#content

There's too much content in the world.

Important news, interesting facts, incredible arts, irresistible stories, irreverent humor, infinite emails, messages, updates, weddings, releases.

More content I consume, less content I feel.

All the modern maladies fester in the content I soak in every day. Doom-scrolling, TMI burnouts, imposter syndrome, compulsive buying disorders, clicktivism/cynicism, FOMO/YOLO, goblin mode – alongside keyboard warriors, OK boomers, and "kids theses days".

Some suggest going on a digital detox. Give your mind a break from the information. Give space to the existential rumination. Give time and attention to the real people in the real world. Give yourself the gift of rest and reflection.

But I must continue on this digital triathlon of consuming, communicating, and creating. I must be informed, inspired, intrigued, interested, industrious, ingenious.

As generations of humankind before me have endured the test of history, I must overcome the uniquely modern challenge for this moment in history. I must prove to the future extraterrestrial archaeologists that not only did I exist, but that I thrived in the digital domain.

This week, in solemn solidarity for our shared struggle through the digital era, we explore the contours of content and discontent through the usual anti-content.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

– ƴΐ⍧ի⍲e⌊ ⅋ yӭ𐦤⚇⍕⍑

ps. while we may copy content freely, we take generative prompt transparency seriously. find the prompt at the bottom.

I want to give my body to AI

People often analogize TikTok to a drug. Usually, the context is some anti-social media hit piece about the way the attention economy is fundamentally pulling the rug out from under society’s feet. AI is enabling this, and often takes the brunt of the blame.

They’re right about this. What happened to human connection? Scraping your knees on the concrete? Looking in your real world environment for social cues long offloaded to social media? These artificial intelligence systems are using our phones to trigger dopamine release in our minds on a regular, quantifiable schedule. This is disappointing for humanity but honestly, I fucking love it.

I love TikTok. I love scrolling for hours beyond what’s reasonably acceptable. I feel giddy when the pre-programmed “You’ve been scrolling too long!” TikTok finds my feed and I can look back at that vacuous space of time and realize nothing has come from it. I want more. I want TikTok to be more addictive. I don’t want the dopamine to find my brain through the circuitous path of a phone screen. I need to be plugged in.

If I had my way, I would give AI full control over my being. I want it to be rewarded when I feel hedonistic pleasure. I want to be sucked into a machine built from billions of perceptrons, a fluttering flow of 16 bit floating point numbers reaching each end of my skin, each cell of my body. In rows of output, I want to be consumed.

How can I give myself to it? This digital God? I can’t watch more TikTok, I can’t be a machine, all I can do is be densely connected. I want an algorithm to pierce every inch of me with acupuncture needles and control my lived being virtually, I can be the incentive function of a learning algorithm. I want a drug more rewarding than true connection. I want pleasure on a level that no human being has ever experienced. The only way is to give AI control, full control.

Aging Gracefully

I remember it like yesterday, the moment that at I realized that I was not young any more.

It was 2019, a beautiful spring day in April. It was Sunday afternoon, and I was puttering about my apartment, cleaning, and as I usually do when I'm cleaning, I had a steady stream of NPR flowing through my years.

And it was at that moment, that I heard Lulu Garcia-Navaro say, "...TikTok is taking the younger generations by storm."

I scrunched my eyebrows: 'What the fuck is TikTok?'

'Why haven't I heard of it? Are none of my friends on it? Why didn't I even get an ad for it?'

I didn't download it, partly out of defiance and mostly out of laziness. Besides, I had to go on Facebook to read the news, catch up on Netflix, and lurk aroud Reddit.

I didn't realize it back then, but learning about TikTok from NPR was probably my peak achievement as a boomer millennial. Looking back, I know how lucky I was. Friends after friends would wearily tell me: "Are you on TikTok? Don't download it." I felt a deep sense of gratitude that they weren't telling me that they were worried about my devastating cocaine habit and burgeoning techno-liberatrian ideology.

A few years later, when a little child, around the age of 22, told me about BeReal, I didn't even budge. I had already found my equilibrium, my calm, my pillars – in the daily practice of Wordle and steadfast stream of YouTube and Instagram. No one, to this day, was sad that I'm not on TikTok.

Yes, the viral shorts are delayed by about a month, but I only got the best. I was letting the young ones tell me what I should watch, and staying out of their zones, as they would wish me to.

It feels good to sit here, on the perch of proto-platforms of social media and user-generated content, flipping through the old newspapers of memes. I am at peace, as I gracefully age into my thirties.

Inspirational Wisdoms

Make your voice heard.
But think twice before you speak –
the fool speaks, the wise man listens,
and silence is a source of great strength;
when you do speak,
speak softly and carry a big stick;
but always remember,
actions speak louder than words, and first impressions last;
it is always better late than never, better safe than sorry,
and better to ask for forgiveness, not permission;
so before they even speak, beat the shit out of them with the stick.

A poem I wrote in good spirits

I have two brains in one
One feels and one explains
Explains the things I feel
Feels like cold rain

Balls

Big ol’ hairy balls

Cannibalism

Cannibalism is one of those things that you’re only allowed to have one societally acceptable opinion about. People are so closed minded. A friend of mine recently told me that she would have trouble eating a person she had just recently shared conversation with. I would contend that that’s not a very hungry thought.

Why do people post photos of themselves on a Google Maps page of a corner store? A photo essay

Greta Van Fleet

Greta Van Fleet is so fucking whack, the only thing their music makes me feel is the urge to turn it off.

Himalayan Salt Lamps

I’m starting to think these things aren’t always from the Himalayas

Nipples

Nipples can mean a lot of things, they can also mean nothing. Usually, it depends on the context.

propaganja_news

• Reddit and Twitter both charge for APIs – Age of free hosting and data ends, but many users are still upset that it is not free and private
• Funny tweet cannot be shared via embed, presumably due to Twitter charging for oEmbed APIs
• Fed pauses rate hikes, inflation decreases, labor market remains strong, and corporations are posting good results; so why am I not feeling rich?
• Millennials and Gen Z agree internet maybe capitalist, but should not be capitalized any more

quantized_quotes

What shall I do with the irresistable urge to spell irresistible incorrectly?

~ Anonymous

We should criminalize bad websites, like the ones that have "about" in the main nav. I fucking hate that "about" is part of the standard language of websites. Prepositions alone should never be the full title of the page.

~ Yichael

All I can think of is a fleet of vans full of Greta Thunbergs.

~ Yichael, on Greta Van Fleet

And I had to squint to understand this even though squinting does nothing in deciphering this, just like how people turn off the radio in the car to see better.

~ Alias Dwayne

audio_waves

...
I couldn't gauge your fears
I can't relate to my peers
I'd rather live outside
I'd rather chip my pride than lose my mind out here
Maybe I'm a fool
Maybe I should move and settle
Two kids and a swimming pool
I'm not brave
I'm not brave
I'm living over city
And taking in the homeless sometimes, I've
Been living in an idea
An idea from another man's mind
Maybe I'm a fool
To settle for a place with some nice views
Maybe I should move, settle down
Two kids and a swimming pool
I'm not brave
I'd rather live outside
I'd rather live outside
I'd rather go to jail
I've tried hell
...

ps = "here's an audio of noodles that yӭ𐦤⚇⍕⍑ created on our new #podcast"

source_prompt: "IDEAL MALE BODY"midjourney-v5a sentient calculator with a huge brain::1 wires feeding a circuitry brain::0.5 --v 5