so stoked more and more people are talking about the attention economy and how the "free lunches" we get are messed up.
And honestly, if human behavior is any indication...most people hate ads and will pay to ditch them if they can afford it. We use ad blockers, subscribe to spotify instead of using the radio, get netflix or Tivo or whatever people use today.
Long term I'm curious to see if we ever transcend this arms race, or if we just keep it up into whatever future media forms develop.
It's not a funny article, but I found it pretty amusing. My best friend had a run-in with this exact phenomenon a few months back. She's a Zero Waste advocate and her insta community is big in the consciousness, design, and high vibes space. All of a sudden they were all going on about adrenochrome, pedophiles etc...
We were v confused. She started asking questions of one gal (and sending hilarious screenshots) and this EXACT thing happened:
"These videos rarely go into specifics; they tend to reference a documentary (that they’ll share with you over DM) or encourage the viewer to really prepare their self-care regimen before they go poking around into these dark truths and finally get “woke” in an entirely different sense."
Nailed the playbook. (and btw the video is mind-numbingly long and 10x worse than gaia tv for crazy making)
But really, this normalcy fetish is concerning. To be so obsessed with normalcy that you can believe some of this. Conspiracy thinking is fascinating, but the amount of it happening lately kind of ruins it for being an interesting cultural anecdote and just makes it feel dangerous to democracy. uf.
You can save a lot of money on conference tickets and business cards if you use a couple well-chosen essays as a way to get warm intros from friends-of-friends who you’d want to collaborate with.
I seem to be on a kick of mildly melancholy articles with a dash of hope that we can sort out climate change. This one got bundled with a 2nd one about a wild gardener and the combo works, although the first letter on caring for mother earth hit me right in the feels. That one earned the 10
This was FANTASTIC. I love this idea of the long now vs the short, and framing how we approach the decisions we make using that characterization.
If we want to contribute to some sort of tenable future, we have to reach a frame of mind where it comes to seem unacceptable - gauche, uncivilised - to act in disregard of our descendants.
Looks like I'm super late to this article! But still, I'm so seduced by the ones who throw it all away. Who's to say who is crazier, the one bathing in an aluminum tub without power, or the ones spending hours metaphorically chained to their device and digital communication.
WOW. I learned a lot of the backstory behind plastic becoming such a major player (lobbyists per usual, ugh). It's really reminiscent of Big Tobacco back in the day...shady behind doors convos and putting a bandaid over things people know are bad just to get a short term solution. whoa nelly, what a good article.
They weren't thinking what lesson should we learn for the next 20 years. No. Solve today's problem.
This one is interesting, i'm kind of exhausted just by the premise. This method takes SO much self-awareness and effort.
Having ditched the smartphone for now I'm delighted by the friction it adds to not be able to google or scroll on my phone. It's a really good trigger for me to stop and question why I want to distract myself. And maybe thats the kicker...some people are aware enough to self-reflect every time they get itchy, Me? nope. I need a bit more friction to remind me to wake tf up, otherwise i just fall into a trap and get stuck feeling guilty after.
What I do like is between this, and the article on The Twitter Machine, there's a way for all sorts of people to come to terms with how their life intertwines with technology
A friend visited me right before a fire hit and remarked how surreal and spooky it was...the yellow skies, burning eyes, and generally feeling like you have a low grade hangover (even when you haven't drank in years).
Perhaps we're all just too worn out by all the other disasters (inland hurricane in the midwest, for example) to wrap our brains around it anymore?
Best thing I've read in a while. Endlessly entertaining and funny, but also got the wheels spinning. Love that combo.
Rather than wondering ponderously if this is “cancel culture” or whatever, we might ask ourselves: Why the fuck were all these people tweeting? What were they thinking? What were they hoping to accomplish? What was the cost-benefit analysis that led them to think continued participation in social media was a good idea?
Science is always a game in cognitive dissonance, a play for how well you can hold two competing theories as entirely possible.
Two theories get explored here, maybe it's humans overgrazing, maybe it's earth wobbling. Regardless, it's fascinating and I can't get over the idea that the Sahara desert used to be, basically, the sahara jungle. what would Masanobu Fukuoka (of sowing seeds in the desert) think of this!
Breathing smoke every morning makes me very hopeful that CA can start to listen to native tribes who successfully managed fire here for centuries. A lot of cautious optimism for these partnerships.
Also, there's a mini vid from Happen Films about using goats for fire suppression that pairs well with this article. Hopefully brings it more to the forefront that the way we've been doing fire management (aka not at all) sucks.
Quite interesting. The end left such a good question that I wish more people would explore, that tension between the person someone is IRL and the one they perform online.
Also, this line was such a gem:
Of course, none of this changes the feelings and experiences of users, the actual people who use the app and offer up their data for manipulation.
why can't ethical clothing companies, or co's in general, keep themselves out of hot water? first american apparel, and now this. great missions, but mucking it up with racism and perversion.
The root cause, he argues, is the way retailers treat suppliers.
This is pretty glaring nowadays, esp as C19 trashes the garment industry and retailers refuse shipments of goods they ordered and refuse to pay suppliers. It's the garment workers that suffer.
I worry many people don't realize the true cost of their clothing. (There's a doc called The True Cost worth watching if you're curious, it's intense) I sew and knowing how long it takes to make one dress makes a $6 dress seem extra absurd.
If you get a screaming deal on apparel these days it's because someone down the supply chain got massively underpaid. I used to adore fashion, knowing about all this stuff ruined it for me but I am v glad I know!
inspiring work from Patagonia & others. don't love the style of Patagonia's clothes but sure do enjoy the ethos of the company and the pains they go to to create a circular lifecycle for their garments.
uf. the most vulnerable people in fashion's broken supply chain take the biggest hit.
As brands scrambled to cut costs to match declining sales, they’ve moved swiftly to cancel or postpone orders, even refusing to pay for goods that have already been produced.
Nothing H&M or other fast fashion brands do can even remotely be called "sustainable". The business model itself is too toxic.
H&M releases [two] ‘conscious collections’ a year and calls themselves sustainable... how about you make all your clothes sustainable (and properly disclose how they’re even sustainable). How about you pay your workers liveable wages and give them good working conditions.
Good suggestions for how to actually approach sustainability, but still leaves me so dismayed at the problematic impact fashion has. Ruined the entire industry for me, ugh.
More accurate would be "why slavery in fashion is making headlines YET AGAIN"
But the scrutiny resulted in no meaningful change, and today the mistreatment of garment workers remains a systemic issue for the fashion industry from Dhaka to Los Angeles. Until there is progress, fashion’s conscience cannot be clear.
Love this, big MMM fan. The fashion industry has been laser focused on spreading a consumption and luxury fanaticism to China in the past few years as the other middle classes stopped supporting their growth. This is a delightful wrench thrown at it, altho with risks they outline.
“Worries can’t change anything,” says Wang. “I’m like a seed of wild grass that can germinate anywhere. If I get into trouble, the worst that can happen is just going back to work again.”
dig this musing on the side hustle from a guy who made two of his into successful, self-sustaining co's....eventually. reminds me that with some projects, why the rush?
So glad to stumble upon this article. It's a well balanced look at cancel & call-out culture that I needed. The author does a killer job of exploring the nuance of the issue, the why and the results.
Defo got my wheels spinning and led me to think more deeply on the pros and cons. big YES for me.
Solid arguments, I've used the same to encourage people to write on their own website. Medium used to be the darling but that is defo starting to wane, esp given the way they blanket their brand over the writers. Own your content!
A long but worthy read from the archives of 2014. Historical topic (and relating to the legislature HR that called to investigate reparations) so it's just as pertinent today, maybe even more so as the violence against black people we saw around 2014 just keeps happening and happening.
The United States' legacy of decades upon decades of abuse & violence is stunning. Not a good look, but quite helpful to sit with all of this. Makes my own privilege feel immense and this is 100% worth the long read.
Yet America was built on the preferential treatment of white people—395 years of it. Vaguely endorsing a cuddly, feel-good diversity does very little to redress this.
If Readup had a second-cousin in debate club I think it would be the Kiaolo platform they suggest at the end lol.
Not sure that's truly the best solution to trolls, but I did find this sociological exploration of what drives a hot tempered or deliberately sadistic trolling.
I'm still noodling on some parts of this, and while compelling, I'm not convinced just seeing people face to face is always enough to elicit empathy anymore. I'm seeing quite a bit of antisocial behaviors lately IRL, and it's as if these behaviors and disconnection from the humanity of the other people around us is a bit muddled.
There's a marketing exercise I've done a few times where you consider the people who oppose you or have opposite viewpoints to yourself. Then you write out why they're right. It's a helpful way to push empathy, but I am not convinced face to face has the same result. You have to want it.
More recently, Mr. Bezos has ramped up his giving.
No surprise, his personal brand is garbage right now. My network of friends universally despises Bezos & Amazon for their impact on the world. A lot of millenials and others are ditching Prime and I imagine this wasn't a decision driven much by desire, more likely it's just business acumen seeing he needs to do this or he'll keep losing talent & customers.
Drop in the bucket but if Bezos is feeling guilty and ponying up cash to fight climate change, that's a small win.
This is an awesome shift in how we share info online.
I've been missing Encyclopedia's lately and it's been a weird feeling, with my libraries closed I struggle to find obscure reference material and information online that isn't either clickbait, or horrid. Like where do you find reliable information on the habitat and nesting habits of California Quail? Still don't know!
I share a need for an easier way to share reliable, solid knowledge outside of university resource libraries and gated journals. The ad driven clickbait is driving me batty. These platforms look compelling for that (fingers crossed)
Users getting paid for the data they create is a popular idea among some tech thinkers like Jaron Lanier, someone Yang says he’s been influenced by.
I was glad to see the shoutout for Jaron, I've heard the exact program outlined by him before. Exciting for a lawmaker to jump on actually enacting something like this.
Even if it put pressure on companies just to let you easily delete data that would be fabulous. There's a decent way to do it on Facebook (so they say) but it doesn't touch your user data. I just spent 3 days last week deleting all my past usage history & data on Facebook and it was a huge headache. Fingers crossed this makes moves.
iGirl is great. The obsession with 90s fashion...hilarious to me, given my age. Big Depop fan though, it's another great addition to the Poshmark type platform if you don't buy new clothes.
Depop’s growth over the past few months makes sense, given that many consumers have less cash on hand and are looking for inexpensive garments.
Thought this was a peculiar assumption. I know for many people they're tight on funds, but those people probably aren't buying clothes-used or otherwise (and a lot of stuff on Depop isn't that cheap). I know people making more money on unemployment than they would at their jobs (and turning down projects when I try to hire them bc of it) but not being able to go out and shop. Or stuck at home working remote with nowhere else to stock up on athleisure.
And its interesting they worry Gen Z sellers wont stay on the platform once they mature. Ever heard of Nasty Gal? She started as an ebay shop and built a brand, nothing wrong wrong with being a springboard.
Fun article if you like the nitty gritty of fashion, always glad to see more used & recycled clothing getting back into the world. The last thing we need is to keep supporting the rampant pollution and slavery of the modern fashion industry.