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Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

theatlantic.com

261–270 of 537 posts

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#261
post #124

Recently I was thinking about how I am completely out of touch with the culture of younger generations, and was about to laugh it off cause that's how it is with every generation, but then I realized that I don't even know how I would know. In the past if you wanted to know what kids were listening to, you change the radio station to that new loud one you normally skip, or watch that new TV show that people are going…

I was talking to my younger sister (college student) the other day, and she mentioned that she and her friends are very reluctant to post their opinions online, especially under their real names. This was a bit of a surprise to me, because she volunteers for the Democrats and is openly lesbian, so I would have thought her opinions are generally a great match for the current cultural milieu. I think maybe part of the…

> I was talking to my younger sister (college student) the other day, and she mentioned that she and her friends are very reluctant to post their opinions online, especially under their real names

I dont know anyone who does. I think most of the 'online' is bots talking to each-other

For a time after Ukraine war began, everyone was accised of being a russian bot, and I was like 'do you think noone else has bots? Lobbyists, think tanks, dictators, secret services?

Russian bots were just low quality, and so they were obvious. The good ones would not be

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was talking to my younger sister (college student) the other day, and she mentioned that she and her friends are very reluctant to post their opinions online, especially under their real names. This was a bit of a surprise to me, because she volunteers for the Democrats and is openly lesbian, so I would have thought her opinions are generally a great match for the current cultural milieu. I think maybe part of the…

Maybe what they are feeling is a deep unconscious unease at the realisation that the cancellation culture the leftists have bought to life is bad karma. What goes around comes around.

Internet mobs have been mainstream since Kony 2012 made slacktivism a thing. Assigning cancel culture to one part of the political spectrum is not intellectually sound.

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#263
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The extreme personalization of the internet/modern life can lead to a feeling of isolation. I recently was on a plane with broken inflight entertainment, so all you could watch was a single movie in lock step with everyone else. When the movie ended, there was a weird sense of camaraderie; "we are all stuck in this tube and we all just sat through that mediocre movie".

You mean .. like going to the cinema?

No one goes to those anymore because people rotate their streaming platforms, eventually they'll get any movie for free that way.

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have become immunized to algorithmic content curation, I dont know exactly why that happened, but understanding how it works at a surface level I think helped. Im curious if thats a widespread phenomena or not, I suspect it is.

I’m pretty skeptical that it’s possible to be immune to algorithmic content curation. It seems more than a little bit like the people who say “hey, mainstream media is all biased, but that’s not a problem for me because I’ve found the sources that are actually true”. How do you choose which content to watch and how does that process exclude algorithmic curation?

I don’t think it’s a matter of choosing content that is served up by algorithm but by finding the content that the algorithm omits. I find I then have to listen for what are truth statements, for verifiable truth statements, and sift out the emotional language. In fact, the more emotional the tone, the more intention I attribute to the engineering of it being shown to me. This has resulted in me looking at and reading what I think is garbage sometimes, but I typically find some nugget of truth in it that helps me reason about why someone would think that way. Kind of erases the left versus right thing in politics.

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean .. like going to the cinema?

No one goes to those anymore because people rotate their streaming platforms, eventually they'll get any movie for free that way.

A very back of the napkin math - so far, 2023's domestic box office total is 75% of 2019th (pre-covid). Although the number of releases in 2023 is 60% of 2019th number of releases as well. I definitely wouldn't say nobody is going to the movies. I would even say, I went to see some this year as many times as I probably went in 2019.

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#266
post #124

Recently I was thinking about how I am completely out of touch with the culture of younger generations, and was about to laugh it off cause that's how it is with every generation, but then I realized that I don't even know how I would know. In the past if you wanted to know what kids were listening to, you change the radio station to that new loud one you normally skip, or watch that new TV show that people are going…

I was talking to my younger sister (college student) the other day, and she mentioned that she and her friends are very reluctant to post their opinions online, especially under their real names. This was a bit of a surprise to me, because she volunteers for the Democrats and is openly lesbian, so I would have thought her opinions are generally a great match for the current cultural milieu. I think maybe part of the…

> very reluctant to post their opinions online, especially under their real names

You mean non-conforming opinions on totem topics of the (US) left. aka "purity spiral", groupthink, echo chamber.

Also true of the US right, to less extent.

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure I agree that this is close to reality. The reality is much more benign. Musk isn’t the savior of free speech, he inserts rules against it constantly, like throttling nyt or saying they’ll comply with authoritarian states. He’s complains about spam and bots (despite claiming it’s an easy problem to solve) then changes verification in a way the makes it difficult know who is actually who. Separately, you s…

How is throttling the New York Times on X anti-free speech? NYT is its own media platform, among the most powerful in the world, why should it expect a separate outlet to promote it? Further, as a powerful media outlet, the Times itself "throttles" all kinds of voices and opinions with which its editorial board and majority of its employees and readers don't agree.

NYT does not claim to be a platform for everyone's free speech, and their editorial board is held to account for the shit they publish. Compleyely diffetent business.

Elon wants it both ways - when u ask him, why is there messed up shit on twitter, he sats free spedch. When u ask him, why can't X post on twitter, its because he editorialized it.

He wants all the benefits and none of the accountability.

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#268
post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was talking to my younger sister (college student) the other day, and she mentioned that she and her friends are very reluctant to post their opinions online, especially under their real names. This was a bit of a surprise to me, because she volunteers for the Democrats and is openly lesbian, so I would have thought her opinions are generally a great match for the current cultural milieu. I think maybe part of the…

> very reluctant to post their opinions online, especially under their real names You mean non-conforming opinions on totem topics of the (US) left. aka "purity spiral", groupthink, echo chamber. Also true of the US right, to less extent.

[dead]

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#269
post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would agree. Some old school journalists from NYT wrote about that phenomenon. Colleagues doing a lot of stories that were basically the groupthink of their friend group or what they saw on Twitter. Part of it is economics/incentives leading journalists to have to churn out a lot of content. Part of it is laziness as it's a lot easier than going out into the field and actually talking to people.

In fact, The Economist published a 17,000 word un-paywalled piece [0] recently about the NYT's group think problem. [0] https://www.economist.com/1843/2023/12/14/when-the-new-york-...

Maybe I'm old, but didn't the NYT used to be very right-wing?

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sure but... commercialized? Where do you think these hyperconnected subcultures live? Online... if not inside of TikTok, Youtube, Instagram or other large entity then they'll exist on someone else's servers. You think those servers are free and those subcultures aren't going to get commercialized by companies that need $$$ to live?

But those "someone else's servers" aren't always commercial. Communities run on sweat/passion and donations feel a lot different than those that make their money more commercially. It's not always so black and white either, more of a spectrum.

Eh... the issue I have with that is a few dozen communities run on Patreon or what have you won't offset the gorillas in the room (Youtube, TikTok, discord, etc).

I think "we have no clue what's going on online" is never been more true as actions like cancel culture have moved huge swaths of people off of the big guys and created other areas like Rumble - and the smaller alternatives. but to think that these smaller more diverse cultures aren't being commercialized and monetized - except for a few rare cases - just seems, to me, silly.

just my opinion mind you.

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