In Hilarious Fashion, Medium Proves Itself Unself-Aware.
I ignore most of the leads Medium sends my way. I haven’t signed in for weeks, maybe months, because of issues about which I’ve already remarked, but today was different; today Normal Earthling recommended Jack King’s remarks to Medium about Medium.
I noticed Jack’s remarks because Normal recommended them. I read them because like Jack, I’m critical of Medium’s, and more broadly, social media’s dehumanizing madness. I read the remarks to see how other, real people responded to real Jack’s words.
Most remarks addressed Jack’s issues. One addressed mine:
“Touching a life is best done by humanity, not algorithms.” — Normal Earthling.
I couldn’t agree more. The algorithmic assignations social media attempt to force upon us funnel us into personality killing zones; they reduce us to digital social archetypes, and when we cooperate we make those archetypes real. Medium sending me things it thinks I should like funnels me into being the person who likes those things.
Like mental earworms, motifs repeated oft enough become us. Medium and other social media algorithms replace human interaction, and in doing so reduce us to simpler, more shallow images of our real selves.
They don’t do this maliciously, they do it brainlessly. And, in hilarious fashion, Medium provided me a better example of digital brainlessness than I could possibly have constructed:
At the end of the very long chain of remarks all in agreement with Jack’s emphatic complaints about Medium I found the following bright, smiley greeting from Medium’s digital personality:
“Never miss a story from Jack Preston King, when you sign up for Medium. Learn more” — Medium
