Maybe… it should not be too easy to have a career as something called a ‘content creator’.
Inspired by this lovely little visual essay (only partially screen-capped above) about the need to cool down social media, and maybe make it harder to instantly reach millions of people any time you want, a simple tangent:
Should there be limits on how easy it is to “go viral” or have your message spread globally in seconds?
Do we really need that ability? If so, why?
If not, what’s a fair but useful way to limit that power without old-fashioned corporate gatekeeping?
Both the book and the sweater are signals that one is superior, if not popular.
I’ve been participating in the annual Goodreads Reading Challenge since its inception in 2011 (succeeded five years, failed three), in which you set a personal goal of books to read that year. It’s a nice motivator throughout the year, and a fun little badge each December once I’ve sprinted to the finish, usually with a few short story collections or graphic novels.
This Atlantic article digs into why we effectively “give ourselves homework” in this way with books so much more often than other hobbies usually considered leisure:
Other forms of entertainment straddle that line—watching documentaries, for example, can be both educational and fun—but reading seems to inspire this gamification, homework-ification, and quantification to a unique degree. Perhaps that’s because society tends to view reading as an intrinsic good, whereas other media—movies, TV, the internet—are often seen as time-wasters. “Given many [people] feel they’re consuming too much media, the goal is usually to limit consumption,” Ayelet Fishbach, a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business who studies goals, told me in an email. “In this sense, for many people reading is a virtue—so you want to increase it—while watching TV is a vice—so you try to limit it.”
Then, it goes a bit deeper into why… but not quite deep enough. Not a single interviewee admitted anything along the lines of, “It makes me feel smart. It’s part of my identity — that I’m a person who reads more than most, which isn’t hard, considering over a quarter haven’t read any and the average is only about 12.” Seems like a reporting miss to not get to why.
Why do you read as much as you do? Or not read as much as you do?
What do you get from it beyond the content of the books themselves, or what do you free yourself up to do by not reading more?
What, if any, inherent value is there in reading books at all?
Aside from hating snow, I’m also no big fan of select coffees and teas.
Occasionally I will see an article like this one in the NYT, or one like it, about a person who dared to return to life in the small town they grew up in to find a different kind of life other than the big city one they chased in their younger years.
This is the rural life that I know exists all over the country: It can be stimulating and rewarding, a place for bold creativity. I am more involved in politics, and more outspoken about social and racial justice, economic development and feminism than I ever was in Portland.
For me, the city (series of cities, really) has been good. Career, wife, friends, good experiences. Still, I’m a long ways from being a homeowner, it’s easy to feel like I’ve made no real mark on this place, I don’t know my neighbors, it’s expensive — it’s hard not to wonder what a different type of life might look like at least sometimes.
If you were to return to your home town, what would you do there?
How would your life be the same? How would it be different?
Is it even possible you’d ever really do it? Why or Why not?
Pro-tip: party with people who also love cleaning up at 7am.
This article on a Margaritaville-themed retirement community makes for an easy-to-smirk-at headline, but raises a lot of interesting questions if you bother clicking through. We’re about to have a massive aging population who aren’t going to quietly get consigned to traditional senior living. Our whole conception of seniors and their role in society — especially as they live longer and longer — is weird and undefined and in flux.
But on the matter of themed retirement communities this… actually sounds kinda fun? And even for those of us who have no particular fondness for Jimmy Buffet, it’s useful to think of what’s really important as we age and what the ideal scenario in which to spend our golden years might be.
What would your ideal retirement community look like?
What kind of space, what kind of people, what kind of activities would make your later years the most enjoyable? Where would it be? What would its theme or name be?
As you can see, this piece is about what if it rained fruit, or something.
You’ve definitely heard of, possibly been to, and almost certainly seen a shared Instagram image from one of them: Museum of Ice Cream. 29 Rooms. Candytopia.
Amanda Hess of NYT visited them all, and wonders if they are less a new wave of artistic expression and more symptoms of existential despair:
The central disappointment of these spaces is not that they are so narcissistic, but rather that they seem to have such a low view of the people who visit them. Observing a work of art or climbing a mountain actually invites us to create meaning in our lives. But in these spaces, the idea of “interacting” with the world is made so slickly transactional that our role is hugely diminished. Stalking through the colorful hallways of New York’s “experiences,” I felt like a shell of a person. It was as if I was witnessing the total erosion of meaning itself. And when I posted a selfie from the Rosé Mansion saying as much, all of my friends liked it.
I visited one such place recently and had a similarly underwhelming experience; I captured some “cool” images, found most of the “exhibits” pretty shallow or only gesturing at depth, but found at least 10% of the experience thought-provoking. But then I thought, “Look at all these people enjoying this place and interacting with art, even if it’s mostly bad art. Isn’t that better than a bunch of people not interacting with no art at all?” Hence the question.
What’s the real cultural or experiential value of these pop-up museums? Or are they pure fluff?
If these places cater to a type of person who might rarely go to a ‘real’ museum or art exhibition, is there value in luring them in through photo-ops to experience at least some version of visual art, even if it’s less imbued with meaning and substance, as a form of art appreciation training wheels… maybe?
