THE END OF THE NET AS WE KNOW IT
A recurrent theme I keep seeing as a subtext of many of the articles I write and link to here has been the ongoing professionalization of the internet and how that is impacting culture. Why I never thought of calling it what it is – gentrification – boggles my mind, but luckily this week Jessa Lingel did just that in a great article for Culture Digitally, called… The Gentrification of the Internet. (h/t to ReDef)
And she’s right. Just like our cities, the Internet is getting gentrified in the service of big business, advertising, commerce and the safety these entities need. These changes are subtle and have been taking place over time, but are fundamentally changing the nature of the Net. As she says:
In the early days, the Web was driven by experiments in technology, DIY community building and curiosity around connecting with strangers from across the world. The Web we have now is guided by different principles, like business models that rely on a constant transfer of data from people to marketers, social norms of consumption and self-promotion, and black boxing the algorithms that structure the platforms we use. The internet is increasingly making us more isolated, less democratic, and beholden to major corporations and their shareholders. In other words, the internet is increasingly gentrified.
She goes on to point out three critical similarities between urban and internet gentrification: Isolation, where we increasingly live in less diverse bubbles; Increasing Costs, where services get more expensive (urban) or where you get “out-spent and out-coded” by Facebook, etc.; and Uneven Commercialization, where local businesses are pushed aside, or earlier websites (Craigslist) get cast as outdated and uncool.
Meanwhile, over at Medium, Yancey Strickler (co-founder of Kickstarter) wrote a great piece called The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet, where he applies author Liu Cixin’s dark forest theory of the universe from his sci-fi trilogy The Three Body Problem to today’s internet.
Briefly, the idea of the dark forest is that the Universe is not unlike a dark forest – it seems quiet, dark and inactive, but there’s a lot of hidden animal activity going on, and there might also be a lot of activity going on in the Universe, but we can’t see or hear it. As Yancey says, “If it’s a dark forest, then only Earth is foolish enough to ping the heavens and announce its presence. The rest of the universe already knows the real reason why the forest stays dark. It’s only a matter of time before the Earth learns as well.
This is also what the internet is becoming: a dark forest.”
His thesis is that as we get sick of poor internet behavior, people are increasingly turning to dark forests online –“newsletters and podcasts…Slack channels, private Instagrams, invite-only message boards, text groups, Snapchat, WeChat, and on and on. This is where Facebook is pivoting with Groups (and trying to redefine what the word “privacy” means in the process).”It’s something he acknowledges he’s been doing more of, and it applies to me as well – I’ve turned to writing this newsletter instead of posting/reading Facebook, and I’ve been moving to more private forms of communication. But the problem with this is that as people like us “abandon” these spaces, we diminish our own influence on the larger world. Or as he says, “If the dark forest isn’t dangerous already, these departures might ensure it will be.”
It has me thinking a lot about just how momentous this moment is for the future of the Internet. People are moving into walled-gardens (Facebook, private channels); politicians are destroying net neutrality principles, and indeed the Net is bifurcating into at least three Nets (Our’s, China’s, Europe’s); we see calls for censorship and making the Net “safer” for kids and advertisers; and as more money piles into online content, the space for independent voices (be they news, or films, or music, or opinion, or…) shrinks and becomes harder to find.
We’ve not only broken the Internet to make a better Mall, a better TV and a worse cab, but we’ve possibly come near the end of the time period when we can do much about it. Nathaniel Rich’s gigantic article for the NYT last year (and now a book) Losing Earth: the Decade we Almost Stopped Climate Change, pointed out that from 1979-1989, we could see what was going wrong with global warming and had a chance to do something different, but for various reasons (money, politics, lack of will), we lost the chance. I fear we’re going through a similar decade as it applies to the Net now, and the implications for society overlap with and are not dissimilar from those when that battle was lost.
What to do? Well, Lingel argues we need to do three things: take control of the algorithm; diversify what you see/visit; and control the politics – by paying attention to the politicians (and lobbyists) and corporations trying to change the Net and make our voices heard. I’m not sure that’s enough, and that it’s not too late, but the Optimist in me holds out a little hope that we can use the Internet to come together to fight these changes and reassert a little more of that original DIY ethos. Let’s hope that’s the case.
WHAT I’M READING: FILM
Disney says its more than $400 million Vice investment is now worthless. Saw that one coming, but it amazes me that some people are still giving these clowns money. It. never. Worked. It was a media Ponzi-scheme all along, and only the old media guard fell for it.
Check out this fun interview with Werner Herzog – where he discusses everything from catching trout with your bare hands to how to pick a lock. Good stuff.
WHAT I’M READING: BRANDED CONTENT
Why Brand Purpose marketing isn’t working with young people – Guess why? Because most brands don’t have a purpose and think they can fake one. You can’t. But when you are genuine, the audience knows it and responds in kind.
Will Streaming Platforms usher in a golden age of Branded Content – I’ve been saying this for years now, and finally people are picking up on the fact that brands are making longer form and episodic content to get past the firewall and onto SVOD. We’ll also see it increase as Netflix realizes they need another revenue stream.
Walmart is Streaming Shoppable Shows, and that could change shopping – Walmart is using streaming content to help facilitate consumers buying products. I don’t think this is the best use of branded content, but it will surely work for fashion and certain other brands, and it is (unfortunately) the future.
Forbes is making 40% of its revenue from branded content – according to Digiday – and part of the reason for that is more cross-platform thinking as exemplified by the ties between their research, events and content divisions. More on Forbes below, but combining services seems like a smart strategy in this space.
WHAT I’M READING: GAMING; VR/AR; SOCIAL MEDIA
How Jordan Freeman and Zoom are using Cross-media approaches and a stellar team to make gaming the new art form. A great read in Forbes on someone doing it right. Freeman has built a bit of a creative dream team (smart step one) and is focused on building story worlds, and making something more than the “usual” in the gaming world. It has a lot of potential. From the article, Zoom’s approach “could truly help games become more recognized as works of art: a seamless blend of elements we appreciate as artistic, but presented in a cross-media package that combines imagination with interactivity, founded on
real creativity.”
Driving marketing in the 21st century with VR and AR – More on how the future of advertising is at least partly being realized through VR/AR.
How video games can address climate change – Finally, some folks are using active/interactive media that people actually participate in to address climate change (games, that is). It’s about time, and will likely have far more influence than all these scary climate films we’ve been making. Kudos.
TikTok has Created a Whole New Class of Influencer – As the article says: “There might not be much money – but, right now, there is very little artifice as a result.” and that’s why TikTok works for so many people – the lack of artifice, which is reminiscent of early web video. It will be about a year before it gets overrun with “professionalized” content, but it’s great for now.
Note that I am taking a break til after June 3rd and the newsletter will be on temporary hiatus. More in June.