A review by ithiliens
The Twittering Machine by Richard Seymour
3.0
Short review: Sometimes opaque and repetitive but overall provided a fascinating and repellant deconstruction of social media use. This is a work of theory and not self help (ie how to unplug etc).
Long review:
I expected this to be more along the lines of Sarah Jeong's Internet of Garbage. In fact it felt much more like a work of lit theory, for reasons that are clear within the first couple pages with how Seymour defines writing in our present moment for the purposes of his argument.
I have mixed feelings. For the negative, I felt this was too long and underedited. A number of times almost identical sentences were used to explain a given concept, or a subject that had been explained already was introduced again as if for the first time. The overall structure of this book did not work for me. I am sympathetic to what Seymour might call the metastatic nature of the subject creating difficulty here. Many of the topics flow back into one another naturally, but rather than feeling like connections were being made, points often felt redundant. In particular I found myself rolling my eyes at the constant rehashing and re-examining of the online pile on. This is a subject worth examining to be sure, but after the initial discussion there's not much new ground covered. The chapter on trolling, while also offering a good overview of the subject and some quite cutting insights, felt to me almost punitive in the descriptions of depravity. I suppose that is part of the purpose, and does pointedly recall the image of the twittering machine, but it was still a lot to read. TW for discussions of sexual violence and suicide, and anything else you imagine would turn up under the heading of trolling.
As for what I did like quite a lot: The point that social media addiction is much more similar to gambling addiction than substance abuse was incredibly well made and frankly kind of chilling. I particularly found the description of "playing not to win but to stay in the machine zone where nothing matters" to be uncomfortably familiar. Anyone who has gotten sucked into scrolling only to look up and see three hours have gone by will understand the idea discussed here of "dropping out of time."
There's also the assertion that users of social media are its workers as well as suppliers of its primary product (namely, attention and data from which to mine advertising dollars). We are both the means of production and the product itself. This is a miserable fact but one I have not seen put quite as well anywhere as it was here.
For the two above points it was a worthwhile read for me. I struggled with Seymour's style which felt occluded to me but I don't believe in any intentional way. Anyone who is terminally online will perhaps not find much new in the basic points being made. But I think the overall perspective taken here, against sensationalism and questioning rather than providing answers, is a good contribution of the literature of social media.
Long review:
I expected this to be more along the lines of Sarah Jeong's Internet of Garbage. In fact it felt much more like a work of lit theory, for reasons that are clear within the first couple pages with how Seymour defines writing in our present moment for the purposes of his argument.
I have mixed feelings. For the negative, I felt this was too long and underedited. A number of times almost identical sentences were used to explain a given concept, or a subject that had been explained already was introduced again as if for the first time. The overall structure of this book did not work for me. I am sympathetic to what Seymour might call the metastatic nature of the subject creating difficulty here. Many of the topics flow back into one another naturally, but rather than feeling like connections were being made, points often felt redundant. In particular I found myself rolling my eyes at the constant rehashing and re-examining of the online pile on. This is a subject worth examining to be sure, but after the initial discussion there's not much new ground covered. The chapter on trolling, while also offering a good overview of the subject and some quite cutting insights, felt to me almost punitive in the descriptions of depravity. I suppose that is part of the purpose, and does pointedly recall the image of the twittering machine, but it was still a lot to read. TW for discussions of sexual violence and suicide, and anything else you imagine would turn up under the heading of trolling.
As for what I did like quite a lot: The point that social media addiction is much more similar to gambling addiction than substance abuse was incredibly well made and frankly kind of chilling. I particularly found the description of "playing not to win but to stay in the machine zone where nothing matters" to be uncomfortably familiar. Anyone who has gotten sucked into scrolling only to look up and see three hours have gone by will understand the idea discussed here of "dropping out of time."
There's also the assertion that users of social media are its workers as well as suppliers of its primary product (namely, attention and data from which to mine advertising dollars). We are both the means of production and the product itself. This is a miserable fact but one I have not seen put quite as well anywhere as it was here.
For the two above points it was a worthwhile read for me. I struggled with Seymour's style which felt occluded to me but I don't believe in any intentional way. Anyone who is terminally online will perhaps not find much new in the basic points being made. But I think the overall perspective taken here, against sensationalism and questioning rather than providing answers, is a good contribution of the literature of social media.