New Pet Shop Boys EP ‘Agenda’ is out, and everyone is going on about the Trump-baiting track called Give Stupidity A Chance. I’m loving another catchier track with a wonderfully shady lyric video ‘On Social Media’.
Might seem odd for someone who looks like the poster child of all things social to post this, but I’ve also seen the rise of the downside of the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram and the like.
From copyright to content policy, ‘hate crime’ to actual real death-threaty hate, I suspect I am like a lot of people ambivalent about what it has become. I’ve pulled away from Tumblr, posting a lot on FB, and limit a lot of my posts to positive ones about my work, or to places I don’t get ‘reported’ for bullshit reasons… And have been posting more on sites I control.
I don’t see a reason to build up Zuck’s empire anymore, in particular. But the political side has bothered me more… The bots, the fake confrontation, the algorithms, Cambridge Analytica, and the things I highlighted decades ago – the various ways that online conversation on many of those sites is broken. The whole Keeping Up With The Joneses/humblebrag bling BS which tends to be rife on FB and Insta, the way you’re encouraged to skim past people’s lives as if they are a cheap novel and don’t really connect. All of the friendship with none of the calories, a McFriend (no TM, LOL). I know I am not the only one in feeling utterly alone in a crowd of posts and tweets.
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