Dumping the middle man - my social media ex.
Agro at the algo disco.
It’s 8.30am and a little snotty kid asks another kid “can I play too”, only to be told to “get lost, flat head”.
Same story rippling through playgrounds all over the world.
Meanwhile somewhere else the sun kisses the horizon. The sky painted in the pinkest pinks, trumpish oranges and Prince-ly purples. An utterly awesome natural artwork, scattering its awe to anyone and everyone who can see.
The sun never asks for a credit card, your educational certificates, or proof of nationality.
For thousands of years humans have held the power to gatekeep beauty.
And although we’ve never got anywhere close to nature, the closest we’ve come to that sunset is within our art.
The control of that is power.
WOW WIDE WEB
Then, in 1991, the first website was born. Actually, it was http://info.cern.ch, but that’s another story.
A new kind of public. A space available to all. It would liberate our access to knowledge, information and ultimately each other.
We were going to be connected, and we had no clue where it would end.
People told me it would be a fad. It wouldn’t last.
I told a journalist back in 2000 that I could see a future where people would almost “live on the web” and that I could see people buying things, everything from clothes to even food.
She laughed.
I called a gallery, read out my web address so he could see my work. He told me he wanted me to mail slides and said, “The internet might be something you do in the regions, but here in London we take things a bit more seriously.”
TEENAGE ANGST
I was frantically painting through a raging anxiety disorder.
Three paintings a day for a few years. Three thousand in total.
The only time I felt free and that the anxiety would stop was when I was painting.
Catharsis is fine, but to really heal, I needed to share the stuff.
I’d died for a few seconds from a fatal allergic reaction whilst at art school in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. A nineteen-year-old, visiting home for the first time, flopping out of a taxi, near death on his mum’s doorstep. A 2 am drip I was allergic to brought a flatline and an experience I’ll never understand or forget.
Like Kate Bush, I made “a deal with g-d”. If I get through this, I’ll make art.
I kept that deal every day of my life.
But when the swelling went down, and I could finally talk and walk, I discovered an eating disorder, a list of fifty-two allergies and daily panic attacks.
ART IS FOR EVERYONE
So the painting helped, and I wanted somewhere to share it.
In 2000, eBay was the only place you could really upload an image.
In those days, Facebook wasn’t even a twinkle in the fourteen-year-old Zuckerberg’s eyes.
Anyway, every day people started buying the anxiety paintings. Three a day for years. But that’s not the point.
I wasn’t putting them up to get paid. I was putting them up to connect, to try to understand what was going on in my head. So I wouldn’t feel so alone.
And real people, normal people, were collecting them. I was connected. I was understood.
This was the promise of the internet. No middleman.
Me and the audience. Like a sunset and the witness. Nothing in between.
The internet meant art could be for everyone. I was in love.
On the other side of the pond, Aaron was writing code. He was almost fourteen, and RSS 1.0 would become the way information was shared around the web. He’d then go on to help develop Creative Commons, Markdown, stuff for Python and then the biggie, essentially the basis of Reddit.
Aaron wanted information to be available to everyone.
And he knew the internet could do it.
I wanted art to be for everyone, and I knew the internet would do it too.
I’m writing the code for a virtual online gallery, yes, back in 2000. In the end, I won some awards for it, but it’s too early. We still have dial-up, and I need bandwidth.
I publish a monthly free art magazine that I deliver over email. it’s called {Still, and I’m proud of it.
Musicians started sharing their music online.
Record labels freaked out. They could no longer sell bits of plastic for ten pounds a pop.
They raided teenage girls in backwater towns who had downloaded Britney Spears.
ROBIN-HOODING IT
“Copyright piracy is theft!” they screamed at the start of every movie.
But is it? Is it theft or is it copying?
I’ve got a bike. You can ride it if you like. I’ve only got one. If you steal it, I won’t have it. Then it’ll be gone.
I’ve got a song. I can copy it for you. Then I’ve got one and you’ve got one too.
Aren’t we both better off?
Anyway, social arrives.
Lady Gaga meets her audience.
Charlie takes her fans on a wild ride.
And Bieber sings his little heart out for Scooter on YouTube.
Aaron publishes the Guerrilla Open Access Manifesto in 2008.
He puts it much better than I ever could:
“Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves.”
The manifesto calls for removing barriers to scholarly and cultural information, even if this involves civil disobedience or breaking restrictive copyright rules.
Point taken Mr Swartz. I’m on it. And I won’t stop.
AGRO WITH THE ALGO
The mediation grows. Dopamine is the drug.
We scroll to our doom.
The craving for the next hit of interest in a sea of mediocre images.
TikTok and Insta tell us to perfect the hook.
The platform is the middleman, it’s the curator, the cannonizer, the gatekeeper, the judge and the jury. It’s your boss and the relationship is toxic.
If you make something that really stimulates the addiction molecule in users, we will reward you.
We’ll give you fame and fortune. We’ll put your work in front of the world.
Post something stupid, and 2.8 million people will see it.
Post something real and fifty of your followers might see it if you’re lucky.
There has been a change. Your followers don’t see what you do anymore.
They are not like email subscribers. There’s no guarantee what you make will make it through.
The new middleman is the algorithm.
And you don’t get paid to make crack for it to push.
But you get your share of the dope in the shape of likes and reach.
LOST
Before you know it you’re in a room surrounded by people who don’t know you.
Having to perform an act that isn’t you.
Aaron is in a cupboard at MIT. He’s pulling more academic journals than you can imagine into his laptop.
You see, he’s at a mega-uni and he’s got the privilege of being able to access articles you and me can’t.
We’d have to pay. And a lot for it.
So he’s grabbing the lot, and he’s going to liberate it.
The FBI shaped eye in the sky swoops.
His manifesto is waved around in court.
He’s looking at thirty years, more than Diddy in jail, and a million-dollar fine. That’s two times Diddy.
Aaron committed suicide in 2013.
And Facebook seized algorithmic control of Instagram.
Platforms start cannibalising the open web.
And the owners of knowledge, surveillance and attention colonise the landscape.
Aaron never got to see TikTok, thanks g-d.
And me, well, I’ve abandoned the socials.
Nobody there knew who I was anyway, it turned out.
So here I am, writing longer. Going deeper.
And this, at least for now, will be the place online you can find me.
Stuart