Platform reality

I’m conscious of the fact that it is, in some sense, stupid of me not to be on Substack. At the very least, I could be sending my newsletter for free, instead of paying a hundred bucks a month! Yet I suppose I think it’s the stupid choices that are the important ones. And I suppose I think a standard for art is that it doesn’t just play a game, but invents one. On an internet crowded with creators eager to obey each platform’s demands, follow their Best Practices (which harden into mandatory genres: quick-setting concrete), there is, I believe, an incandescence to stubborn specificity.

I’m not sure how many times I’ve seen this piece linked, but it’s worth the quick read and Sloan is right about how platforms steer content in certain directions and people adapt to that, even if they aren’t quite sure they’re doing it.