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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

#81

Post by pif »

Enginerrrd wrote: post #56
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…

I think the ugly truth of it is, just like there's a noticeable difference between shopping at costco and shopping at walmart (because of the annual fee at costco), there's just some people that are going to have an undesirable influence on your community. The temptation to try and rope in those extra users is often irresistible but to get them you have to tank your content to appeal to the lowest common denominator.…

> difference between shopping at costco and shopping at walmart

Could someone please explain to me what is implied here? I've been to the USA only once, and I didn't visit neither a Costco nor a Walmart. The only difference I could point to between them, is that no "Costco people" phenomenon exists on YouTube.

Sincere thanks in advance!

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#82

Post by oangemangut »

Retric wrote: post #74
kogus wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree 100% with what you are saying, but I don't think you need a human connection to have good content. The encyclopedia Brittanica didn't establish a human connection, but it was a valuable resource. An ugly problem with an attention economy is that you are rewarded for seeming useful and interesting, but once the attention has been given, there is no incentive to actually deliver. So we get clickbait headlines a…

Reputation is still valuable over time. Some YouTube creators I ignore irregardless of the thumbnail, while other content creators get a click automatically. The same happens with websites and everywhere else in the attention economy.

some content creators I click on _despite_ them having to do the click-bait stupid YouTube thumbnails.

As an aside - word you may have been looking for is irrespective, or perhaps just plain old regardless. irregardless is not a word.

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#83

Post by jyunwai »

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…

It remains possible to produce great original works of art, independent of popular trends. For example, Thomas Pynchon is a modern-day example of an author still creating significant works of literature, who is notably reclusive from the public view: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Pynchon

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#84

Post by trash_cat »

What is not really mentioend is that authenticity is not really guaranteed unless you know the people well, from irl meetings following them for a long time (i.e interviews). It´s very hard to find a single source of a platform for "authentic" content or connections. One day a person you know might post something insightful the other time it´s a marketing LinkedIn how to xxxx.

Twitter is not as authentic as it used to be but I think this happens to any platform. Look at facebook.

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#85

Post by keiferski »

I think Twitter is actually useful because it reveals what people are authentically thinking. If you ever want to stop hero worshiping someone, follow them on Twitter. You'll quickly lose all illusions about their "genius" or supposed expertise on things beyond their narrow sub-specialty, and realize they're a flawed human being like everyone else.

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#86

Post by AraceliHarker »

It is not only Elon Musk who is to blame for the decline of Twitter. After all, other social media platforms, such as YouTube, have long been using eye-catching content to generate revenue. Even before Musk's acquisition, Twitter was already engaging in monetization practices such as redirecting users to external sites, allowing influencers to post sponsored tweets, and inadequately moderating content.

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#87

Post by visarga »

Retric wrote: post #74
kogus wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree 100% with what you are saying, but I don't think you need a human connection to have good content. The encyclopedia Brittanica didn't establish a human connection, but it was a valuable resource. An ugly problem with an attention economy is that you are rewarded for seeming useful and interesting, but once the attention has been given, there is no incentive to actually deliver. So we get clickbait headlines a…

Reputation is still valuable over time. Some YouTube creators I ignore irregardless of the thumbnail, while other content creators get a click automatically. The same happens with websites and everywhere else in the attention economy.

I was going to say the same thing. Low-quality content creators can get away with too many ads and subpar work because they don't rely on repeat business. It's like a tourist shop raising prices and selling fake merchandise because they know their customers are unlikely to come back. In contrast, creators who cultivate a loyal audience must consistently deliver value.

This reflects the cooperation vs betrayal incentives analysed in game theory. Agents are more likely to be loyal to agents that can extract payback, and one-time interactions are free of consequences. Google is to blame for sending people on deep links, they won't form a long term relation with the website. Not advocating against Google, just observing this second order effect.

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#88

Post by commieneko »

"Authenticity in an Attention Economy"

Is that anything like Authenticity in an Advertising Economy?

I have to admit, I've never really understood (or used) Twitter/X. Short form posts lacking depth but very, very timely? The only time I used it very much was early on when I was living in Boston and it was useful to find out if there were subway outages. Lacking depth, timely, but pointedly useful. Somehow that function stopped working after a while. I've no idea why.

I suspect I simply don't understand Twitting. I've never figured it out. Facebook and Youtube figured _me_ out, and they both provide stuff I'm actually interested in. (And yes, I find it mildly disturbing as I use something that I don't really control or understand. But FB and YT actually do work.)

Twitter/X despite several attempts on my part to play its game, simply has never produced much attention or engagement for me.

Hell, I've gotten more use from Instagram than Twitter. Though not much.

For what it's worth, I'm older, in my mid 60s. I do note that FB tends to skew older. Or at least my FB experience does. Possibly an artifact of it's algorithm. But when I click on it's recommendations for "friends" I find the older users active and the younger users accounts a ghost town.

My suspicion is that the changes we are seeing in how social media works with people, especially people of different ages, is a kind of societal immune response. To hark back to my initial reaction to this post, advertising has certainly evolved, and evolved its audience over the last century. It's still here, and still pretty deeply embedded. But what it does and how it does it has changed. Insert your own viral analogy here...

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#89

Post by twicetwice »

bnralt wrote: post #68

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 m…

Which social media app was that?
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