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The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

coryzue.com

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Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#61

Post by wussboy »

Clubber wrote: post #52
daoboy wrote: post #24

This very issue is why I haven't had a social media account in years. Even something as benign as posting here on HN entails editing to avoid downvotes. While we all make necessary and unavoidable judgements, the explicit nature of being judged and acting as a judge on social media lends itself to being inauthentic and narcissistic. Hans-Georg Moeller has an excellent YouTube channel called Carefree Wandering. There…

>Even something as benign as posting here on HN entails editing to avoid downvotes. Just edit to make sure you are clear in your thoughts put into text. Don't censor yourself, karma points are largely meaningless anyway. You don't get to trade them in for an eraser or anything. Speak your mind, that's the main benefit of the platform.

I occasionally post things that I know will be downvoted to remind myself the votes don't matter.

Ironically, when I do want to say something mildly controversial but I want it to be taken seriously, I just add "I know this will be downvoted to hell but..." and then it is not downvoted. Pro tip.

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#62

Post by j45 »

coffeebeqn wrote: post #53
j45 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me there’s a difference between better content and engaging content. Better content seeks quality connections that may scale so far. Engaging content seeks quantity of connections. Of course this could be further argued. Maybe the better and engagement is interpreted to mean too distribution in quantity focused. Edit:typo

Everyone is getting paid by the number of impressions - not the quality of them. With incentives like this..

Depending on the platform it can be other things too.

View time, remaining on platform, etc.

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#63

Post by DharmaPolice »

hliyan wrote: post #39

Would any of the old classics (take your pick from Aristotle to Tolstoy) have been created in a data-driven world? What those authors put out into the world (I think), was what they thought was missing in the world, not what they thought the world wanted to hear. This is getting very hard to do today, even when you're honestly trying to do so, because the data is constantly telling you not to. And the data is necessa…

I don't disagree, but something like Shakespeare's plays or the Odyssey/Iliad probably were refined/changed based on audience responses before they became the fixed works we have now. Dickens (after publication) softened the language towards Jews in the latter parts of Oliver Twist based on reactions he got from acquaintances.

It's hard to evaluate cultural production without the benefit of hindsight. In two hundred years someone will take the best YouTube video produced today (best by their future standards) and be amazed at how great people were in 2023.

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#65

Post by [deleted] »

the_snooze wrote: post #26

>And yes, on the surface this incentivizes people to create better content. The better your content is, the more it gets seen, and the more money you make. And yet, my felt experience of this change is the exact opposite—as people seek more engagement, their content gets worse. What’s going on here? It always tickles me when terminally online people realize that human connection doesn't scale . It's valuable precisel…

[deleted]

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#66

Post by bonton89 »

userinanother wrote: post #29
daeroth wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2021 January - Birdwatch launched with first 1000 users 2022 October - Elon acquires Twitter 2022 November - Birdwatch renamed to Community Notes 2022 December - Community Notes feature made available to tweets around the world Maybe Elon pushed the release schedule timeline up, but it would not be correct to state that pre-Elon Twitter didn't develop and launch the feature. It had been live for almost 2 years by the…

No way original twitter would have allowed community notes on ads or political posts

When reddit first added fake/branded posts as ads for a short while it was possible for people to post on the branded posts. It was hilarious (vicious roasting of the products and brand) but of course that was quickly locked down.

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#67

Post by IggleSniggle »

spacecadet wrote: post #41
spacecadet wrote: post #31

Just abandon these products, they are useless and I think we have all seen enough evidence to suggest they do more harm than good. Dont start splitting hairs here either, I understand and was there when Twitter was the only way to communicate when governments were putting down protests... There are other tools. Go out there and build them... I wont ever touch a spycloud again while protesting...

This actually infuriates me. All those people who spent the last 20 years building adtech and social media. Thanks! You created a world that is now skeptical of tech and makes the rest of our jobs harder. Frankly, Id be worried with social and ad tech companies on my resume. I basically throw these away now.

> Frankly, Id be worried with social and ad tech companies on my resume. I basically throw these away now.

I sort of unintentionally ended up in ad tech recently, and deeply regret it. I enjoy the technical issues, but...ironically, anybody who would throw out my resume because it has ad tech on it is exactly the kind of person I would want to work for. C'est le vie, I guess I'll stay in ad tech.

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#68

Post by bnralt »

One thing I’ve noticed is that the culture on Twitter now is quite different than it was a decade ago, and the platform has calcified. A decade ago the common adivce for how to connect with people - Tweet often, comment often, follow accounts - connected you with a lot of people, and you would often end up following each other.

I started a new account recently (hadn’t used my old one in years), and doing so now got me just about zero attention. I got zero followers from comments, posts I made, following others, etc. It was like shouting in an empty room. Of course, there were ways to “increase engagement” that I tried and they did increase my follower account - but to what end? At that point it just feels like a weird game where everyone is trying to scam each other.

I tried another social media app recently, and was surprised to find it was like how Twitter used to be. When I followed people, a bunch of people followed me back. A bunch of people reached out to me, so that even though I haven’t put _any_ effort into engagement so far, I’ve made a lot of connections. People there are one social media to be, well, social. On Twitter, it feels like a mercenary game of “What can this person do for me?”/“How can I trick this person into making them think I’ll make them rich/healthy/wealthy/successful.”

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#69

Post by czue »

xwdv wrote: post #48

I don’t understand how there is such an assumed 1 to 1 relationship with getting lots of followers and making lots of money. Where the fuck is the money coming from??

advertising revenue share, paid newsletters, ebooks, courses, side-hustles, indie hacker apps... basically any way you can make money online.

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#70

Post by michaelt »

xwdv wrote: post #48

I don’t understand how there is such an assumed 1 to 1 relationship with getting lots of followers and making lots of money. Where the fuck is the money coming from??

Twitter has started giving some users a portion of ad revenue, for ads beside their tweets [1]. Which would presumably mean that more tweets, and more followers, mean more money.

Of course, on most platforms only a tiny fraction of influencers make a decent living. So it's certainly not the case that everyone is making money.

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2023/07/13/twitter-starts-sharing-ad-...

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