Wow, I really enjoyed reading this! Such interesting observations at both micro/macro levels, and you describe your friend with such loving care. I particularly liked the following bits:
"He has managed to find a niche that attracts a sizable amount of attention. He made content that people find genuinely useful. But in many ways, it’s a one-time transaction. People come to him for answers, and then they go."
"I went on to search for these other content creators myself, to get a better sense of what Kharisma was saying. People—or students—seem to respond to being scolded."
Do you have any recs for digital anthropology reading? I've read "Simulation and Its Discontents" by Sherry Turkle and am increasingly interested in this area.
Hey, thanks for sharing that! Interesting—curious to know why those bits stood out to you?
On recs, yes I do! The book that converted me (made me want to study the subject) was Natasha Dow Schüll's Addiction by Design. Brilliant ethnographic work. Nick Seaver's Computing Taste is also widely read in the digital anthropology programme I was in. I don't think I've read Turkle's Simulation and Its Discontents yet. Adding it to my reading list :)
I think what I found really interesting about that bit was this new kind of relation/purpose as hyper-niche one-time role model that only seems possible with the internet (and perhaps only with algorithmic feeds??) That was really striking to me.
And the bit about scolding -- such an interesting observation, the kind of observation that platforms like TikTok seem good for. Micro-videos like tiktoks seem like this perfect way to experiment with what gets people's attention. Because they're so short, it forces a distilled hypothesis about what you think will get people's attention. And because they're short, you can generate and test a bunch of these hypotheses pretty quickly and with little cost.
I'm super interested in how information (and physical) environments influence social relationships and thus our purpose and identity - https://rhezab.github.io/exoskeletons
That's such an interesting way to put it (re hyper-niche one-time role model). The wording of that got me thinking more deeply about how it's incredibly difficult to find care—genuine care—in the online space. And how you're incentivised to maximise views vs community (at least that's still the bigger theme on most social media).
You're absolutely right. And reading it being put that way does encourage me to try and experiment some more. But I'm wary of attention being tricky, delicate, and fickle. You can't help but think through its set of logics, yet it can't guarantee you get to do the work that you want to do. I guess it's always going to be a struggle.
Good read! Love the examples you highlighted. Thanks for sharing!
Wow, I really enjoyed reading this! Such interesting observations at both micro/macro levels, and you describe your friend with such loving care. I particularly liked the following bits:
"He has managed to find a niche that attracts a sizable amount of attention. He made content that people find genuinely useful. But in many ways, it’s a one-time transaction. People come to him for answers, and then they go."
"I went on to search for these other content creators myself, to get a better sense of what Kharisma was saying. People—or students—seem to respond to being scolded."
Do you have any recs for digital anthropology reading? I've read "Simulation and Its Discontents" by Sherry Turkle and am increasingly interested in this area.
Hey, thanks for sharing that! Interesting—curious to know why those bits stood out to you?
On recs, yes I do! The book that converted me (made me want to study the subject) was Natasha Dow Schüll's Addiction by Design. Brilliant ethnographic work. Nick Seaver's Computing Taste is also widely read in the digital anthropology programme I was in. I don't think I've read Turkle's Simulation and Its Discontents yet. Adding it to my reading list :)
Thank you for the recs!
I think what I found really interesting about that bit was this new kind of relation/purpose as hyper-niche one-time role model that only seems possible with the internet (and perhaps only with algorithmic feeds??) That was really striking to me.
And the bit about scolding -- such an interesting observation, the kind of observation that platforms like TikTok seem good for. Micro-videos like tiktoks seem like this perfect way to experiment with what gets people's attention. Because they're so short, it forces a distilled hypothesis about what you think will get people's attention. And because they're short, you can generate and test a bunch of these hypotheses pretty quickly and with little cost.
I'm super interested in how information (and physical) environments influence social relationships and thus our purpose and identity - https://rhezab.github.io/exoskeletons
Thank you for elaborating!
That's such an interesting way to put it (re hyper-niche one-time role model). The wording of that got me thinking more deeply about how it's incredibly difficult to find care—genuine care—in the online space. And how you're incentivised to maximise views vs community (at least that's still the bigger theme on most social media).
You're absolutely right. And reading it being put that way does encourage me to try and experiment some more. But I'm wary of attention being tricky, delicate, and fickle. You can't help but think through its set of logics, yet it can't guarantee you get to do the work that you want to do. I guess it's always going to be a struggle.
Good read! Love the examples you highlighted. Thanks for sharing!
Yes! Micro-content seems like a good medium for maximizing attention capture, but that's ~orthogonal to the work you actually want to do.
Looking forwarding to reading more from you! :)
Thank you for your readership! :)