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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

#321

Post by coldtea »

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…

>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.

Not sure if that's because of some recent change.

Many people had the same experience also back a decade ago (and in between). Just because they adviced to "tweet often, comment often, follow accounts" it didn't mean this guaranteed followers, it was just the bare minimum required to be able to get any.

On platforms with much less users (like some "federated" replacements) this is often not the case - connections are more easily made there, but I'd say that's always the case when a social network is much smaller and people try to "build up" their circles (as opposed to when they're spoilled for choice).

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#322

Post by coldtea »

SleepilyLimping wrote: post #18
_fat_santa wrote: post #16

One thing I've realized about social media, especially X/Twitter, is that it's not a singular place, that is you can have 4 feeds on twitter from different users that might as well be different social media platforms. I've noticed if you follow the "Indie Hackers" on X then you will get lots of self promotion (ie. "My startup just hit $X/MRR!!, here's how I did it: substack.com...."). On the other hand there are othe…

I feel like these conversations condense down to "the death of authenticity... if you want to make money/get mainstream." There's plenty of people doing it for free, but there's a melancholy from people who saw the myth of "being yourself and getting paid well for it" dissolve.

>the myth of "being yourself and getting paid well for it" dissolve.

Well, most people's selves aren't anything that deserves to be paid well for being it. And a lot of people have crappy selves, especially those wanting to be "influencers".

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#323

Post by coldtea »

IKantRead wrote: post #158
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…

>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.

Some of the best content on Twitter is on threads 1/? - from programming lore, to story telling, to any kind of analysis.

Small tweets are usually just advertising (in different guises), gossip, juvenile attempts at humor, hate, or (at best) some breaking news, you can find elsewhere with more depth.

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#324

Post by rchaud »

commieneko wrote: post #88

"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 funct…

> Short form posts lacking depth but very, very timely?

...and funny. That's what was good about the Internet. It was ephemeral, like Geocities gifs and Flash cartoons. Funny posts on Twitter would generate conversations, and quote tweets would allow people to out their own spin on it.

Unfortunately VCs thought it was a billion dollar idea and ran it into the ground by turning it into the internet equivalent of talk radio.

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#325

Post by rchaud »

jrmg wrote: post #292

My opinion, only slightly tongue-in-cheek, is that Twitter changing its prompt, in 2009, from the ‘small’ “What are you doing?” to the ‘big’ “What’s happening?” sowed the seeds of its change from the authentic and personal thing it was, to the katamari of sound and fury it is now.

I think the Iranian protests in 2009 against election results kicked that off. Twitter at the time was the only way to relay information to the wider world as the government had disabled phone service. Before that Twitter was relatively obscure. Global media coverage happened almost exclusively through people's tweets and photos.

https://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/06/14/iran.protests.twi...

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#326

Post by selestify »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #289
_fat_santa wrote: post #16

One thing I've realized about social media, especially X/Twitter, is that it's not a singular place, that is you can have 4 feeds on twitter from different users that might as well be different social media platforms. I've noticed if you follow the "Indie Hackers" on X then you will get lots of self promotion (ie. "My startup just hit $X/MRR!!, here's how I did it: substack.com...."). On the other hand there are othe…

I'm not sure the "global square" model of Twitter scales well for so many people. Just reading the comments here it seems like a lot of people use Twitter/X defensively. They're constantly scanning for what they think is grift, politics, etc. They have an attitude of "do not disturb me" on X by default. This sort of gruff fatigue is what seems to set in on very large, cacophonous social networks. I also find Youtube…

> due to the usual reasons FOSS continues to only appeal to small niches.

I’ve noticed this too. What are the usual reasons?

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#327

Post by rchaud »

jjoonathan wrote: post #17
kiwikan wrote: post #6

this phenomenon exists outside Twitter/X as well you know, Youtube is an example

Here's a complaint about the printing press enabling the same dynamics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism#/media/File:...

Printing press spam was local, cost money to distribute, and not that many people were literate enough to bother. None of those are true of social media. $8/mo is nothing for a spammer charging $50 a pop for his AI mastery e-course.

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#328

Post by robertlagrant »

jodrellblank wrote: post #305
robertlagrant wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on. Arguing from names is really silly. I'd say almost everything but capitalism values authoritarianism. E.g. socialism in the end by "society" means "the state". Society in capitalism is generally separate to markets, e.g. your local community, or charirites, or churches, or sport, or schools. Not bureaucrats taking your effort and doling it out (or not) as they see fit.

> " Society in capitalism is generally separate to markets, e.g. your local community, or charirites, or churches, or sport, or schools " Are you saying that sports are not profitable in America? That schools and colleges in America are not run for profit? That churches and charities are not formed primarily for financial/tax benefits? Or that people can't play non-profit basketball in their local park under socialis…

> Are you saying that sports are not profitable in America? That schools and colleges in America are not run for profit? That churches and charities are not formed primarily for financial/tax benefits? Or that people can't play non-profit basketball in their local park under socialism? Or that capitalism hasn't done a work on the 'local community' by replacing third-places with places that require you to spend money to hang out, for example?

That's correct; I'm not saying those things.

> This is exactly what my employer does? They take value I add, and dole it out (or not) as they see fit.

How does your employer dole out your effort?

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#329

Post by robertlagrant »

badpun wrote: post #301
robertlagrant wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on. Arguing from names is really silly. I'd say almost everything but capitalism values authoritarianism. E.g. socialism in the end by "society" means "the state". Society in capitalism is generally separate to markets, e.g. your local community, or charirites, or churches, or sport, or schools. Not bureaucrats taking your effort and doling it out (or not) as they see fit.

In capitalism's case, the name is really informative. At the heart of capitalism lies capital and the ability to invest it, which gives people who own it power to get stuff without doing any work. People without the capital do work for people with capital, so that the may survive (and do more work).

The problem is that direct work is not the only way to contribute, which is why Marx's definition of things is too narrow. Taking risk is also something valuable to reward. As is having the right connections. One or more of these things together make value that a company that can then sell to people who want it. Deciding that risking capital is worth nothing is an incomplete view.

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#330

Post by jodrellblank »

robertlagrant wrote: post #328
jodrellblank wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> " Society in capitalism is generally separate to markets, e.g. your local community, or charirites, or churches, or sport, or schools " Are you saying that sports are not profitable in America? That schools and colleges in America are not run for profit? That churches and charities are not formed primarily for financial/tax benefits? Or that people can't play non-profit basketball in their local park under socialis…

> Are you saying that sports are not profitable in America? That schools and colleges in America are not run for profit? That churches and charities are not formed primarily for financial/tax benefits? Or that people can't play non-profit basketball in their local park under socialism? Or that capitalism hasn't done a work on the 'local community' by replacing third-places with places that require you to spend money…

> "That's correct; I'm not saying those things."

Then your claim "Society in capitalism is generally separate to markets, e.g. your local community, or charirites, or churches, or sport, or schools." has fallen over. Those things are taken over by capitalism-slash-markets because there is profit to be made, above all other concerns (e.g. the health of football players / brain trauma, the constant advertising, the promotion of players to celebtrities and the association of product with celebrity, etc. etc. These things are community-destroying but profit-making.

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