randsinrepose-com-ddmssa.txt (9313B)
1 [1]Rands in Repose 2 3 [2] 4 5 • [3]Archives 6 • [4]About 7 8 • [5]Books 9 • [6]Slack 10 • [7]Speaking 11 • [8]Podcast 12 • [9]Feed 13 14 [10]Rands Seek understanding 15 16 The Cleanse 17 18 I’m in the midst of a media cleanse. This started before the election when I 19 canceled my Washington Post subscription. Jeff Bezos can do whatever he wants 20 with the Washington Post, and he’s 100% correct that I don’t trust large media 21 organizations. 22 23 After the election, I removed all news sources from [11]Feedly except the [12] 24 Atlantic because I find their writing informative and compelling. 25 26 A friend calls this turtling. Pulling your head inside your shell and hiding. 27 It’s quite comfortable here. With most of my free time, I’m leveling a dragon 28 Holy Priest in World of Warcraft. #ama 29 30 Next on the list is Twitter. Since it was sold and turned private, my 31 engagement has been significantly lower, and my follower count has shrunk as 32 the humans have moved off the platform, but quite soon, I’m deleting my 33 account. My finger has been over the DELETE button for a few days, and I’ve 34 wondered why. Two facts: First, there are thousands of folks with whom I share 35 stuff there. I can see they are there via much reduced but real engagement. 36 Second, I have just under 20k tweets since 2007 that, upon review, tell an 37 interesting story… at least to me. 38 39 I’ve downloaded the complete archive, and I’m sad to say I’m about to create a 40 bunch of 404 errors when my corpus of tweets vanishes from Twitter. Why? This 41 is my content, and I don’t want whatever Twitter has become to benefit from its 42 existence. I’ll share the archive here at some point, but for now, I’m 43 cleansing. 44 45 Like FaceBook before it, Twitter turned into something else. They both, early 46 on, felt like a means of connection. Unfortunately, building that social graph 47 allowed these businesses to target you and your engaging, clickable content 48 expertly. What was a means of connection turned into hot, juicy, bite-sized 49 content. Over the past two decades, this practice has made us intellectually 50 lazy because these media services are paid not on the quality but the quantity 51 of service. More clicks, more engagement. Truth and facts. Optional. 52 53 And what was a clever means of connection turned into a raging stream of 54 clickable things. 55 56 So, bye, Twitter. I’m late to the funeral, but better late than never. It was 57 fun before it got terrifying. 58 59 While I am profoundly turtling and have little desire to see a path forward, I 60 have two related observations: 61 62 First, the lack of healthy debate on most social media is one of the core 63 issues with the platform. Humans must disagree, but these platforms do not 64 provide a proper bi-directional medium (or set of tools) for these debates. 65 It’s liking, then not liking, then yelling, then ALL CAPS, and NOW I’M 66 UNFOLLOWING YOU and YES BLOCKING BYE. 67 68 Debate is a tricky act between two humans who can both speak, listen, 69 understand, and possibly evolve. Two humans. Often, there will be more, but 70 let’s keep it simple and assume it’s two. Both humans are required to do this, 71 and in the primarily anonymous world of social media, it’s normal not to 72 consider the other human a human. They are the last thing they wrote that you 73 disagree with. There is no relationship; it’s simply the last thing they 74 posted. And how do you feel about that post. 75 76 The stakes are higher in person. You have to stare at that human in the eye, 77 especially after they say something you don’t like. So, what do you do? You 78 can’t yell, you can’t ignore them, and you certainly can’t block them, so what 79 is your move? Mine: seek understanding. Put on that empathy hat and try to 80 understand why they’re saying what they’re saying. That’s the first step. There 81 are many more — [13]read the book. 82 83 The continual failure to do this in social media results in a growing echo 84 chamber where the humans agree, and those who disagree are quickly voted off 85 the island. Some of these echo chambers are low stakes. Think about your 86 favorite sports team. Those fans are aligned on what’s important. Who needs 87 debate? The only debate we care about is what $OTHER-TEAM we hate the most. Go 88 $OUR-TEAM. 89 90 There are higher-stakes echo chambers, too. Use your imagination here. 91 92 Second, it’s not a short or medium-turn fix to what ails us, but I am curious 93 about investing in local and independent news organizations. Large media 94 organizations have to compete with social. They desperately need those clicks, 95 and that means mimicking the patterns they see in social. The headline must 96 engage in one second or less, or it will be forgotten. It’s an economy of 97 attention, not understanding or truth. 98 99 Local media has taken it on the chin for decades because social media consumes 100 advertising dollars. Local media has withered without that support, with 101 remaining big media sources bending to social media engagement patterns. The 102 idea of investing in local media news organizations is because they report on 103 the events that happen in my neighborhood. This makes them more human to me. 104 They have skin in the game because, like me, they live here. My problems are 105 their problems, which means we have a solid foundation to start to understand. 106 107 How do I go about this investment? Where do I start? 108 109 I don’t know. I’m turtling. For now. 110 111 [14]# November 15, 2024 112 113 See also... 114 115 • [15]Hold Your Breath 116 • [16]“I Am Very Concerned About This Election” 117 • [17]Shields Shirts 118 • [18]The Cello in Soho Square 119 • [19]10 Things I Love & Why 120 121 Next[20]The One About Dapper 122 123 Merch 124 125 [21][svg] 126 127 [22]Rands Schwag: Leadership leading with the letter R. 128 129 [23][svg] 130 131 [24]The Software Developer’s Career Handbook: Chaos is an Opportunity. 132 133 [25][svg] 134 135 [26]Managing Humans: Tales of leadership from the Silicon Valley. 136 137 [27][svg] 138 139 [28]Small Things, Done Well: Practice becoming a better leader. Daily. 140 141 Don't Skip [29]This 142 143 Thank you for scrolling to the bottom. If this is your first visit, I recommend 144 starting by reading [30]don't skip this. 145 146 Categories 147 148 • [31]Apple 149 • [32]Biking 150 • [33]Buzz 151 • [34]Design 152 • [35]Excerpt 153 • [36]Fake Notebook 154 • [37]Hollywood 155 • [38]Management 156 • [39]Media 157 • [40]Photo 158 • [41]Plugs 159 • [42]Rands 160 • [43]Surf 161 • [44]SXSW 162 • [45]Tech Life 163 • [46]The Important Thing 164 • [47]Tools 165 • [48]Vegas 166 • [49]Writing 167 168 The Very Bottom 169 170 I've recently become very interested in performing magic. I did a talk recently 171 in Switzerland where I performed three significant tricks. Magic is teaching me 172 about how to focus an audience's attention. [50]watch this. 173 [51]Copyright © 2002-2024 · Rands in Repose Crafted by [52]Alex King 174 175 References: 176 177 [1] https://randsinrepose.com/ 178 [2] https://randsinrepose.com/ 179 [3] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/ 180 [4] https://randsinrepose.com/about/ 181 [5] https://randsinrepose.com/books/ 182 [6] https://randsinrepose.com/welcome-to-rands-leadership-slack/ 183 [7] https://randsinrepose.com/speaking/ 184 [8] https://randsinrepose.com/the-important-thing/ 185 [9] https://randsinrepose.com/feed/ 186 [10] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/rands/ 187 [11] http://theatlantic.com/ 188 [12] http://theatlantic.com/ 189 [13] https://amzn.to/40Lk67j 190 [14] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/the-cleanse/ 191 [15] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/hold-your-breath/ 192 [16] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/i-am-very-concerned-about-this-election/ 193 [17] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/shields-shirts/ 194 [18] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/the-cello-in-soho-square/ 195 [19] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/10-things-i-love-why/ 196 [20] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/the-one-about-dapper/ 197 [21] https://cottonbureau.com/people/rands 198 [22] https://cottonbureau.com/people/rands 199 [23] https://amzn.to/3LSu0vs 200 [24] https://amzn.to/3LSu0vs 201 [25] https://amzn.to/3z3AiRe 202 [26] https://amzn.to/3z3AiRe 203 [27] https://amzn.to/3eq8ACY 204 [28] https://amzn.to/3eq8ACY 205 [29] https://randsinrepose.com/dont-skip-this/ 206 [30] https://randsinrepose.com/dont-skip-this/ 207 [31] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/apple/ 208 [32] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/biking/ 209 [33] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/buzz/ 210 [34] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/design/ 211 [35] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/excerpt/ 212 [36] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/fake-notebook/ 213 [37] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/hollywood/ 214 [38] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/management/ 215 [39] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/media/ 216 [40] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/photo/ 217 [41] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/plugs/ 218 [42] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/rands/ 219 [43] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/surf/ 220 [44] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/sxsw/ 221 [45] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/tech-life/ 222 [46] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/the-important-thing/ 223 [47] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/tools/ 224 [48] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/vegas/ 225 [49] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/writing/ 226 [50] https://www.hulu.com/movie/derek-delgaudios-in-of-itself-19b9d405-40b2-483e-8e1f-e25fe10c7299 227 [51] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 228 [52] http://alexking.org/