I would throw "dead internet theory" into this mix and the fact that a lot of trolls are paid.
It is ironic how the ascendance of DEI has resulted in much less diverse cultural offerings. I feel like the books being published are less interesting (competition from the internet probably factors in there as well), and post-COVID there are fewer venues for author talks, and authors were already not being sent out on book tours as often as in the past. Pre-COVID, I sat in a packed club for an Erik Davis presentation, and in a small group for a book discussion given by Oliver Stone, and in a stuffed bookstore for a talk by Bret Easton Ellis. I really miss that. I love podcasts and listen to a lot of them, but I miss sitting in an audience of people who are all interested in the same topic and are given the opportunity to discuss that topic with the author. I would expand this sense of loss to other kinds of lectures and presentations.
I decided not to go into what happened with Covid due to length, but I feel like that was the "shock doctrine" event that really broke the culture off from its now old-school liberal past and into this alienated cybernetic present and unknown future.
As far as DEI goes, it's not surprising when you factor in that it's really about having college educated bureaucrats dictate what's culturally permissible in an incredibly socioeconomically unequal society.
I listened to a podcast this afternoon where the hosts discussed "dead internet theory" and they said the internet could get to a point of zero human interaction, where you ask a question and get an AI generated answer, which I speculated on in my search engine piece. They also said they had spoken with a lot of higher ups in tech who were all predicting the rise of AI influencers at a scale that would dwarf the number of people describing themselves as influencers today. Horrors!
I would throw "dead internet theory" into this mix and the fact that a lot of trolls are paid.
It is ironic how the ascendance of DEI has resulted in much less diverse cultural offerings. I feel like the books being published are less interesting (competition from the internet probably factors in there as well), and post-COVID there are fewer venues for author talks, and authors were already not being sent out on book tours as often as in the past. Pre-COVID, I sat in a packed club for an Erik Davis presentation, and in a small group for a book discussion given by Oliver Stone, and in a stuffed bookstore for a talk by Bret Easton Ellis. I really miss that. I love podcasts and listen to a lot of them, but I miss sitting in an audience of people who are all interested in the same topic and are given the opportunity to discuss that topic with the author. I would expand this sense of loss to other kinds of lectures and presentations.
I had never heard of "dead internet theory," so I looked it up. Here is a good explainer from Forbes for others who may be interested: https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2024/01/16/the-dead-internet-theory-explained/?sh=28c20b0257c2 Even though that very Establishment writer thinks it's a conspiracy theory, he also acknowledges that it's getting at something that's quite real.
I decided not to go into what happened with Covid due to length, but I feel like that was the "shock doctrine" event that really broke the culture off from its now old-school liberal past and into this alienated cybernetic present and unknown future.
As far as DEI goes, it's not surprising when you factor in that it's really about having college educated bureaucrats dictate what's culturally permissible in an incredibly socioeconomically unequal society.
Thanks as always for your thoughts!
"Dead internet theory" is something of a conspiracy theory, but here is another piece, by the Guardian, acknowledging what is "real" about it:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/apr/30/techscape-artificial-intelligence-bots-dead-internet-theory#:
I wrote a Substack piece recently on the decline of search engines but hadn't heard of the theory when I wrote the piece.
Agree with your sentiments on Covid and DEI.
That **is** quite enlightening, if depressing.
I'm afraid that more and more people are increasingly starting to act like bots off-line, as well :(
I listened to a podcast this afternoon where the hosts discussed "dead internet theory" and they said the internet could get to a point of zero human interaction, where you ask a question and get an AI generated answer, which I speculated on in my search engine piece. They also said they had spoken with a lot of higher ups in tech who were all predicting the rise of AI influencers at a scale that would dwarf the number of people describing themselves as influencers today. Horrors!