More Like This…Facebook as the Next AOL

Bill Lessard
Nov 4 · 2 min read
Image courtesy NYPL

Social media is media that allows us to lie to ourselves. Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle has been atomized, with each of us supplying the content.

How did we get here? We are living in an age when informed opinion, also known as journalism, has been replaced by auto-corrected fact.

As any reader of Samuel Beckett will tell you, what’s true is never useful; delusion always seeks greater efficiencies; new levels of profitability.

In the old order, editorial was Church; advertising was State. Anyone who dwells on the Church vs. State particulars of Deadspin’s recent demise misses the point.

Today, we are Church, and State could be: ourselves, the corporate state, the U.S. government, the algorithm, or any number of bad actors interfering with our democracy.

When I started in tech, we talked about “the 3 Cs” — Content, Community, and Commerce. Community, which we now call “social media,” has become the super-category. It is the point-of-entry and the end-stop of all we do and everything we are.

For those of us who believe in a life beyond a curated social media feed, and the tribalized selfhood it engenders, I think it is helpful to share my own inventory.

Having been online since 1992, I have been through several social media platforms: Prodigy, AOL, CompuServe, countless web-based bulletin boards, Usenet groups, and so on. By my best count, Facebook is the 20th platform.

Number 21 may not be waiting in the wings, but I have faith that it is already taking shape in someone’s brain. Someone who understands that an all-you-can-eat restaurant where we get to eat ourselves is not good for anyone.

Playlist:

“Just a Friend” — Biz Markie

“Call Me” — Blondie

“Michael Jackson” — Das Racist

“The Hard Blues” — Julius Hemphill

“Shadow Dancing — Barry Gibb

In the Air Tonight” — Phil Collins

“Blue Skies “— Slim and Slam

“I Saw the Light” — Hank Williams

“The Ascension” — Glenn Branca

“Journey in Satchidananda” — Alice Coltrane

Written by

Author, entrepreneur, media expert @ PRwithBrains.

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