Fiction is cheaper than reality. A lump of slop entitled "delicious sandwich" is cheaper than an actual delicious sandwich. Take away the slop and it's even cheaper.
It's a miracle of disruptive innovation.
The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy
171–180 of 347 posts
Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy
#172>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 no…
This is something I've noticed with documentaries on the furry community. Outsider documentaries always focus on the fursuits. You almost never see someone out of one even though most furries don't own one. Pittsburgh's news outlets always do interview segments during Anthrocon, and it's always fursuiters in suit.
And then from the inside, you get stuff like The Fandom which goes into the real human stories behind the animals rather than gawking at the rarest but most visible aspect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv0QaTW3kEY
It's authentic. Someone on the outside would probably recognize the difference (someone doing just another documentary/interview vs someone pointing a camera at her own community), but might not recognize the outside view as inauthentic.
Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy
#173People 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.
People are not authentic talking to friends or family in private either. The entire authenticity cult is a creation of modern media and is as much manufactured as "fitting in" is. In fact, I'd say that it's GOOD that people craft their image, no one genuinely wants to hear your unfiltered thoughts. Usually people who do that are considered socially maladjusted.
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Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
None of this is really new. People have sought low-quality high-dopamine content since television was the main medium. Since the spread of radio. Since the development of novels. Probably the beginning of the printing press, writing, or hell, storytelling and spoken language itself. Each new medium provides more power to dive into this, and each generation panics that we've crossed a never-before-crossed line. And th…
True except now AI robots create low quality content without any qualms
"True except now the printing press means trash novels devoid of real artistry can be pumped out without additional effort from the original author." Parents point is that the newness you highlight also isn't new either, strictly speaking. It's all a matter of scale as the effort approaches zero
Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> 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 .
Linguists call this usage, “the emphatic literally” and the best writers of the past 300 years have used it.
So if it’s good enough for Charlotte Brontë, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, Vladimir Nabokov, and David Foster Wallace, then it’s good enough for me. Literally.
https://www.thecut.com/2018/01/the-300-year-history-of-using...
Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy
#176What if you chose to follow people who you enjoy following instead?
Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy
#177Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy
#178I never understood why these services were sold as "social networking". They are just a more sophisticated form of advertising for the most part.
Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy
#179Whenever I see "X" (twitter) I think of the x in the corner of a window, for closing the window. Sometimes I even click the logo.
Surely this is unintentional.
Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy
#180>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…
IMO it's bit ironic that people seek maximum diversity within a single platform without taking into account the effort to seek the diversity beyond that platform. There are online communities beyond X and, event within X you can just choose to track select groups you follow and constantly unfollow what you don't like.
I have few ideas. Why can't people create their own filter bubbles? Lists do that in some sense. How about "For You" tab but for a particular List so that recommendations expand and let me get the feel of that particular List's filter bubble. Why can't I choose to browse Twitter as it appears to a particular category of people e.g. say a mathematician or neuroscientist? Twitter is all public, there is no fear of de-anonymizing anyone if Twitter decides to implement such a feature.