My guess would be we're not going to see a backlash towards 21st century tech per se, but instead a sort of move away from the Facebooks of the world and towards a splintered, "cozy" internet. The (fleeting) success of BeReal among the under-20 set would point towards this, as would the widespread popularity of Discord (an Amazon subsidiary, sure, but one very much hearkening back to the days of IRC). There certainly is nostalgia for Web 1.0 (there are teenagers using Geocities in 2023!) and even the also-rans of Web 2.0 (there's a lot of people using Tumblr these days because they like the "abandoned mall" vibes - I don't know how to link to other 'stacks in the comment section but Madison Huizinga had a great piece about this a few days ago).
I don't think a romanticism-inspired "retreat to the real" is likely, let alone neo-Luddism, and even if it did - how would anyone know? (If a tree falls in a forest and no one has Wi-Fi, does it make a sound?) The new frontier, I suspect, is cottagecore, and cosplaying tree hugging for the Insta gaze. But hey, maybe that *is* romanticism - Thoreau's mom did his laundry, after all.
You could probably pitch a book with this thesis, successfully (someone probably is right now). Romanticism was very hippy in some ways. Expressed in consumer culture today, I think it fits right in with the nutrition craze and the fitness craze and crystals and horoscopes. Of course a chunk of the hippies with enough capital access led to Silicon Valley, and another middle class offshoot became the yuppies of the eighties and early nineties. In the words of Greg Brown, "the rich build sensitive houses, and pass their stuff around. For the rest of us, it's trailers on the outskirts of town." All of this individual searching for personal expression, meaning, community (without obligation) and recognition is a consequence of capitalism, at least from what I can tell. Who is the Byron of TikTok, by the way?
Politics are undulating rightwards after being so far left after being right of center before that.
The share of time people want to spend outside of the real world is unchanged. Social media filled that space because it was much easier to do than geocities or angelfire before. Religion was the historical occupier of this space.
The people will return to irl and some might do it in religiosity or anything but following the science. COVID broke the mystique.
AI will do nothing to impact culture other than shift around the toil. Fancier than the regressions linear algebra gave us though!
A great article on big topics that are quickly moving but those not attuned are missing. Thank you.
Would it really kill people who aren't well-educated on spirituality to actually talk to people who are before writing something like this, with its implicit condescension? Astrology isn't about the actual positions of the planets (saying "stars" is a dead giveaway of that condescension); they serve the same purpose as numerals do in mathematics. As one example.
I'll make an editorial suggestion, being one and so driven by training to want to improve a writer's work. Look up the definition of "indigo children". You're going to run into a lot of quasi-religious nonsense, but consider the basic concept and how it might apply to the direction all those young people are taking. And, by the way, more than a few of the older ones.
My guess would be we're not going to see a backlash towards 21st century tech per se, but instead a sort of move away from the Facebooks of the world and towards a splintered, "cozy" internet. The (fleeting) success of BeReal among the under-20 set would point towards this, as would the widespread popularity of Discord (an Amazon subsidiary, sure, but one very much hearkening back to the days of IRC). There certainly is nostalgia for Web 1.0 (there are teenagers using Geocities in 2023!) and even the also-rans of Web 2.0 (there's a lot of people using Tumblr these days because they like the "abandoned mall" vibes - I don't know how to link to other 'stacks in the comment section but Madison Huizinga had a great piece about this a few days ago).
I don't think a romanticism-inspired "retreat to the real" is likely, let alone neo-Luddism, and even if it did - how would anyone know? (If a tree falls in a forest and no one has Wi-Fi, does it make a sound?) The new frontier, I suspect, is cottagecore, and cosplaying tree hugging for the Insta gaze. But hey, maybe that *is* romanticism - Thoreau's mom did his laundry, after all.
You could probably pitch a book with this thesis, successfully (someone probably is right now). Romanticism was very hippy in some ways. Expressed in consumer culture today, I think it fits right in with the nutrition craze and the fitness craze and crystals and horoscopes. Of course a chunk of the hippies with enough capital access led to Silicon Valley, and another middle class offshoot became the yuppies of the eighties and early nineties. In the words of Greg Brown, "the rich build sensitive houses, and pass their stuff around. For the rest of us, it's trailers on the outskirts of town." All of this individual searching for personal expression, meaning, community (without obligation) and recognition is a consequence of capitalism, at least from what I can tell. Who is the Byron of TikTok, by the way?
I love this so much!
There's nothing new.
Politics are undulating rightwards after being so far left after being right of center before that.
The share of time people want to spend outside of the real world is unchanged. Social media filled that space because it was much easier to do than geocities or angelfire before. Religion was the historical occupier of this space.
The people will return to irl and some might do it in religiosity or anything but following the science. COVID broke the mystique.
AI will do nothing to impact culture other than shift around the toil. Fancier than the regressions linear algebra gave us though!
A great article on big topics that are quickly moving but those not attuned are missing. Thank you.
Would it really kill people who aren't well-educated on spirituality to actually talk to people who are before writing something like this, with its implicit condescension? Astrology isn't about the actual positions of the planets (saying "stars" is a dead giveaway of that condescension); they serve the same purpose as numerals do in mathematics. As one example.
I'll make an editorial suggestion, being one and so driven by training to want to improve a writer's work. Look up the definition of "indigo children". You're going to run into a lot of quasi-religious nonsense, but consider the basic concept and how it might apply to the direction all those young people are taking. And, by the way, more than a few of the older ones.