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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

#151

Post by passion__desire »

nofinator wrote: post #117

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." ― Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

We wouldn't have to pretend if the Long Tail idea was working. It seems Long Tail doesn't work. If there are 10 books expressing 10 distinct valuable insignts, suddenly comes along a youtube video which combines all these 10 ideas into a nice story and it gets the views and money. Same behaviour as the Netflix Hackathon behaviour, where participating teams merged to combine their strong ideas to win the prize.

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#152

Post by TeMPOraL »

narcraft wrote: post #135
function_seven wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> irregardless is not a word. Lots of dictionaries disagree. But not me! I'll join you on this hill, regardless of what those dumb dictionaries say. The misuse of "literally" and the common use of "irregardless" are the red pills that have turned me into a crotchety old ... prescriptivist .

People say that people use literally to mean figuratively now which is literally the opposite of literally, but I've literally never seen someone use literally to mean figuratively. I have often seen it used to hyperbolize the strength of analogies or generalizations, which means they apply literally somewhat figuratively, but that doesn't mean that they literally mean for literally to mean figuratively.

Literally is literally a point. Figuratively is a point only figuratively, literally it is a continuum. If you're not using literally to literally mean literally, you are literally using it to mean figuratively.

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#153

Post by zirgs »

falsaberN1 wrote: post #111
fullshark wrote: post #45

People aren't authentic when they are talking to everyone on the planet at once, unless they are incredibly naive. They are authentic talking to their friends, or family, in private conversations. A lot of people were naive in the early days and it made for amusing conversation, not any longer and these platforms are just about brand management / advertising now.

You call them naive like if it was a bad thing. I for one welcome the naive ones, they don't feel like they are transparently trying to take advantage.

It is a bad thing if you can be fired if someone digs up your 10 year old tweets.

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#154

Post by DrammBA »

narcraft wrote: post #135
function_seven wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> irregardless is not a word. Lots of dictionaries disagree. But not me! I'll join you on this hill, regardless of what those dumb dictionaries say. The misuse of "literally" and the common use of "irregardless" are the red pills that have turned me into a crotchety old ... prescriptivist .

People say that people use literally to mean figuratively now which is literally the opposite of literally, but I've literally never seen someone use literally to mean figuratively. I have often seen it used to hyperbolize the strength of analogies or generalizations, which means they apply literally somewhat figuratively, but that doesn't mean that they literally mean for literally to mean figuratively.

> I'm literally dead right now

Is that figurative speech?

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#156

Post by aeturnum »

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…

Human connection doesn't scale! But authenticity isn't connection. You do not need to connect with someone to see their authenticity.

I think the original sin of Elon-Twitter is mistaking popularity for authenticity - because by definition authenticity isn't universally recognizable. It's how authentic experience is unexpected, arbitrary, incomplete and often contradictory. People being authentic in a world you're not familiar with looks like...nothing? Often? When The Bear came out it showed the characters drinking out of plastic 'to-go' containers because there's no glass allowed in most commercial kitchens[1]. It had the smell of authenticity - but you wouldn't see it if you didn't know what was authentic already.

Authenticity is just not a "universally recognizable" thing. At the 'whole system' level, if you want to promote it, you should be afraid of nearly universally loved content. That content is usually too 'cooked' to really be authentic. You want the less complete stuff.

[1] https://twitter.com/dillllllo/status/1557562291801006081

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#158

Post by IKantRead »

huevosabio wrote: post #139

Some thoughts: > Megathreads about AI, thoughtful, longform narratives that could have been blog posts... Honestly, the long form tweets became a signal to just ignore that tweet. I unfollow or block users that tweet long form often. > The people in my feed—most of whom I’m not following, by the way— Yea, just use the chrono-tab ("following"). Only usable version of Twitter. > love posting for engagement. Some of the…

> Honestly, the long form tweets became a signal to just ignore that tweet. I unfollow or block users that tweet long form often.

Even though I don't use Twitter much any more, I fully agree here. Whenever I see the "[thread emoji] 1/?" I'm already done.

I can't even fathom why anyone would put the energy in these "thread" style tweets. Twitter content will forever remain fundamentally ephemeral: it's hard to find my own tweets from years back, let alone someone else's I found insightful.

The normal tweet format works well for ephemera, it's a medium for shower thoughts and sloganeering. Similar to how a typical child's sand shovel is correct tool for building sandcastles. Twitter threads feel like someone is handing out full sized shovels for work you know will be lost for ever when the next tide comes in.

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#159

Post by tomjakubowski »

thrwwyunpopular wrote: post #121
losteric wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 > To be fair, most web users are happy with the arrangement - they get an endless feed of free tiny doses of dopamine while they avoid the real responsibilities of life. I'd argue it's mostly the latter. Most creators produce content…

The harsh reality is that any conversation about what "people" want needs to factor in the fact that half of "the people" are dumber, more simpler-minded than the average person. No, you and I don't want to look at staged animal rescues or celebrity drama... but if the average person does, then so does at least 50% of the population. We're in the minority.

some of the most brilliant people I know apparently get stuck in these dopamine loops too. not everything is a matter of intelligence

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#160

Post by dpifke »

renewiltord wrote: post #116

I just follow people I know or who I want to listen to. And it's been fine. If you use the For You tab, you have to be prepared to mute. I also mute war related stuff.

Muted words is a godsend, but I really wish they would allow more than 200 of them, or at least implement word stemming. It's easy to hit the 200 word limit when you have to add singular/plural/possessive/etc. forms of each word separately.
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