Recommended Reading on Hype, Digital Media, Art, and Death in Poetry
Saskia Hamilton, Hype as the new religion, and AI & Capitalism.
I have been composing this month’s Recommended Reading since I wrote in May, gathering thoughts and writing sentences down of topics that I want to cover. There is always more to read, more to think about, just one more topic that connects. Here’s a reminder: This is my recommended reading, so *everything* is linked - you can read the articles and order the books.
I wrote last month about Jorie Graham and creativity; I have been thinking this month about hype and digital media trends, especially around social media, connectedness of consumption (what space/time does this leave for creation?), and AI and capitalism.
And then - I learned of the passing last week of Saskia Hamilton, my poetry professor at Barnard College. It seems insufficient to write about our student-teacher relationship from 15 years ago, and impossible to truly describe Saskia’s expansive mind, patient mentorship, and kindness. I came across Saskia’s first collection of poetry, As For Dream, before I had even applied to Barnard College as a high school student; before I even knew who Saskia was. I was studying poetry with Jennifer Metsker, who brought me to Jorie, who brought me to Saskia, who brought me to myself. Here, I’m bringing her to you.
I think of reading and writing, and especially the sacred space I hold for myself in poetry, as a solitary act. And I have found my ability to enter that space harder and harder - hence, my recent recommended readings on loss of focus (Stolen Focus!) and capitalism. This is by design; by design of globalization and interconnectedness of technology and capitalism. If you’re not talking about that book you read on social media, why did you read it? What does the advent of socialization of solitary activities say about our capacity for solitary activities, for self-reflection? This is the question I was asking when reading Deloitte’s recent report, 2023 Digital media trends: Immersed and connected. This article explains that social gaming has become more popular than watching a film or TV show for Gen Z, which are originally passive, consumer-facing activities (like reading!); the subtitle here of, “Younger generations are weaving TV, gaming, and UGC into a tapestry of entertainment, community, and meaning.”
"For many, digital media is not just entertaining but can also offer utility, foster community, and support emotional needs." I’m sure this is true - it’s also true of religion, it’s true of anything that we, as humans, try to find meaning in. This ties into another article of recommended reading this week - Blaspheming Against The Hype: Trickle Down Hype-onomics by Kyle Harrison. He points out, "As people increasingly become ‘religiously unaffiliated,’ they look for identity elsewhere. And the attention economy is a perfect opportunity for availability bias to kick in, allowing a big part of our personality to be dictated by hype." Something interesting to think about: the engineers, the creators of a lot (not all!) of these addicting hype machines, are not using their own tools. It’s a well-known anecdote at this point that most Facebook developers don’t let their young children use the app themselves, because it IS damaging to focus and self-esteem.
“About a third of gamers say they feel better about their self-image when they’re playing video games, and many gamers agree that video games allow them to feel like they are part of the story rather than just watching it. They can be their own movie star, the hero of grand adventures, and even take the lead role in the world’s largest entertainment franchises—and many are willing to spend money on virtual enhancements and upgrades to help them succeed or to express themselves with personalized, in-game appearances.” - Deloitte Insights
When one feels better about their self-image IN the video game, a space of virtual enhancements divorced from reality, what happens in the real world? And what impact does this have on ART and READING and on the solitude necessary for the CREATION?
I am even simply thinking about the difference between creators taking the time to step back and do the thing, vs talking about doing the thing. Creators of anything - new technology, new literature, new art.
Speaking of hype: Will A.I. Become the New McKinsey? by Ted Chiang. Whether you’re in the startup/tech space or not, it’s impossible to escape the hype of AI in the news today. Whether it’s ChatGPT for AI-assisted writing or MidJourney for creating AI-art (what is most accessible to the average user base) or using large-language models (LLMs) on the tech-productivity side as experimented with in three interesting use cases by Tomasz Tunguz (I find this most interesting!), the core of Chaing’s article is if we are even freaking out about the correct fear around A.I.:
The question we should be asking is: as A.I. becomes more powerful and flexible, is there any way to keep it from being another version of McKinsey? The question is worth considering across different meanings of the term “A.I.” If you think of A.I. as a broad set of technologies being marketed to companies to help them cut their costs, the question becomes: how do we keep those technologies from working as “capital’s willing executioners”? Alternatively, if you imagine A.I. as a semi-autonomous software program that solves problems that humans ask it to solve, the question is then: how do we prevent that software from assisting corporations in ways that make people’s lives worse?
As per my usual refrain: Go read the whole article. Here’s the consolidated list of this month’s Highly Recommended Reading at the top, and the rest of what I’ve consumed.
Listening to: Just Emma - When We Dip Radio #10
Watch: My TED Talk: Lessons From Losing My Mind (Andy Dunn invested in Play Out Apparel and is an awesome startup mentor and angel investor.)
RECOMMENDED READING - Top of Mind
All Souls Saskia Hamilton
2023 Digital media trends: Immersed and connected - Younger generations are weaving TV, gaming, and UGC into a tapestry of entertainment, community, and meaning.
Blaspheming Against the Hype - Trickle Down Hype-onomics
Will A.I. Become the New McKinsey? As it’s currently imagined, the technology promises to concentrate wealth and disempower workers. Is an alternative possible?
Observations Using LLMs Every Day for Two Months
Masculinity Is the Soft and Vulnerable Thing Inside Me
20 Years On: The Rise and Fall of the Hipster Two decades on from the publication of “The Hipster Handbook”, everything and nothing has changed in culture
Digital Culture Is Literally Reshaping Women's Faces The internet has led to the rise of a 'hyper-modern' pan-Asian beauty ideal “It may not be long before these cross-Pacific differences are further flattened into a transracial look entirely. Korean beauty standards are today remixed into broader beauty norms as the reigning look in beauty becomes more of an internet-driven global uniformity. In home design, for instance, internet platforms for rentals like Airbnb have led to a sterile, recognizably similar aesthetic across living spaces. When it comes to aesthetic ideals for people, the global pageant on Instagram plays out similarly, landing us on a largely homogeneous set of beauty standards that get further embedded the more they circulate on the marketplace of ideal faces and our desires.” Just as I have been - I’m sure you’ve been thinking endlessly about Alex Murrell’s the Age of Average - and it comes up again in this article. More on that here.
Can I still listen to David Bowie?’ A superfan’s dilemma
Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, Michael Jackson ... In the era of #MeToo what to do with the great art of scary monsters and super creeps?
In ‘Prima Facie,’ a Lawyer Puts Her Own Rape on Trial
The one-woman play, starring Jodie Comer and currently up for four Tonys, interrogates sexual violence. It also allows survivors to feel everything but OK.
Heaven has a bathrobe-clad receptionist named Denise. She's helping TikTok grieve Just because this is so fun!
11 Roles That Prove Cate Blanchett Is the Ultimate Chameleon Just because I’m obsessed with Cate Blanchett!
What’s a Luddite? An expert on technology and society explains “Contrary to popular belief, the original Luddites were not anti-technology, nor were they technologically incompetent. Rather, they were skilled adopters and users of the artisanal textile technologies of the time. Their argument was not with technology, per se, but with the ways that wealthy industrialists were robbing them of their way of life."
NEWS / LONG-FORM JOURNALISM
On the trail of the Dark Avenger: the most dangerous virus writer in the world
The secretary who helped uncover one of America’s strangest Ponzi schemes
He wrote a book on a rare subject. Then a ChatGPT replica appeared on Amazon.
How El Chapo’s sons built a fentanyl empire poisoning America
‘Man, the hunter’? Archaeologists’ assumptions about gender roles in past humans ignore an icky but potentially crucial part of original ‘paleo diet’
One mom takes on YouTube over deadly social media blackout challenge
Abortion Creates Futures
The funding that paid for my abortion came not from my government or my health insurance company or my employer. It came from people, like you and me, who make up a village of care.
A Murder Solved in DMs When Daisy De La O was killed, friends looked to social media for the man they suspected had done it. They found him.
The Influencer Industry Is Having an Existential Crisis
People who make their living by sharing content on giant social-media platforms have tried to strike, organize, and even unionize, but they don’t have much to show for it.
LGBTQ+ brand creator ‘relieved’ after Target pulls his items off shelves due to online backlash
The Day Streaming Died The streaming industry has been facing a reckoning for a while. This week, it hit.
The trans ‘queen mother’ reclaiming Fiji’s third gender – photo essay
The Lies Mothers Tell Themselves and Their Children
An AI Told Me I Had Cancer
Why was an AI looking through my medical records and how did it work? I decided to find out.
What True Justice Looks Like for Sexual Violence Survivors
For Gen Z, Playing an Influencer on TikTok Comes Naturally
In the Post-Roe Era, Letting Pregnant Patients Get Sicker—by Design
He helped cancer patients find peace through psychedelics. Then came his diagnosis
The World’s Oldest Ultramarathon Runner Is Racing against Death
Dag Aabye is eighty-one, lives in an old school bus on a mountain, and is pushing his body to its absolute limits
The Other Rapinoe Like her famous twin sister, Megan, Rachael Rapinoe was a huge soccer talent—until injuries and an opioid addiction derailed her career. Now she’s offering athletes a new way to manage their pain
The American Spy Who Surrendered to the Nazis to Save Civilians
The Continuing Frauds of Elizabeth Holmes
BUSINESS / STARTUPS / INVESTING
AI isn’t ‘hallucinating.’ We are. Why 'hallucination' is a problematic term (hint - it's not just because it anthropomorphizes the technology!) and what to do about it.
This CEO partnered with Cara Delevingne and became the face of high-tech sex positivity. Then it all came crashing down
Meet the woman dressing Gen Z: How streetwear label Aries became a fashion cult
LTK Cofounder Amber Venz Box Now One Of America’s Richest Self-Made Women After Softbank Fundraising
‘Trends have lost all meaning’ / Brands’ fascination with social-media fads has devalued the rigorous practice of trend forecasting, says Reddit's head of global foresight, Matt Klein. Brands should remember some simple laws of physics to get back on track.
Clothing retailers want QR codes to replace bulky tags
The Twenty Year Itch: My Last VC Investment Out of Brooklyn Bridge Ventures
Twitter Backed A Bunch Of Underrepresented VCs. Under Elon Musk, It’s Trying To Dump Them.
Jack Dorsey-Backed Decentralized Twitter Rival Prepares To Launch With One Million Users
Micro-fund managers feel deflated as LPs cool on VC
‘Brick-and-mortar retail is coming back’: How brands are rethinking the store
"Online customer acquisition costs have gone up by at least 60% in the last five years, and brands lose an average of $29 on each acquisition, according to research by social commerce company SimplicityDX."
Listen: 383. The Fallout of First Republic and SVB and its Implications on Tech, The Algorithm Behind the Midas List, and Will AI Actually Replace Journalists? (Alex Konrad) podcast
Buyers are 'window shopping' for startups, but few are willing to spend big
Sarah LaFleur Couldn’t Find Stylish Workwear for Women, so She Started Her Own Brand
Of Course the Anarchist Café Closed for Lack of Profits, Funding. But Anti-Capitalism Didn't Doom It
Clothing Entrepreneurs Can’t Wait To Fire Themselves As Models And Hire The AI Kind Instead
Lost in the Generational Divide: Aging Gen Xers in a Boomer-Millennial World
BRAIN / MIND / HEALTH
A New Therapy for Multiple Personality Disorder Helps a Woman with 12 Selves
Listen: Understanding Dissociative Identity Disorder through the 'Community' of Ella
Intelligence’s Creative Multiplicity
How the brain changes when we grieve
The Link Between Highly Processed Foods and Brain Health
How menopause reshapes the brain
The Dutch solution to busyness that captivated the world
The new human pangenome could help unveil the biology of everyone
ART / LITERATURE
Hannah Gadsby’s Picasso Show Is a Victim of Its Hype It’s Pablo-matic is not a great exhibition, but it’s also not the catastrophe that some people have described.
Listen: Abraham Verghese on Medicine’s Innate Connection to Storytelling In Conversation with Mitzi Rapkin on the First Draft Podcast
Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Nicole Holofcener on the Absurdity of Everyday Life
OTHER / PERSONAL INTEREST / RANDOM
When a ‘Queer’ Party Is Overrun By Straight People Call it ‘queerbaiting’ if you must, but nightlife needs to face up to the problem.
The 20 greatest children's books ever – what the voters say
The 100 greatest children's books of all time
Does Your Dog Truly Love You? Science Has the Answer
New York City’s Latest Specialty Libraries for Design Obsessives
Starring Antique Wax Figurines From A Medical Museum, The Latest David Cronenberg Film Animates The Uncanny
The Case for Leaving Strangers in Your Family Photos Magic Eraser lets you buff the randos from your beloved vacation snaps. But you’re losing something valuable in the process.
Why Do So Many Millennials Look and Seem So Much Younger Than They Are?
Sober Women and the Fear of Becoming Boring
It’s time to talk about male mediocrity at work
What Happened to Maya When a 10-year-old girl complained of mysterious pain, a doctor suspected child abuse. How far would she go to prove it?
A Brief History of Secret Communication Methods, From Invisible Ink to Tattooed Heads
The Elusive, Maddening Mystery of the Bell Witch
Ancient DNA reveals the multiethnic structure of Mongolia’s first nomadic empire
For Better and for Worse When my husband was finally diagnosed with dementia, I vowed to take care of him. Then he filed for divorce.
Human-evolution story rewritten by fresh data and more computing power
Titanic: First ever full-sized scans reveal wreck as never seen before
