Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences Overcoming internet disillusionment … · As evidenced in...

Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences

Overcoming internet disillusionmenton the principles of meme designLovink, G.W.

Publication date2017Document VersionFinal published versionPublished ine-flux journal

Link to publication

Citation for published version (APA):Lovink, G. W. (2017). Overcoming internet disillusionment: on the principles of meme design.e-flux journal, 83, [www.e-flux.com/journal/83/141287/overcoming-internet-disillusionment-on-the-principles-of-meme-design/].

General rightsIt is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s)and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an opencontent license (like Creative Commons).

Disclaimer/Complaints regulationsIf you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, pleaselet the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the materialinaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please contact the library:https://www.amsterdamuas.com/library/contact/questions, or send a letter to: University Library (Library of theUniversity of Amsterdam and Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences), Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WPAmsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible.

Download date:01 Jul 2021

https://research.hva.nl/en/publications/9da6fce7-2005-4e69-98a7-701ec08ecd71

Journal #83 - June 2017

Geert Lovink

Overcoming Internet Disillusionment: On thePrinciples of Meme Design

“Artificial intelligence is not the answ

you’re going to pay me”—Molly Soda

Instagram filter”—Laurie Penny. “W

rational debate have blocked and mut

pollution is to fossil capitalism—a by

it is us”—Erin Gün Sirer.

1 Evgeny Morozov, “Moral panic over fake news higiants,” The Guardian, January 7, 2017 Go to Text

2 Designer-researcher Silvio Lorusso, who providehas noted that a similar relativism has taken overreason why trained, professional graphic designeproduce effective memes. Instead, memes are oftamateur culture. Meme creation is therefore ofteprocess, for instance in the documentary the “first meme” and which discusses meme prod

Notes - Overcoming Internet Disillusi

Journal # 83 More

Overcoming Internet Disillusionment: On the Principles of Mem... http://www.e-flux.com/journal/83/141287/overcoming-internet-dis...

1 of 13 22/01/18, 14:02




Journal # 83 More


2 of 13 22/01/18, 14:02

explains in a British TV interview, the Big Other has vanished. There is no BBC World Service anymore,

the moderate radio voice that once provided us with balanced opinions and reliable information. Every

piece of information is self-promotion, crafted by public-relations managers and spin doctors—and by

us users as well (we are our own marketing interns). What’s collapsing right now is the imagination of a

better life. It is no longer the “wretched of the earth” who revolt, because they’ve got nothing left to

lose, but rather the stagnating middle class and “young professionals,” who face permanent precarity.

After hubris come guilt, shame, an

current discontent will ultimately

repentance? What comes after the

addiction reveals itself, the mood f

as frustration, if not hatred. The on

people in the outside world scare y

warning applicable to all websites.

constant risk of financial collapse,

economy in which only imaginary

refuge.

3




Journal # 83 More


3 of 13 22/01/18, 14:02

happens when we can no longer distinguish between utopia and dystopia?




Journal # 83 More


4 of 13 22/01/18, 14:02

the twenty-first-century-style catastrophe that so many films have introduced us to. Still, we remain

encapsulated, captured inside cybernetic loops that go nowhere, in which meaningless cycles of events,

series, and seasons pass by. What happens when the anxiety of information saturation flips into a

profound feeling of emptiness? Once we’ve passed this point, the digital neither disappears nor ends.

Events simply no longer turn into Roman spectacles. Instead, we experience simulacrum as prime

reality. We cannot process such a sudden overproduction of reality. We no long turn on television news

thinking that we’re watching a film

is film scenarios and their affects t

anticipated our condition, and now

Report is now a techno-bureaucrati

Virtual reality feels like

avant-garde is very much alive. The

industry. Hyperreality becomes ou

or absurd.

Let’s look at radical disillusionmen

Our social media rage is not just a

disenchantment turn into a revolt,




Journal # 83 More


5 of 13 22/01/18, 14:02

boyd asked if media literacy had backfired. Have trolling, clickbait, and fake news undermined the

classic belief in the democratization of news production? Whereas for the pre-internet baby-boom

generation media literacy was synonymous with the ability to question sources, deconstruct opinions,

and decode ideology, media literacy has now turned into the ability to produce one’s own content in the

form of responses, blog postings, and social media updates. The shift from critical consumer to critical

producer has come with a price: namely, information inflation. (The well-meaning “prosumer”

synthesis never materialized.) Acc

distrusting media sources rather th

of experts, it is now enough to cite

culture that can only ever be outra

that favors tribalism and self-segre

The current situation demands a r

regarding media literary. How can

of the current problem in the first

yourself” be a viable alternative wh

still rely on the emancipatory pote

apps? How does manipulation wor

11




Journal # 83 More


6 of 13 22/01/18, 14:02

communication-with-consequences, a next-level hybrid in which sovereign executive power and

marketing become inseparable.

What does contemporary psychoanalysis have to offer? As evidenced in Kristin Dombek’s The Selfishness

of Others: An Essay on the Fear of Narcissism, there is a renaissance of narcissism as cultural diagnosis.

While Dombek avoids referencing internet cultures and refrains from selfie and social media

complaints, she does point to a cru

quantitative methods. Today’s narc

“can be measured across large grou

beyond the illness metaphors when

be a fatal mistake to attempt to ma

right as “sick patients.” In a review

Dombek’s own view echoes that of

narcissism in parents and partners

ideally responsive to us it’s becaus

Beyond the fear of narcissism, let’s

fact that he is always acting. He mo




Journal # 83 More


7 of 13 22/01/18, 14:02

once celebrated as a “diversity of opinion,” has now reach a nihilistic “zero point” in which the

accumulation of possible meanings can either lead to critical insights (or even knowledge), or implode

into a pool of indifference (possibly resulting in the disappearance of networks such as Twitter, which

thrive on individual expressions, judgements, and preferences).

These days, institutional dogmas are hidden inside media folklore, hardwired into network

architectures, steered by algorithm

sunken so far into daily routines an

deconstruct a particular piece of in

disposition.

Meme producers have become imm

indifference has not yet been hack

“Given the ideological anarchy inh

bound by nothing, set a rhetorical

point.” Burton concludes that “shi

not the age of the Renaissance (Wo




Journal # 83 More


8 of 13 22/01/18, 14:02




Journal # 83 More


9 of 13 22/01/18, 14:02

the designer as lone wolf? How do we organize this type of political labor? Do we need even more tools

that bring us together? Have you already used Meetup, Diaspora, DemocracyOS, and Loomio? Do we

perhaps need a collective dating site for political activism? How can we design, and then mobilize, a

collective networked desire that unites us in a “deep diversity”? Is the promise of open, distributed

networks going to do the job, or are you look for strong ties—with consequences?

Generations have studied the fatal

conclusions, now that we’re enteri

of Totalitarianism

everything is possible”). We should

Horkheimer, Elias Canetti’s

Klaus Theweleit’s

genre. Will these authors assist u

these key issues and then act upon

have been developed and tested, ca

mutated. This means that the over

designed to be jammed, yet the cor

altered. We can also call this conde

20




Journal # 83 More


10 of 13 22/01/18, 14:02

In preparation for things to come, I asked a few people the perennial question: what is to be done? I

started off with Nick Srnicek, coauthor of Inventing the Future, who just published a treatise called

Platform Capitalism. According to him, we should start getting into the habit of blocking users on social

media. “The basic idea on social media also holds for broader issues of public debate: how to refuse

voices that are purposefully attacking the basis of reasonable debate?” Eva Illouz, author of Why Love

Hurts and

The problem is that they fight wit

they are not constrained. We wou

question is, how do you make tru

invented quickly and tailored to m

A possible answer lies in the refusa

reassembled randomly. We should

pages. Srnicek:

We need new stories, and that’s d

21




Journal # 83 More


11 of 13 22/01/18, 14:02

approach to internet culture:

People sniff out PR very fast. And in the end it can turn against you and your campaign. I understand the need to

create easily shareable counter-info-memes, but that’s pretty much already happening. A ton of good images are

already circulating in the specific bubbles. But how to get out of the bubble? You can’t penetrate conservative

bubbles with liberal content. Your content has to be so obscure and mysterious that it’s not working as a

propaganda tool anymore. Or wil

According to free software thinker

afford not to use memes:

When the alt-right was gaining gr

“tug” at people and sway them po

emotions and visual culture. Yes,

back at some quarters of the right

it, we will lose a huge base of peo

below is a whole other question. M

than an elite art vanguard.




Journal # 83 More


12 of 13 22/01/18, 14:02

months have ideas about how this can be done, but it involves pretty vast resources, and more resembles the sort

of work done by Cambridge Analytica than anyone in the imageboard or alt-right cultural orbit.

Apart from the need for a narrative, there’s the issue of acceleration. Should alternative memes circulate

at the same speed as the overall internet? Are we running out of time? How about slow memes? What if

“real time” is itself part of the problem? According to Franco Berardi, we need a new rhythm of

elaboration; we need to slow down

movement. This cannot be realized

ruins our bodies, our minds. Accor

creating a “bodiless brain.” The inf

can even start telling the New Narr

×

Geert Lovink(2003), Zero CommentsNetwork Cultures at the Amsterdam networks such as Video Vortex (onlinthe Query (the culture of search), Moand the future of art criticism. He als

22




Journal # 83 More


13 of 13 22/01/18, 14:02

Date post:	09-Feb-2021
Category:	Documents
Upload:	others
View:	0 times
Download:	0 times

Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences Overcoming internet disillusionment … · As evidenced in...

Documents