I am definitely feeling this — and for me it’s showing up as a fatigue with public conversation (trying to attract attention from the nebulous “everyone”), and a leaning towards specific, directed conversation (hopefully unmediated by algorithms).
the algorithms!!! the dang algorithms!!!! fatigue is so real, especially with the at-large. I'm finding myself wanting so much to have those intimate conversations with friends rather than the large gathering space of social media as a "conversation." And thinking about how to recreate that intimacy via email too (which like ... bleh?)
As someone who's just finishing up reading Kyle Chayka's awesome book, Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture, I am definitely feeling like moving away from algorithms is the answer in the longterm. As someone who's happily dived back into zines in the last year or so, though, I'm very excited to explore alternatives!
yes! must our whole life be dictated by keywords too? HOW BORING. I’m going to read this one, it sounds great. And for the record Kyle almost always answers pitches and for that, a crown!
I love how thoughtful you are about your work and all the rest of it, even in tough times. So glad to be working with you! And next time I’ll know to get that Severance pitch drafted faster😂
HAHA I almost named it a Severance pitch here and then changed it to a show because I was like WHAT IF SOMEONE STEALS THE IDEA even though … I said nothing about what the actual pitch is. Haha your pitch is so good, we’re going to land it!
We're undergoing a reset of what we are as a society, and one way or another fiction has to engage the question of who we are...not how we fit in but endeavoring to set the coordinates of what "in" is. That's fiction's privileged position, here.
I don't know. I think there are lots of things fiction can (and can't) do. I tend to avoid expectations of what fiction has to do, I like the idea of boundlessness much better.
Oh, there's boundlessness in what I'm talking about. Not pegging things down but gesturing to where they open up. And this is what's active in any genre. But you're talking about how the real world is intruding on the ability to engage fiction, and I'm saying that this is where fiction touches the real world back by touching us in how we view it...if that's clear enough for a social media post.
makes sense, yes! I think I'm thinking more about capacity for engagement. Where are we all hitting our limits (and perhaps... how are our addictions to other medias making those limits more clear--ahhhhh!). I think fiction does what you're saying, but that doesn't make me more eager to engage with it at the moment (unfortunately!!!), and THAT space is where I'm struggling.
Yeah, I was in the exact same spot last month. I'm not there atm, but I'm also not digging deep right now on news. The broad idea I hold onto is from Dupuy, that the way to engage catastrophe is to accept that it has already happened, and from there you can take tangible steps to retroactively, as it were, change course. Obviously this doesn't lead to power fantasies, but it does give real room to thought without removing us from our investment in what's happening. Mourning's hard, stopping mourning is too. And the pressure we put on ourselves so easily gets in the way and obscures things. But that infinity you mentioned is always there, one way or another!
I am definitely feeling this — and for me it’s showing up as a fatigue with public conversation (trying to attract attention from the nebulous “everyone”), and a leaning towards specific, directed conversation (hopefully unmediated by algorithms).
the algorithms!!! the dang algorithms!!!! fatigue is so real, especially with the at-large. I'm finding myself wanting so much to have those intimate conversations with friends rather than the large gathering space of social media as a "conversation." And thinking about how to recreate that intimacy via email too (which like ... bleh?)
As someone who's just finishing up reading Kyle Chayka's awesome book, Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture, I am definitely feeling like moving away from algorithms is the answer in the longterm. As someone who's happily dived back into zines in the last year or so, though, I'm very excited to explore alternatives!
yes! must our whole life be dictated by keywords too? HOW BORING. I’m going to read this one, it sounds great. And for the record Kyle almost always answers pitches and for that, a crown!
I love how thoughtful you are about your work and all the rest of it, even in tough times. So glad to be working with you! And next time I’ll know to get that Severance pitch drafted faster😂
HAHA I almost named it a Severance pitch here and then changed it to a show because I was like WHAT IF SOMEONE STEALS THE IDEA even though … I said nothing about what the actual pitch is. Haha your pitch is so good, we’re going to land it!
We're undergoing a reset of what we are as a society, and one way or another fiction has to engage the question of who we are...not how we fit in but endeavoring to set the coordinates of what "in" is. That's fiction's privileged position, here.
I don't know. I think there are lots of things fiction can (and can't) do. I tend to avoid expectations of what fiction has to do, I like the idea of boundlessness much better.
Oh, there's boundlessness in what I'm talking about. Not pegging things down but gesturing to where they open up. And this is what's active in any genre. But you're talking about how the real world is intruding on the ability to engage fiction, and I'm saying that this is where fiction touches the real world back by touching us in how we view it...if that's clear enough for a social media post.
makes sense, yes! I think I'm thinking more about capacity for engagement. Where are we all hitting our limits (and perhaps... how are our addictions to other medias making those limits more clear--ahhhhh!). I think fiction does what you're saying, but that doesn't make me more eager to engage with it at the moment (unfortunately!!!), and THAT space is where I'm struggling.
Yeah, I was in the exact same spot last month. I'm not there atm, but I'm also not digging deep right now on news. The broad idea I hold onto is from Dupuy, that the way to engage catastrophe is to accept that it has already happened, and from there you can take tangible steps to retroactively, as it were, change course. Obviously this doesn't lead to power fantasies, but it does give real room to thought without removing us from our investment in what's happening. Mourning's hard, stopping mourning is too. And the pressure we put on ourselves so easily gets in the way and obscures things. But that infinity you mentioned is always there, one way or another!
hopeful!!!!
Heheh, in a way!