- 10 Dec, 2025 *
The social internet which once seemed so promising is now a dystopian hellscape populated by Chaucerian frauds, grotesque extremists, technocrats who have drunk too deeply of the California spirit, and increasingly, anti-human robots. Artists who were told that they would no longer be at the mercy of shadowy gatekeepers are instead slaves to capital—the promise of being able to “monetize” one’s individuality has dissolved into the reality of shilling oneself, like everybody else, at the algorithmic supermarket.
Buried under the ruins of the sociocommercial …
- 10 Dec, 2025 *
The social internet which once seemed so promising is now a dystopian hellscape populated by Chaucerian frauds, grotesque extremists, technocrats who have drunk too deeply of the California spirit, and increasingly, anti-human robots. Artists who were told that they would no longer be at the mercy of shadowy gatekeepers are instead slaves to capital—the promise of being able to “monetize” one’s individuality has dissolved into the reality of shilling oneself, like everybody else, at the algorithmic supermarket.
Buried under the ruins of the sociocommercial internet, the old web of blogs, digital archives, and email still survives, and it is there that I shall be spending my time in the foreseeable future. Social media is, by design, making those who engage with it behave in increasingly homogenous ways. Performers in particular are not only sounding the same as each other, but also promoting their work in the same boring, uncreative ways. Instead of a Cambrian explosion of boutique record labels, we have a convergence of all music into the large, misshapen entity known as Content. For musicians, whose only advantage is having a unique voice, this should be especially alarming.