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Sheev Callahan's avatar

Is it all downstream of real economic competition, or the medium itself? The internet opens one up to unlimited competition (more so perceived competition, that Instagram model isn't going to rove up to your small town and steal your girlfriend, probably).

The medium, engagement weighted algorithms, incubate infinite competition in terms of what is consumed. The bar is always raising for what is in one's newsfeed, this eventually permeates through one's entire perspective and standards for everything from interior decoration, standard of living, to partnership.

I've seen a trend lately of performative loserdom too. That youtube microgenre where elder millennials lambast their past selves. For every new hypercompetitive niche that eats away the normal, there is an equal community of cope. Ironically, engagement algorithms will likely make this cope performative too. It takes talent to be a real loser, a Chris Chan.

Your average person can't just drop out, like a said being a broad-spectrum loser is too competitive now too. But they won't be able to make a normal "living" either. The only way to "drop out" of the mainstream is to drop into a hyper specific algorithmic niche that one is actually good at. The going gets weird, there is no normal anymore, the new normal is everyone maxxing something, anything, for a crumb of community and recognition. An age of winner takes all for every conceivable concept, thankfully we're discovering that the opportunities in which one can flourish are as endless as the competition itself. Specialization is for ants, though. Every man a jester.

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Patrick Kho's avatar

“endless self-optimization toward nothing, the performance of becoming” 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️

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