Random is fun.Don't tell 'em in the shelters.Jo van der Spek M2MCommunicatie
adviesSoendastraat 6 hs1094BG Amsterdam
-------- Oorspronkelijk bericht --------Van: Geert Lovink <ge...@xs4all.nl>
Datum: 05-05-2022 12:17 (GMT+01:00) Aan: a moderated mailing list for net
criticism <nettime-l@mail.kein.org> Onderwerp: Just out: Stuck on the Platform
by Geert Lovink I am proud to present you my new book, published in five
languages, starting with English (Valiz) and Spanish (Holobionte Ediciones),
followed by German (Transcript Verlag), Italian (Nero) and Turkish (İletişim).
The original English edition, published by Valiz (Amsterdam) can be ordered now
and found in bookstores. More info here:
https://valiz.nl/en/publications/stuck-on-the-platform The global book launch
is in Bologna on May 6, 2022, 6pm, via Pietralata 58.The blurb:We’re all
trapped. No matter how hard you try to delete apps from your
phone, the power of seduction draws you back. Doom scrolling is the new
normal of a 24/7 online life. What happens when your home office starts
to feel like a call center and you’re too fried to log out of Facebook?
We’re addicted to large-scale platforms, unable to return to the
frivolous age of decentralized networks. How do we make sense of the
rising disaffection with the platform condition? Zoom fatigue, cancel
culture, crypto art, NFTs and psychic regression comprise core elements
of a general theory of platform culture. Geert Lovink argues that we
reclaim the internet on our own terms. Stuck on the Platform is a
relapse-resistant story about the Brexit-Trump-Covid period (2019-2021),
written for doom scrollers with a passion for platform alternatives, built on a
deep understanding of the digital slump.Table of Content:Introduction: Phantoms
of the Platform, or the Internet’s
Muddy Enlightenment1.
The Anatomy
of Zoom Fatigue2.
Requiem for
the Network3.
Exhaustion
of the Networked Psyche: Exploring Online Hyper-Sensibilities4.
Stuck on the
Platform: Notes on Online Regression5.
Minima
Digitalia6. Delete Your Profile, Not People:
Comments on Cancel Culture7. Crypto-Art Annotations and other
MoneyLab Findings 8. Principles of StacktivismConclusion: Reconfiguring
the Techno-SocialFrom the introduction:During the lockdown misère we’ve
literally been stuck on the platform. What happens when your home office starts
to feel like a call center and you’re too tired to close down Facebook? “How to
get rid of your phone? Wrong answers only.” We wanted to use the pandemic to
reset and move on. We failed. The comfort of the same old proved too strong.
Instead of a radical techno-imagination focused on rolling out alternatives, we
got distracted by fake news, cancel culture, and cyber warfare. Condemned to
doom scrolling, we suffered through a never-ending barrage of cringy memes,
bizarre conspiracy theories, and pandemic stats, including the inevitable flame
wars surrounding them. Random is fun.“We admitted we were powerless—that our
lives had become unmanageable.” This confession is Step 1 in AA’s 12 steps, and
it is here that Stuck on the Platform also begins. As you and I are not able to
resolve platform dependency, we remain glued to the same old channels, furious
at others about our own inability to change. In this seventh volume of my
chronicles, we’re staying with the trouble called the internet, diagnosing our
current phase of stagnation while also asking how to get “unstuck” and
deplatform the platforms.What happens to the psycho-cultural condition when
there’s nowhere to go and users are trapped in too-big-to-fail IT firms? It’s
not pretty. While some believe that our persistent resentment, complaints, and
anger are merely part of the human condition, totally unrelated to the shape
and size of the information ecology, others (like me) are convinced that we
have to take the mental poverty of the online billions seriously. We can no
longer ignore the depression, anger, and despair, pretending they will be gone
overnight after installing another app. Addiction is real, buried deep inside
the body. Habits need to be unlearned, awareness needs to spread. All the while
Godot just sits there, staring at the screen, waiting in the lobby for some
policy change to be announced. Yet nothing ever happens. The resulting fallback
and fatalism comes as no surprise. “What do you do when your world starts to
fall apart?” Anna Tsing asks at the very beginning of The Mushroom at the End
of the World. It seems we have our answer: we stick to the platform.<
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