writing about hawk tuah in this way so beautiful it's almost moving me to tears
reminded of nancy tuana's suggestion that the molecular infusions of plastics with human and nonhuman bodies “belies any effort” to divide nature and culture. thinking about memes as a plastic part of organic human culture
Thank you! I'll have to check out Nancy Tuana that idea sounds really similar to what I was trying to think through here. The notion that something so obviously artificial can become natural over time feels hopeful, in a strange way.
I also prefer -poisoning to -rot when it comes to brains, memes, etc. It's more optimistic: maybe there is a cure in our future. There will always been poision, but we don't have to ingest it.
"...with yesterday’s memes broken down into their component parts and then reassembled as the building blocks of our present and future self-expression."
I think about this constantly, but not just in relation to memes. All "content"—and that it the perfect word to describe the massive volume of output that comes out every year—Music, books, TV shows and movies are all just rehashing ideas, while companies like Spines and Microsoft are planning to join Spotify and Amazon in flooding the world with even more using Gen AI.
writing about hawk tuah in this way so beautiful it's almost moving me to tears
reminded of nancy tuana's suggestion that the molecular infusions of plastics with human and nonhuman bodies “belies any effort” to divide nature and culture. thinking about memes as a plastic part of organic human culture
substack is such a wonderful place
Thank you! I'll have to check out Nancy Tuana that idea sounds really similar to what I was trying to think through here. The notion that something so obviously artificial can become natural over time feels hopeful, in a strange way.
Thanks for the inclusion!
I also prefer -poisoning to -rot when it comes to brains, memes, etc. It's more optimistic: maybe there is a cure in our future. There will always been poision, but we don't have to ingest it.
Definitely! Loved the framing of the shooter using Starbucks as originally intended, lol. The Starbucks arc is so fascinating.
And yeah that's a good point - poison is more tractable in that way, something to cure/avoid/deal with rather than something that just happens to you.
Exactly. But it continues to accumulate in, like you say, tuna. And some people are content with being tuna.
“We already have too much internet inside of us.” Great line and wild to think about.
"...with yesterday’s memes broken down into their component parts and then reassembled as the building blocks of our present and future self-expression."
I think about this constantly, but not just in relation to memes. All "content"—and that it the perfect word to describe the massive volume of output that comes out every year—Music, books, TV shows and movies are all just rehashing ideas, while companies like Spines and Microsoft are planning to join Spotify and Amazon in flooding the world with even more using Gen AI.