Social media is not a prison
We like to say the feed watches us like a prison. It is closer to a job with no finish line, where you perform on top of a script that already exists.
For about ten years, people explained social media with one idea.
For about ten years, people explained social media with one idea. The feed watches you. You behave because you might be seen. It works like a prison where the guard could be looking at any moment.
This idea is easy to repeat. It is also mostly wrong.
Look at what actually happens. The watching is voluntary. You signed up for it. The rules are out in the open. The punishments are announced in advance: you get voted off the show, or the comments turn on you.
That is not the fear of a hidden guard. That is a job description.
A performance with no finish line, written on top of a script that already.
For about ten years, people explained social media with one idea.
It works like a prison where the guard could be looking at any moment.
The punishments are announced in advance: you get voted off the show, or the comments turn on you.
There is a second problem. A prison wants you to obey. Once you obey, its work is done. Social media does not want obedience. It wants performance, and performance has no finish line.
You can always get more reach, more followers, or more income, and the target keeps moving.
So here is a better way to see it. You are running a small business of yourself. A business never decides it has enough.
And you are not being corrected by a watcher. You are following a script that already exists. The rest of this series is about that script, and what it slowly does to the self.
It works like a prison where the guard could be looking at any moment.
A performance with no finish line, written on top of a script that already exists.
We like to say the feed watches us like a prison. It is closer to a job with no finish line, where you perform on top of a script that already exists.
This is the short version. Read the full-length essay, “Palimpsest self, parasocial media”.
This issue is part of Everybody's Smart, a newsletter on taste, judgment, AI, culture, cognition, and the future of professional work. New issues every 2 to 3 weeks, free on LinkedIn.
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