, Twitter, Threads, Bluesky, YouTube shorts, etc.
Every big web platforms feels the exact same.
That whole rich tapestry of my friends and family and colleagues has been replaced by the most shallow and flattened digital fluff. And this feeling of flattening is intensified by the lack of context or community.
The only ruling principle is the total absence of purpose or seriousness.
Source: The Honest Broker
Image: Ted Gioia / The Honest Broker