Netflix is planned mediocrity is planned obsolescence. Netflixification of the internet. We can’t “save” the “internet”. No one can “save” the world, no one can save anything. But we can accurately describe it so we know what where doing and can orient ourselves better.
A funny pattern I have noticed in my surveillance stats of your interactions with my posts:
One in four people will click on the email to read the post,
One in four people will click on a link to another thing in the post.
assuming this is a constant, and by doing a bit of numerology magic you could write a series of links which mathematically it would be impossible for anyone to ever read. Or you could be nice and make it so only one human being ever would. A message in a bottle for the internet age.
also if I write a post-script in the comments that shows up as a +1 comments, which incentivises you to click on it to see what all the discussion is about (assuming you can see that shit, I don't really know)
You have just described 90% of podcasts. Subscribe for the biting discussion of x, stay for the camaraderie of the hosts and the communion of similarly-minded listeners.
As the rule goes: "If it can be turned into a cliff's note or a compilation, the podcast is trash". Conversely "If it IS a smart and eduative series, people should pay you to see them (e.g. Masterclass)"
very very good, very much correct. art that glorifies god, i was going to email you about this exact subject, on how we can begin to approach it. most of my short stories are either some sort of critique, a "negation", a no saying, even if its completely hidden, even if theres a yes in there somewhere - or they are too vague, too narcissistic, too much "l'art pour l'art".
i think, and i say this tentatively, that we need to create art that is "play" or "dance" - effortless being, as you said - it requires a certain leap of faith, and its linked to the revelatory, it would be art that reveals how we live and how we could live - but not art with a plan, not a "philosophical novel" like dostoyevsky would write, it has to be light, it cannot be heavy. fundamentally, at the very bottom, this kind of art requires learning again how to forget - nietzsche talks of this, nietzsches child in zarathustra
I believe I may have done this approximately two times in my life and both are no longer available on the internet. I have backups but, you know. who has the time to unzip that zip file and ctrl+f the archive
also please do, im kinda under-stimulated from being on microblog-vacation and it would be a better use of my time than the other zany things I turn to in these times of want
Also, I forgot who it was that wrote about the driving model for all media going forward is the theme park. Whoever it was, did so unironically and with several tips for how ad execs could get in on the trend and turn their brands into digital theme parks too (by partnering with Roblox or Fortnite). I think the theme park goes beyond the digital, into the all-pervasive realm of our daydreams and nightmares.
Disney doesn't care about its individual movies or shows anymore, they are just, as Martin Scorsese accurately put it, "amusement park rides". The point is world-building, to create a fantasy that feels so real, we never want to leave. It's David Foster Wallace's vision of the "Infinite Jest" movie, which viewers find so entertaining they keep watching until they die, only Disney wants to keep monetizing, so while the movie "ends" in the theater, it plays on through every material surface possible outside it.
It's piped into our heads through endless Youtube clips over our meals, smartphone games during work breaks, podcasts while we work out, and Spotify playlists during our chores. You don't need a headset to experience VR, you can be simultaneously here driving an Uber and on Endor piloting the Millennium Falcon. You can be punching in data points while mentally punching out Hydra henchmen.
And when your day is over, you can fire up the Avengers game (which doesn't have to be good or even finished, it just has to deliver on the basic requirements of allowing you to do the shit you would be able to do alongside the characters you'd be able to do it with if you lived in the Marvel-verse), or get a fresh dose of narrative from The Mandalorian on Disney+.
Just like theme park rides, these "experiences" deliver the thrills but very little of the meaningful substance of the original works (I don't even mean Star Wars, but "Dune" and "2001: A Space Odyssey" from which George Lucas cribbed the visuals but discarded the ideas). Instead of pointing to something else, something higher as you say, it merely points back at itself. The Hindus would call this "maya", "that which exists, but is constantly changing and thus is spiritually unreal".
Perhaps this is another reason why we're so compelled to critique it. In addition to trying to fill in what would actually make it worthwhile to engage with by breaking it down and rebuilding it with our words, we are also just doing a version of what most bored suburban teens did during their summer breaks: Wandering the same tired Six Flags with their buddies while making snarky comments about the costumed goons, plastic backdrops, and overly-eager staff, trying to establish some semblance of a real identity outside the Matrix with what little subversion we can muster.
I feel like there's definitely someone I'm forgetting but the theme park comparison is very Don Jolly, and I think the redlettermedia guys have also made that link at a couple of points. I have this other thing right on the tip of my brain tongue, something about video games from like, 2012 or something. maybe earlier. peak WOW, MMORPG days. something about design philosophies, I vaguely remember it being used as a critique of mmorpg's, themepark thinking turning their beloved community driven stuff into singleplayer stuff, practically. imagine turning to online simulation of socialising to escape technological alienation, and then they up and do it to your digital social environment as well. haha couldnt be me
The Metaverse and Decentraland-esque corporates are calling, and they wanted my resume to be a junior architect. What should the requested compensation package be?
The rise of the smart phone definitely contributed to this eternal theme park design philosophy, since the theme park now not only exists on your television or at the theater, but in your own pocket. Media need to be hyper stimulating and easy to access so you'll pull the theme park out of your pocket and play around with it whenever you want to. Something about the phone game-ification of reality, not only should reality be constant entertainment, it must also be easy to consume. You must be able to interface with the theme park on your phone. Result is shallower and shallower as the phone grips tighter. It gets tiring to critique something you know is only a cardboard cutout next to a rollercoaster.
"If all you do is think all day you end up only being able to think about thoughts", or, in this case, if you only critique the theme park all day you can only critique the critique of the theme park. This is also why movie reviewers inevitably become alien to their audience, they end up enjoying movies that swallow all other ones, that are meta movies, then meta meta movies etc. Art critics are too laden with the critique world of references to create anything that doesn't consist largely of this meta level world which is of itself largely a negation and thus provides only fallow grounds for the wannabe artist. Young Werther (hi btw) bringing up how to forget as necessary for art is thus for us, people commenting on critique of critique of etc, the greatest necessity and skill required, especially since the normie techno psychophere is itself becoming totally enveloped in an all consuming self referential fantasy world. Has a man who started as a critic who made good art - imagine this problem but as an industrially produced generation of critics, a people of critics etc? But perhaps I'm making the error Randy recently attacked of "The Artist" being a man apart from the living working society who specifically creates culture objects apart from the people for the people, over there, to consume? If that is so then this regeneration of art also calls for a new economy and embedded world of interaction between people, a new societal structure that doesn't alienate craft from art, and it certainly can't be virtual I think? Tabula Raza society is retarded tho as well as obviously not going to happen. Moreover with regards to the critic's problem of infertile context, as meaning is contextual art tabula raza is absurd... so I guess perhaps a steady diet of critique, lest we lose contact with the "people" (Digital AVIs lol) we are bound to and cannot replace (or replace with only other such "people") and reading old books and re-worlding ourselves by lifting and "rotating physical objects in space" as Randy would say seems like a good way to start. Cultural breakaway civilisation of the boys reading Plutarch between sets idk bro I can hardly make a ham sandwich let alone art - maybe the real synthetic social suppliment was the personally procured comment sections we observed ourselves uselessly flail within along the way and so on and so fourth. I have knowlingly indulged in every sin this article wishes to transcend by commenting here and perhaps there is a lesson in that, it's fun to be in an upper circle of hell spitting on the lower circles. Idk man good article Randy sorry for jerking off in your comments section - just a meta critic pointing out the obvious difficulties involved in producing art coming from a man who has never produced art and is by saying so only involving you in another level of critique. I should rename myself to Charon
as always you're too hard on yourself, but it's a fun contradiction how a) I relate to that and therefore like you, while also b) try to tell you that you shouldn't be. I think we're past the infinite regress of critique the moment we wish to be, all it takes is a "stepping back", or, "discarding the ladder once we've climbed it".
idea: kierkegaard leap of faith (forward), wittgenstein "stepping back" (backwards) -> nietzche (dancing (stepping back and forth)). the difference between stressfully pacing back and forth, and dancing, it's just a question of hearing the music
This is one of the reason why I admire Banksy's temporary Dismaland. It's fun in its realism of suffering in post-modernity (yes it is very progressive), but they put effort in this temporal edge-crafting.
Netflix is planned mediocrity is planned obsolescence. Netflixification of the internet. We can’t “save” the “internet”. No one can “save” the world, no one can save anything. But we can accurately describe it so we know what where doing and can orient ourselves better.
A funny pattern I have noticed in my surveillance stats of your interactions with my posts:
One in four people will click on the email to read the post,
One in four people will click on a link to another thing in the post.
assuming this is a constant, and by doing a bit of numerology magic you could write a series of links which mathematically it would be impossible for anyone to ever read. Or you could be nice and make it so only one human being ever would. A message in a bottle for the internet age.
also if I write a post-script in the comments that shows up as a +1 comments, which incentivises you to click on it to see what all the discussion is about (assuming you can see that shit, I don't really know)
wow seems like there's a lot going on here, in the comments.
what's funny is all these posts are funneled into another tube that then drips with adverts parsed into it as well
"hahaha"
Fellow numerologist, but how can this be done? Link-bombing an article? Would like to know.
#yeah
You have just described 90% of podcasts. Subscribe for the biting discussion of x, stay for the camaraderie of the hosts and the communion of similarly-minded listeners.
As the rule goes: "If it can be turned into a cliff's note or a compilation, the podcast is trash". Conversely "If it IS a smart and eduative series, people should pay you to see them (e.g. Masterclass)"
very very good, very much correct. art that glorifies god, i was going to email you about this exact subject, on how we can begin to approach it. most of my short stories are either some sort of critique, a "negation", a no saying, even if its completely hidden, even if theres a yes in there somewhere - or they are too vague, too narcissistic, too much "l'art pour l'art".
i think, and i say this tentatively, that we need to create art that is "play" or "dance" - effortless being, as you said - it requires a certain leap of faith, and its linked to the revelatory, it would be art that reveals how we live and how we could live - but not art with a plan, not a "philosophical novel" like dostoyevsky would write, it has to be light, it cannot be heavy. fundamentally, at the very bottom, this kind of art requires learning again how to forget - nietzsche talks of this, nietzsches child in zarathustra
I agree the most important thing is to have fun with it. I believe in goofing around
I believe I may have done this approximately two times in my life and both are no longer available on the internet. I have backups but, you know. who has the time to unzip that zip file and ctrl+f the archive
also please do, im kinda under-stimulated from being on microblog-vacation and it would be a better use of my time than the other zany things I turn to in these times of want
youre missing the hyperstimulation machine huh
mainly I'm missing the 5k readers which would play in very well to the next step of my master plan
If all is play, what is there for the "sigma male grind" of art and literature?
Also, I forgot who it was that wrote about the driving model for all media going forward is the theme park. Whoever it was, did so unironically and with several tips for how ad execs could get in on the trend and turn their brands into digital theme parks too (by partnering with Roblox or Fortnite). I think the theme park goes beyond the digital, into the all-pervasive realm of our daydreams and nightmares.
Disney doesn't care about its individual movies or shows anymore, they are just, as Martin Scorsese accurately put it, "amusement park rides". The point is world-building, to create a fantasy that feels so real, we never want to leave. It's David Foster Wallace's vision of the "Infinite Jest" movie, which viewers find so entertaining they keep watching until they die, only Disney wants to keep monetizing, so while the movie "ends" in the theater, it plays on through every material surface possible outside it.
It's piped into our heads through endless Youtube clips over our meals, smartphone games during work breaks, podcasts while we work out, and Spotify playlists during our chores. You don't need a headset to experience VR, you can be simultaneously here driving an Uber and on Endor piloting the Millennium Falcon. You can be punching in data points while mentally punching out Hydra henchmen.
And when your day is over, you can fire up the Avengers game (which doesn't have to be good or even finished, it just has to deliver on the basic requirements of allowing you to do the shit you would be able to do alongside the characters you'd be able to do it with if you lived in the Marvel-verse), or get a fresh dose of narrative from The Mandalorian on Disney+.
Just like theme park rides, these "experiences" deliver the thrills but very little of the meaningful substance of the original works (I don't even mean Star Wars, but "Dune" and "2001: A Space Odyssey" from which George Lucas cribbed the visuals but discarded the ideas). Instead of pointing to something else, something higher as you say, it merely points back at itself. The Hindus would call this "maya", "that which exists, but is constantly changing and thus is spiritually unreal".
Perhaps this is another reason why we're so compelled to critique it. In addition to trying to fill in what would actually make it worthwhile to engage with by breaking it down and rebuilding it with our words, we are also just doing a version of what most bored suburban teens did during their summer breaks: Wandering the same tired Six Flags with their buddies while making snarky comments about the costumed goons, plastic backdrops, and overly-eager staff, trying to establish some semblance of a real identity outside the Matrix with what little subversion we can muster.
I feel like there's definitely someone I'm forgetting but the theme park comparison is very Don Jolly, and I think the redlettermedia guys have also made that link at a couple of points. I have this other thing right on the tip of my brain tongue, something about video games from like, 2012 or something. maybe earlier. peak WOW, MMORPG days. something about design philosophies, I vaguely remember it being used as a critique of mmorpg's, themepark thinking turning their beloved community driven stuff into singleplayer stuff, practically. imagine turning to online simulation of socialising to escape technological alienation, and then they up and do it to your digital social environment as well. haha couldnt be me
The Metaverse and Decentraland-esque corporates are calling, and they wanted my resume to be a junior architect. What should the requested compensation package be?
The rise of the smart phone definitely contributed to this eternal theme park design philosophy, since the theme park now not only exists on your television or at the theater, but in your own pocket. Media need to be hyper stimulating and easy to access so you'll pull the theme park out of your pocket and play around with it whenever you want to. Something about the phone game-ification of reality, not only should reality be constant entertainment, it must also be easy to consume. You must be able to interface with the theme park on your phone. Result is shallower and shallower as the phone grips tighter. It gets tiring to critique something you know is only a cardboard cutout next to a rollercoaster.
"If all you do is think all day you end up only being able to think about thoughts", or, in this case, if you only critique the theme park all day you can only critique the critique of the theme park. This is also why movie reviewers inevitably become alien to their audience, they end up enjoying movies that swallow all other ones, that are meta movies, then meta meta movies etc. Art critics are too laden with the critique world of references to create anything that doesn't consist largely of this meta level world which is of itself largely a negation and thus provides only fallow grounds for the wannabe artist. Young Werther (hi btw) bringing up how to forget as necessary for art is thus for us, people commenting on critique of critique of etc, the greatest necessity and skill required, especially since the normie techno psychophere is itself becoming totally enveloped in an all consuming self referential fantasy world. Has a man who started as a critic who made good art - imagine this problem but as an industrially produced generation of critics, a people of critics etc? But perhaps I'm making the error Randy recently attacked of "The Artist" being a man apart from the living working society who specifically creates culture objects apart from the people for the people, over there, to consume? If that is so then this regeneration of art also calls for a new economy and embedded world of interaction between people, a new societal structure that doesn't alienate craft from art, and it certainly can't be virtual I think? Tabula Raza society is retarded tho as well as obviously not going to happen. Moreover with regards to the critic's problem of infertile context, as meaning is contextual art tabula raza is absurd... so I guess perhaps a steady diet of critique, lest we lose contact with the "people" (Digital AVIs lol) we are bound to and cannot replace (or replace with only other such "people") and reading old books and re-worlding ourselves by lifting and "rotating physical objects in space" as Randy would say seems like a good way to start. Cultural breakaway civilisation of the boys reading Plutarch between sets idk bro I can hardly make a ham sandwich let alone art - maybe the real synthetic social suppliment was the personally procured comment sections we observed ourselves uselessly flail within along the way and so on and so fourth. I have knowlingly indulged in every sin this article wishes to transcend by commenting here and perhaps there is a lesson in that, it's fun to be in an upper circle of hell spitting on the lower circles. Idk man good article Randy sorry for jerking off in your comments section - just a meta critic pointing out the obvious difficulties involved in producing art coming from a man who has never produced art and is by saying so only involving you in another level of critique. I should rename myself to Charon
as always you're too hard on yourself, but it's a fun contradiction how a) I relate to that and therefore like you, while also b) try to tell you that you shouldn't be. I think we're past the infinite regress of critique the moment we wish to be, all it takes is a "stepping back", or, "discarding the ladder once we've climbed it".
idea: kierkegaard leap of faith (forward), wittgenstein "stepping back" (backwards) -> nietzche (dancing (stepping back and forth)). the difference between stressfully pacing back and forth, and dancing, it's just a question of hearing the music
it sucks ass to be Sisyphus but lifting weights over your head feels great
This is one of the reason why I admire Banksy's temporary Dismaland. It's fun in its realism of suffering in post-modernity (yes it is very progressive), but they put effort in this temporal edge-crafting.