Enter... THE DISCOURSE

I don’t try to keep up. I look at Twitter or Instagram when I’m killing dead time, every day there’s some reference to a hot topic that’s completely inscrutable to me and it rarely seems interesting enough to suss out.

I've been advised a few different times now that if I want to pursue freelance writing gigs etc then I need to be active on Twitter and build a personal brand (ugh) but it just feels like I would be shouting into the void, and that void is also a hellscape of negative energy?

The chief hallmark of Discourse™️ is feeling compelled to weigh in, even though you know you don’t have to and kind of don’t even want to. That said, goddammit bean dad

— sarah jeong (@sarahjeong) January 3, 2021

What does it matter if everyone has an opinion on everything if they aren't constantly expressing those opinions to everyone else, is what I'm asking

https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7c44c8ea-fe2e-48dc-97ea-0a5fcd47cc16_1823x365.png

how do you find the time to keep up with Twitter on top of work/friends & family/cultural consumption? I feel like I'm always playing catch-up to topics and perspectives in the ~discourse~ and by the time I'm caught up everything worth saying has been said and the world has moved on. Is it simply a case of being Very Online and streamlining the subjects you're interested in?

― boxedjoy, Saturday, January 2, 2021 9:06 AM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

https://cdn.jwz.org/images/scaled/768/2020/enz8zt4w4aeaded.jpg

Adjacent thing I’ve been thinking abt is how twitter provides this plugged in proximity to a hit of raw uncut Discourse that, grass being greener, I’d like to leave behind and everyone says I don’t need to pay attention to. Yet it reminds me of the bit from devil wears Prada, where the people disconnected from it don’t seem to realize how much of their opinion (on something of a delay) has been shaped by this conversation. I’ll make a point to some friends that they’re all skeptical of, based on something I read online, only for them to make the same point or one that incorporates it a few days later, but unconsciously, as if they don’t even realize the bounds of possibility have been re-determined for them over this small window of a conversation’s evolution

I think we're basically saying the same thing. It's not that the broadsiders were so much more enlightened, just that there were fewer voices vying for attention and fewer perspectives dizzying up the conventional wisdom. The increased panoply of voices has the upside of adding to the breadth and diversity of perspective but also the major downside of depleting the depth and nuance of perspective.

― You will notice a small sink where your sofa once was. (Old Lunch), Tuesday, December 22, 2020 12:04 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

there might be a diversity of perspectives out there in reality, but in effect people have become less tolerant of voices different from their own and have buckled down in their own echo chambers.

people are way more likely to engage with an opinion by trying to like "sort" it into some category. "this sounds like what xyz is saying, you are on their side now." we don't have a discourse as much as a great process of sorting, filing, amplifying and cancelling.

i don't know if there is an alternative, though. like, it's fair to want to weed out crackpots from your twitter feed; no person can hold *every* idea in their head at once. the curation function we have though seems a little idk too blunt sometimes and easily gamed by bad actors.

there might be a diversity of perspectives out there in reality, but in effect people have become less tolerant of voices different from their own and have buckled down in their own echo chambers.

― treeship., Monday, January 4, 2021 11:47 AM (fifteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is one of those received wisdom things I see ppl say all the time but I’m not actually sure it’s true

My personal challenge for today is to avoid learning what Bean Dad is about.

I don't think it's true because it assumes that people behaved differently before the advent of social media

jmm you know what they say: if you look around the table and cant spot the bean dad....

This is one of those received wisdom things I see ppl say all the time but I’m not actually sure it’s true

There's some truth to it, but not in the way the people saying it think. For example, the idea of people becoming "less tolerant of voices different from their own" - what does that actually mean? In literal, real-life terms, the people saying it often mean, "I want you to listen to my racist, right-wing beliefs and not call me a stupid racist asshole. You should approach with an open mind." But why should I do that? I'm 49 years old. I've been listening to racist, right-wing bullshit from stupid assholes for at least 35 years now. How much more am I expected to listen to in the name of "intellectual freedom" and "discourse"?

I think this is a legit both-sides phenomenon but a) one side is right, and b) people have been doing this since forever but it's forgotten because history smooths out the details and rough edges, making current interactions seem novel and new rather than a continuing extension of the way people behave

just a hunch lately that perceived constriction / entrenchment of viewpoints is related to increased material inequality

Yet it reminds me of the bit from devil wears Prada, where the people disconnected from it don’t seem to realize how much of their opinion (on something of a delay) has been shaped by this conversation.

The hill I will die on: the whole progression of the movie is Anne Hathaway slowly coming to understand that Meryl Streep is full of shit in this speech, that Streep is in fact so locked in to her tiny enclosed world and the constraints it imposes on her that she has no choice but to absurdly exaggerate its broader importance, or go mad. (Relevance to "The Discourse" left as an exercise for the reader.)

otm

does the movie show that the devil does indeed wear prada though

the devil shares praxis

Hmm I think that’s true of the general narrative of that character but isn’t really true of how the fashion industry operates

the Devil wears Givenchy, actually

The Discourse Wears Prada

i think you mean the discourse wears exploitation

And for jewelry? Blood Diamonds (starring Leonardo DiCaprio)

lol

just a hunch lately that perceived constriction / entrenchment of viewpoints is related to increased material inequality

I think there's definitely something here; I was talking about this over the weekend with my partner where I put forward the theory that conservative fiscal policy has done a very good job of concentrating more money in the hands of fewer rich people at the top while liberal social policy has brought more people to the table in terms of who gets to participate in/benefit from federal programs, leaving the "traditional" (read: White) participants who aren't megawealthy feeling that they have to share fewer resources with more people and having them come to the conclusion that the correct solution is to prevent these uppity newcomers from participating rather than expanding the pool of available funds by taxing the megawealthy, who will be able to support their families through at least their great-grandchildren's generations based on what they already have.

Also I don’t think I was implying Twitter “creates” or “originates” this discourse, I’m not inflating it’s sense of importance, merely observing anecdotally that stuff takes longer to filter out from its origins to people who don’t read it

at least their great-grandchildren's generations

great-great-great-great-great-great-great to the moon and back tbf

the devil shares praxis

― nob lacks, noirish (darraghmac), Monday, January 4, 2021 11:04 AM (fourteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this made me lol, thanks

just a hunch lately that perceived constriction / entrenchment of viewpoints is related to increased material inequality

I think there's definitely something here; I was talking about this over the weekend with my partner where I put forward the theory that conservative fiscal policy has done a very good job of concentrating more money in the hands of fewer rich people at the top while liberal social policy has brought more people to the table in terms of who gets to participate in/benefit from federal programs, leaving the "traditional" (read: White) participants who aren't megawealthy feeling that they have to share fewer resources with more people and having them come to the conclusion that the correct solution is to prevent these uppity newcomers from participating rather than expanding the pool of available funds by taxing the megawealthy, who will be able to support their families through at least their great-grandchildren's generations based on what they already have.

― Totino's Fortnite Training Room (DJP), Monday, January 4, 2021 2:28 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I've been thinking along these lines recently and would add that climate change is a factor as well.

There are lots of people who "don't believe in man-made climate change" but will concede that "weather" is cyclical and has gotten worse (cf. "Tornados weren't as bad when I was younger, but it's not man made). I view this and the simultaneous/related economic inequality issues as creating a sort of "background radiation" of anxiety we are all living in that feels inescapable, even for those who would deny it's existence.

I commented ironically on the discourse, but I couldn't help but wonder: by commenting ironically on the discourse, was I part of the discourse? pic.twitter.com/UjZDw8lfkJ

— joe (@mutablejoe) January 12, 2021

Irony died forever in 2015 iirc so the answer here is 'no', obv.

Stare too long into the discourse and the discourse stares back

Also RIP irony

500 BCE - 2015 CE

You had a good run

...

NOT

You were like a black fly in our Chardonnay

And I really do think

Worst Bruce Lee movie

feel like DJP doing sea shanties should be part of The Discourse

I can probably pull together a decent version of "Drunken Sailor" over a weekend

from the thread "What Can't You Find On The Internet?":

thanks, Kate.

so if i could re-write my post, it would go like this.

1. can anyone recommend an interesting / critical perspective -- via book, blog post, article, twitter thread, etc. -- about the ubiquity of content and the techniques of content marketing?

2. seeking recommendations for twitter feeds, blogs, authors, even ILX threads i'm not aware of, that focus on the internet, and particularly advocates for free / open online spaces.

thanks

― budo jeru, Friday, July 8, 2022 10:17 AM

i might be having a different perspective on Content than you do, but to me the salient feature of Content is the way it engages us emotionally; I see Content as monetizing the cycle of abuse for corporate profit. my particular focus personally is on queer discourse, and i like a video lily alexandre posted last week on this topic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oH-avZlCMpk

if you see content and discourse as separate things i'd definitely be interested in exploring the differences further!