4 ms·

I don't know how anyone can enjoy using a platform that throws 20 TikTok shop videos in your face and these "influencers" acting like awful QVC spokespeople of

I don't know how anyone can enjoy using a platform that throws 20 TikTok shop videos in your face and these "influencers" acting like awful QVC spokespeople of cheap, offshore products. That, but also how fake it is and has been for years now. I feel bad for all those influencers who fell off or can only do one thing because they created a "niche" and are known for doing that one thing. Also how sad it is that it ruined many families because fame got in the way of values. The opposite could probably be said, but as Carl Sagan warned, this medium has done more harm than helped us. > The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance

amelius 3y ago
> The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance I don't have hard evidence but I feel like the uprise of the advertisement monetization model is much to blame for this.
jfengel 3y ago
Sagan said that a long time ago. I don't see why this generation's vapid crap is worse than my generation's vapid crap. We were the ones who turned politics into a 24 hour sports competition. If the kids are watching shitty dances and worse AI generated nihilist absurdism, I consider that a leg up on the permanent "five minutes hate" that takes up too much of the older generation's entertainment. We managed to survive what Sagan warned about and I bet they will too.
- thenerdhead 3y ago
  The beginning of the longer quote sets the context that he was speaking in the future of his children and grandchildren’s generation. I did not include that here as it wasn’t as relevant. > I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...

amelius 3y ago

> The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance I don't have hard evidence but I feel like the uprise of the advertisement monetization model is much to blame for this.

jfengel 3y ago

Sagan said that a long time ago. I don't see why this generation's vapid crap is worse than my generation's vapid crap. We were the ones who turned politics into a 24 hour sports competition. If the kids are watching shitty dances and worse AI generated nihilist absurdism, I consider that a leg up on the permanent "five minutes hate" that takes up too much of the older generation's entertainment. We managed to survive what Sagan warned about and I bet they will too.

thenerdhead 3y ago
The beginning of the longer quote sets the context that he was speaking in the future of his children and grandchildren’s generation. I did not include that here as it wasn’t as relevant. > I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...