Facebook Wants Us to Live in the Metaverse: Mark Zuckerberg thinks Facebook is a “metaverse company.” What does he have in mind for this hypothetical virtual reality? The essay is related to the themes of my upcoming book on algorithmic culture, Filterworld, and engages with one of its heroes, the 20th-century critic Walter Benjamin.
Why Twitter’s New Interface Makes Us Mad
When social media design changes, it’s usually a way to push users toward new behaviors they might not actually want to do
- A.I.-generated imagery has become popular on Twitter, but the gap between the prompt text and the end result is the most interesting part
- The Poetic Misunderstandings
- Twitter’s new interface makes us mad
In the digital era, when everything seems to be a single click away, it’s easy to forget that we have long had physical relationships with the pieces of culture we consume.
When we want to experience something, we seek it out, finding a book by its spine, pulling an album from its case, or opening an app. The way we interact with something – where we store it – also changes the way we consume it.
Algorithmic Feeds
In the era of algorithmic feeds, it’s as if the bookshelves have started changing shape on their own
- You can accrue a delicately curated digital library of music only to have it thrown into disarray when the app changes
- Your collections can be lost entirely when it shuts down
- The shifting sands of digital technology have robbed these collections of their meaning
