Cision Scandinavia is celebrating their 10th anniversary of Cision PR Influencer Award.

I’ve had the honor and pleasure of being nominated by Cision Scandinavia in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 — and now also in 2020 for the Cision PR Influencer Award.

Now, I would lie if I said that I wasn’t just a little bit pleased with myself for being nominated for a decade.

As follows, I pride myself of being somewhat consistent, especially since this blog, Doctor Spin, has been the central hub for my online sharing since the very start of my career. Online influence has never been the goal, but rather a side-effect of sharing my passion for public relations.

Since I won in 2016, I keep my fingers crossed for John Mellqvist, senior consultant and futurist at Techposition. There are many great communicators amongst the nominees, but I’m especially impressed by John’s work:

John has diligently picked a fight with the stupid majority who believes that getting older is only about getting less young.

Fighting ageism in the workplace is a worthwhile pursuit.

In John’s spirit, I celebrate the last decade of PR work. From New York to Stockholm, from agency to independent adviser — and from becoming a husband and a father.

Photo by Aron Visuals on Unsplash.

We live in the age of algorithms — and the late majority is quickly starting to catch on.

”Social media is dividing us,” critics claim.

However, the algorithms are also causing more direct (and potentially devastating) outcomes for us PR professionals.

Because now, the algorithms are sorting away more than even we, hardened PR professionals, can stomach.

What’s happening?

How good is your communication?

As a thought experiment, imagine your communication activities grouped in five different levels based on, say, the basic quality in terms of PR craftsmanship.

Now, if I were to suggest that the algorithms will sort away all level 1- (“lousy”) and level 2 (“bad”) communication, most PR professionals would intuitively agree.

But, what if I were to suggest that the algorithms are also sorting away level 3 (“average”) and even level 4 (“good”) communication?

Could this really be true?

At this point, all we know is that competing for attention is constantly getting tougher and tougher.

But for anyone working in PR, the algorithms sure seems to be making an already challenging profession even more difficult.

Love them or hate them, embrace them or fear them — algorithms are makers of kings and queens today. Algorithms are the backbone of the media.

And we, as PR professionals, must change the way we prioritise.

Go for level 5 communication — or it’s a “no-go”

But the key takeaway here isn’t that great communication works better than good communication. We already knew that.

The key point is that good communication will be stealing resources from great communication — whatever that may entail in your niche.¹

The media logic of algorithms is for today’s PR professionals what newsworthiness was to yesterday’s.

In the age of the algorithms, the winners takes all — or at least almost everything. Traffic. Conversions. Engagement. Share of voice. Attention.

Second placers are just first to lose.

In all external communication, we must be laser-focused in what objectives we pursue. And, we must abandon everything that aren’t “level 5 communication” by design.

New rules, new strategies

With new rules for the algorithmic media landscape, the PR profession must invent new playbooks.

We need new strategies based on what’s rapidly becoming the most valuable commodity in the world — attention.

This is why content themes works.
This is why the surround strategy works.
This is why ensuring critical mass works.
This is why the follower contract works.
This is why evergreen iceberg publishing works.

This is why it works to pick a fight with someone much bigger than you are — a stupid majority.

Photo by Nadine Shaabana on Unsplash.

And autumn is calling. And few things makes me happier.

As strange as it may sound, I always feel born again in the autumn. I love the colours, the crisp air.

I almost felt like an intruder, pointing my camera into the small gardens as I walked passed them.

There’s something about the breaking point between the lingering, dark, and intensive green paired with the warm colours of autumn.

I know that this colour palettes won’t last long, maybe only for a couple of weeks. But then, what is good that also last forever?

It’s the passage of time that makes the temporary so valuable, so beautiful. The eternal is overrated, in my opinion.

The leaves are falling, but I’m sure that this roe deer was more hoping for falling apples than leaves.

I decided to call him Newton. I thought that was clever, but I’m sure that Newton wouldn’t care about that.

Photos are taken with a Canon 5D MkII and a 50mm 1.8 lens.

Well, chances are that you’ll hear about it again soon.

The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon (also known as frequency illusion) is when you notice something, perhaps something out of the ordinary, like coming across an unusual name, hearing a song, or an learning the name of an actor that you never seen of before.

Suddenly, that thing you noticed for the first time in your life just yesterday, starts appearing from nowhere both here and there.

Like some sort of short-term déjà vu on steroids.

What’s really going on here?

That obscure song from the 80’s

Most of us have experienced the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon — I know I have.

I experience it literally all the time.
And that’s not an exaggeration.

Since I’m not a superstitious person, I’ve always taken for granted that it has something to with with a psychological fallacy or bias — like confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias is when we hear or see what we want to hear and see. The things that we don’t want to see or hear, well, they don’t seem to register as easily.

However, confirmation bias, which is a widely known and well-studied psychological fallacy, doesn’t account for the full experience of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon.

Let’s say that I walk by a store and from within that store, I hear that they’re playing a rather unusual song from the 80’s that I haven’t heard in ages. I used to love it, but I had simply forgotten about it.

In the following weeks, I hear the song again and again — and always by chance. How weird.

If we were to explain these occurrences using the fallacy of confirmation bias alone, we must conclude that I’ve encountered this rather rare song from the 80’s all the time, but without noticing it consciously.

But how can that be — especially if the song is rather obscure?

The frequency illusion

According to the Stanford linguist professor Arnold Zwicky, who coined the term frequency illusion for this phenomenon in 2006, there’s also something else going on before your confirmation bias kicks in.

And that’s selective attention.

When struck by something novel that sparks an emotional reaction, your brain starts to actively scan for whatever it was that you noticed.

Unconsciously, your brain is now actively seeking for that song — wherever you go.

How does the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon affect us?

The term Baader-Meinhof phenomenon made it out into the open internet and has since become what we call this peculiar phenomenon.

Well, if you’re suffering from mental illness, it could fuel paranoia and other types of unhealthy states. But there are positive examples, to.

Healthline writes about such an incident:

“In 2019, third-year medical student Kush Purohit wrote a letter to the editor of Academic Radiology to talk about his own experience on the matter.

Having just learned of a condition called “bovine aortic arch,” he went on to discover three more cases within the next 24 hours.

Purohit suggested that taking advantage of psychological phenomena such as Baader-Meinhof could benefit students of radiology, helping them to learn basic search patterns as well as the skills to identify findings that others may overlook.”

The online forum and German terrorists

Why do we call it the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon and not the frequency effect?

The more popular term Baader-Meinhof phenomenon was first used by a commenter in an online discussion forum after hearing about the ultra-left-wing terrorist group Baader-Meinhof Gang, also known as the Red Army Faction (RAF), twice in 24 hours.

The forum belongs to the St Paul Pioneer Press and is said to be referenced there every now and then since still to this day.

And so the phenomenon in itself has nothing to do with the terrorist group that wreaked havoc in Germany in the 70’s.

One could make the case that it’s not ideal to reference a group of terrorists. The phenomenon could just have as well have been named anything else. But it stuck.

Information processing and the butterfly effect

So, what about that obscure song from the 80’s then?

Was I really hearing that song all the time — only without noticing it?

Well, yes and no.

Selective attention and confirmation bias explains what happens, but it doesn’t address just how much information our brains are filtering out on a regular basis.

We actually don’t know how much information our subconscious brains are registering, but it’s likely to be a lot.

And then there’s at least two additional mechanism of significance at play here, too.

Subconscious information processing

First, your brain is likely scanning for many recently discovered novelties at the same time.

Maybe you’ve encountered several hundred potential Baader-Meinhof phenomenons in the last seven days, but you only come across one or two of these instances again in the coming seven days.

The rest of these subconscious interests are then forgotten, so you only remember those instances when the effect kicks in for you.

The butterfly effect

Secondly, we live in an interconnected society. We shouldn’t underestimate the chaotic network effects.

Maybe lots of people in your area heard that same song on the radio that day? Maybe lots of them reacted in the same way I did?.

There’s actually a possibility that your initial feeling indeed is right; a small spark could lead to a butterfly effect and increase the likelihood of you encountering the same thing soon again as a result of this spreading chain of events.

For instance, if you learnt about the Baader-Meinhof just now, on this blog, then you’re actually crossing paths with my online algorithms as I’ve researched this blog post on Google. I’ve got a Facebook pixel and I’ve also — obviously! — liked the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon page.

I’m not suggesting that you will hear about the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon ever again.

I’m only suggesting that the statistical chance might have gotten a tiny little bit bigger for you by reading this blog post.

Add a great number of subconscious impressions each and every day, some selective attention, and then a good portion of confirmation bias and voilà.

The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon and language

Remember the scientist who coined the term frequency illusion for this term, Arnold Zwicky?

He noticed that people who are above-average interested in language are extra prone to having these experiences.

Regarding how often I’ve experienced this phenomenon myself, maybe I should add that I didn’t just study public relations at the university.

I did also get a Bachelor in linguistics.

Photo by Egor Myznik on Unsplash.

Tradition dictates that any self-respecting PR blogger better publish a post on the most interesting trends for the upcoming year.

Overall, I think we’ll see a general movement inwards, were more and more organisations will be looking for PR strategies from the inside out.

Next year is going to be exciting — but also tough.

1. ESG

ESG, which stands for Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (often interchangeably referred to as sustainability), is my first of five major PR trends for 2021.

Why is this trend powerful?

The political landscape is continuously being polarised with loud voices both on the far left and the far right — and a growing silent majority. Cancel culture, deplatforming, alternative facts, and brandcalling are used as powerful tools for applying pressure on organisations and individuals.

Along with mounting pressures, the need for more sustainable strategies and narratives, especially in light of the Greta Thunberg movement and the Covid-19 pandemic, organisations will have no choice but to adapt.

How will this trend affect PR?

Communication departments will have to find brave new PR strategies to deal with these unparallelled pressures of the outside world.

These new strategies will have to balance a razor sharp edge between ESG compliance and brand integrity — both equally important but not necessarily compatible.

2. Communication maturity

Communication maturity is the the development level of common perceptions amongst leaders, communicaticators, and coworkers and is my second of five major PR trends for 2021.

Why is this trend powerful?

As society deals with the continuing challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, organisations must look inwards to ensure that the organisation, and not just the communication department, is accountable for processes, results, and advocacy.

This trend is the organisational outcome of the ESG trend; the biggest challenges next year will be strategic, so the countermeasures must be met at a strategic level within the organisation as well.

How will this trend affect PR?

There will be an increased focus on communicative leadership, advocacy and coworker communication responsibility, and the continuous measurement of internal attitudes and narratives.

The communications department will also have to seek a closer relationship with the HR department — especially in larger organisations.

3. SEO

SEO, the strategies and practices for attracting organic traffic from search engines, will be a key focus for communicators and is my third of five major PR trends for 2021.

Why is this trend powerful?

With social media algorithms being so volatile and risky, and the media noise being so paramount, many organisations will be forced to take a step back and look at how they can have the audience come to them — instead of the other way around.

So much corporate content doesn’t even make it into SERP top 100 — despite the content itself being relevant in many cases.

How will this trend affect PR?

Well-developed practices for inbound marketing alone won’t be sufficient in 2021. Being able to earn top SERP positions for relevant search phrases won’t just be great PR — it’ll be a core business asset for any organisation.

Communicators will have to team up with SEO specialists and start to work closely together — for the long-term.

4. Reputation management

Reputation management (sometimes also referred to as issues management) is the proactive aspect of crisis communications and is my fourth of five major PR trends for 2021.

Why is this trend powerful?

In the wake of the the techlash and the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and followed by political pressures on social networks along with critical views presented in documentaries like The Social Dilemma and, social media seems to have become the primary battle ground for changing hearts and minds.

With mounting political polarisation and social media pessimism, the internet functions as a catalyst by forcing organisations to adapt rapidly. This is likely to be a continuous challenge for PR professionals across the world next year.

How will this trend affect PR?

The key to successful reputation management is to take advantage of being first to detect and to act on potential PR issues.

Communications departments will have to revisit and upgrade their existing solutions for media monitoring and make better use of data warehouses, advanced filters and machine learning.

5. Brand communities

Brand communities, building and maintaining an online community of actively engaged customers, is my fifth and final major PR trend for 2021.

Why is this trend powerful?

With influencers transitioning to build and promote their own commercial brands, organisations must build audiences of their own. The number of organisations who have actually succeeded in nurturing a community of true fans are dwindling, but the rewards for those who succeed can be enormous.

Quickly growing an online community and keeping it engaged is likely to be regarded as the real “viral marketing” of 2021 which is looking to be the biggest year for algorithms yet.

How will this trend affect PR?

The idea of “brand communities” is an old one and it has typically resonated with ideas of loyalty memberships or online forums. With inspiration from how influencers build their communities, this might be about to change.

I might be jumping the gun here, but 2021 could be the year when organisations adopt a strategic approach to building a real community, as opposed to creating just another reward program or launching a new platform.

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash.

Photography has preserved my sanity these last few months.

Also, I’m learning that a photowalk can fix most things in life. You just grab your camera and you go out.

Maybe you go somewhere special. Or maybe you go wherever.

To see what you see.

You make yourself look at the world as it presents itself to you, right where you are. And right when you are.

On this photowalk, I saw a still river.

And I saw a man and his boat.

Sometimes, that’s all you need to see to get your sanity back.

And no, it doesn’t have to be complicated.

Sure, we can’t always choose when and where to go out. Most of the times, we must adapt.

Still, it’s almost always possible to take a few minutes break and just go outside.

And all you need to turn a walk into a photowalk is … your camera.

The photos were taken with a Canon 5D MkII using a 50mm 1,8 lens.

As the number of approachable journalists seems to dwindle, the importance of influencer marketing has increased — especially over the last 3-4 years.

And influencer marketing is exciting to explore.

So, I’ve talked about how to categorise influencers, why it’s important to target the magic middle for ambassadorship, and why you should always do a honeymoon outreach.

But, wait. What about the influencers themselves?

Well, they don’t seem to be quite done just yet.

Late bloomers of monetisation

Online influencers isn’t a new phenomenon by any stretch of the imagination. Their platforms has shifted over the last decades, but wherever there’s an audience, there’s an influencer.

Influencers have always have been early to crash new online parties, but they’ve been late bloomers when it comes to monetisation.

As the hippie web died in 2012 and got replaced by the money web, few influencers got around to making it work for themselves. Working with influencers was often a pain; many of them were still not used to business professionalism.¹

However, in around 2017, many influencers started to get the hang of monetisation — quickly.²

Apart from ad revenue from the social networks, influencers started to do bigger and better things, especially together with brands. Brand collaborations quickly became a marker of online status.

Why did this happen in 2017 and not sooner?

Well, this leap into monetisation seems to have been driven primarily by new technology.

Examples: Influencer monetisation technology

Influencers are now movers and shakers in the marketplace; they get record deals, lucrative television contracts, and typically a volume of free publicity that most brands would kill for.

Today, however, it’s not just about ad revenue and brand collaborations anymore.

Influencers have a comprehensive understanding of not only their audiences and their content preferences — but their buying powers as well.

Now there are tons of services (like Patreon, OnlyFans, etc.) that allow influencers to set up their own premium community of subscribers. An influencer can easily sell their own products via their websites (using Shopify, WooCommerce, etc.) with integrated payment methods.

Also, there are tons of specialised services that allow influencer to sell everything from merch to prints.

An influencer today often has many different streams of income, but less than eight years ago when the web shifted into a haven of capitalist dynamics, most of these monetisation technologies weren’t even invented yet.

Will these emerging influencer-driven brands stop at fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG)? Or will this phenomenon start to become more noticeable also in other industries?

How influencer marketing is changing

Since the advent of fashion blogging, influencer marketing has been a fascinating opportunity for FMCG brands to explore.

However, I don’t think that many other types of businesses is waiting in line to experience what it is to see your products or services swoosh of the “shelves” after an influencer collaboration.

Because influencer marketing is up for its next phase — and it seems to be coming fast.

What’s quickly happening is that influencers are learning about business. And they’re learning that it’s better to sell their own products instead of someone else’s.

Influencers are learning that they prefer to promote their own brands. Not only because they can get a bigger piece of the cake, but because it’s easier for them to make content in a natural way around their own lines of merch.

So, influencers are now launching their own businesses. Their own brands.

And, they’ve already begun to turn down third-party collaborations to focus on their own business ventures instead.

Imagine a marketplace where some brands pay top dollar for marketing — and no-one cares. While some brands, brought to life by influencers, are getting tons of recognition for everything they do or say — and they’re not even paying for exposure.

As a brand in need of reaching customers in some ways, it begs the question, is this going to matter?

Learn more: In How to categorise influencers, I discuss different tiers and naming practices for influencer marketing.

Could an influencer put you out of business?

When we talk about influencer marketing — do we mean:

a) businesses collaborating with influencers to market products and services, or
b) the various methods an influencer use to market their own products and services?

See the shift right there?
Then, which one are we really talking about?

I ought to know. But I’m not sure anymore.

In the next couple of years, many heads of marketing- and communications, I think, will struggle to find ways of actually reaching their customers. Not due to lack of marketing budgets, but due to lack of strong options:

• Programmatic advertising is brimming with fraud and shows signs of creepiness.
• SEO and content marketing are being pushed down by Google and keyword competition is rough.
• Inbound marketing was an amazing opportunity in 2015, but it surely isn’t much of a secret anymore.
• Media relations is a challenge as the traditional news is fighting what seems to be a losing battle against the digital transformation.

Short-term, many brands will have a hard-time reaching their customers in a sensible way. Long-term, many brands might be encountering fierce competition from influencer brands with massive audiences that are highly engaged and forceful.

Prepare for influencer-driven competition

What can we expect as influencers move into more and more fields of commerce?

With online marketing becoming increasingly important every day, many brands might soon find themselves squeezed between influencer brands on one side and tech giants, who are just too big to fail, on the other.

One side dominates the algorithms.
The other side owns the algorithms.

And neither of these two sides are on your side.

In 2021 and beyond, businesses should consider what it means to compete with brands who doesn’t have to pay for reach by commanding legions of loyal followers.

I guess what am asking is this: How many true fans does your brand have?

Photo by XPS on Unsplash.

When buying products or services, there are bound to be options. How do we choose between these options?

A typical sales technique is to focus on unique selling points (USPs).

The underlying logic is this: If two products or services are very much alike, a single differentiator between them can tip the scales of many buying decisions.

As such, unique selling points can be powerful communication tools.

USPs for sales and awareness

The anatomy of selling point is rather basic. It’s something that makes the product or service different from other competing offerings in the marketplace.

This is especially prominent when it comes to consumer electronics: The Chinese smartphone Xiaomi Mi Note 10, for example, has five cameras.

Is five cameras better than, say, four? Maybe, maybe not. Does five cameras tip the scales for buying decisions? For some, yes, but not for all.

Unique selling points does, however, drive publicity:

I can’t even recall a single editorial about the Xiaomi Mi Note 10 that didn’t make a fuss about the fact that it has five cameras.

Another example:

A few years ago, Swedish brand Happy Plugs created a pair of earphones in solid gold:

Whether such earphones are comfortable or enjoy any improvements in sound quality due to the rather exotic choice of materials is beside the point; lots of product journalists and editors ran the story (or rather the pictures) of the gold earphones.

At $14,500, we can venture a guess that not many people actually bought them, but I remember them getting tons of publicity and in doing so, they placed a spotlight on the brand’s overall design esthetic and playfulness.

Now, it’s also important to note that unique selling points, aren’t always about just features and functions. They can be about other things as well, things that might be harder to copy.

Unique selling points might narrow your vision

For products and services, it’s typical to think of a product market as divided into USP segments: Some care deeply about certain features and aspects, others care deeply about other features and aspects.

For a long time, PC manufacturers competed fiercely with each other on the basis of features and functions. More RAM, more screen inches, more CPU power, more storage, and so on.

While this was a fascinating arms race by all counts, it did open up for Apple and the Macintosh computer to focus on entirely different value propositions, such as hardware design, interface design, and proprietary ecosystems.

The sobering realisation here is that while markets can be seen as divided divided into USP segments, many customers doesn’t really care about megapixels and CPU speeds.

Apple were able to differentiate themselves by shifting focus altogether.

The Apple focus was more difficult for their competitors to copy for many years, awarding Apple a larger share of the market. Today, many manufacturers are closing in, but for years, Apple stood quite alone in their niche.

How important are USPs?

Red Bull, for instance, arguably doesn’t taste better, aren’t cheaper, or doesn’t make you more energised than other competing sports drinks on the market. Instead, they focus on active lifestyle choices in the extreme sports community.¹

Still, there’s nothing to suggest that Red Bull would be more successful if they focused on differentiating their actual product.

Red Bull is making headway by having a strong “why” — despite not being alone in promoting extreme sports.

Coca-Cola’s sales is probably more dependent on being physically present wherever in the world where you might be able to order a drink. Placement and availability sometimes takes precedence over uniqueness in the marketplace.

Just as Red Bull aren’t the only energy drink sponsoring extreme sports events and athletes, Coca-Cola isn’t the only globally sold soft drink — nor is it the only drink that tastes like … Coca-Cola.

You can always outwork your competition

Some will argue that all businesses are unique. Sure, you’ll find this to be true if you look close enough; Coca-Cola does taste (I think?) a little different than Pepsi. And while their ads look similar in many ways, they aren’t exactly the same.

Or, their CEOs have different hobbies or whatever.
There’s always something “unique” to be found.

However, when it comes to unique selling points, some brands are pushing their perceived uniqueness too hard.

When using a unique selling point as the baseline for your communication, it’s easy to infest your brand with a somewhat sleazy air of sales jargon with a weak connection to reality.

“This is a revolution!”
“We are so very unique!”
“We’re changing the market forever!”

It doesn’t have to be corporate cringe every time, but it’s definitely something to watch out for.

Read more: In Corporational determinism: The new paradigm for launching products, I describe how prominent tech companies are shifting to a narrative-driven approach when launching new products.

Also, there’s the universe of online reviews and word-of-mouth to consider. What good is a unique selling points if there aren’t any social proof to back it up? Or worse, what if the reviews say that the unique selling point is rubbish?

There’s simply a case to be made for being a really good company and having really good products or services.

Peter Thiel: “Competition is for losers”

Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel makes an interesting argument about striving for uniqueness.

Thiel argues that a business shouldn’t strive to be the first in anything (“competition is for losers”), because the real money is to be made in being the last.

Instead, you should find a niche where you can improve upon the existing solutions by at least an order of magnitude — and grow from there while not allowing anyone to catch up — ever. Just like Google, Facebook, and Amazon.

A closely related strategy for avoiding competition is the blue ocean strategy.

Use unique selling points wisely

Unique selling points are powerful, but as they aren’t one-size-fits-all solutions, we should always be careful not to make all of a brand’s communication only about them.

There’s also merit to realizing that your business isn’t as unique as you’d like to think. Maybe it’s better to simply outwork your competition? Or — maybe escape competition completely?

Unique selling points are great tools, surely, but never greater than those who decides to use them.

Special mention to Micco Grönholm for valuable feedback on this blog post.

Photo by Ine Carriquiry on Unsplash.

A friend asked about my political views the other day and it didn’t go well.

After a few seconds of initial ramblings on my part, my friend showed signs of serious regret having even asked the question. People sort of want to know, and they sort of don’t.

However, in a blog post, I think that I might have a shot.¹ Now, if I had to put a label on myself, I’d call myself a science-fictionist.² While that may sound outlandish, I’ve actually put some thought into it.

Here goes:

In my personal political view, there’s the before, the during, and the after.

The before = the fundamentals of nature and the patterns it creates.

The during = the rational reasoning in a given context of spacetime.

The after = the extrapolated future where humanity survives — and thrives.

I will explain what these means.

The before (causality)

In my science-fictionist view, the fundamentals of nature extend beyond the unbreakable laws of physics and into the natural patterns that our universe is producing. Such patterns may manifest as cosmic background radiation, but they might also be ripples on a pond during a rainfall. Through interference, the fundamentals of nature produces a vibrant and complex stream of causality that flows through spacetime.

Trippy.

A planet-killing meteor could crash into our home and there would be nothing “wrong” (i.e. unnatural) about the Earth being destroyed. And like that meteor, we humans could destroy this planet of ours as well. It wouldn’t be wrong per se; many life forms are naturally invasive — much at the peril (and sometimes destruction) of their host. In a strict natural sense, “right” and “wrong” aren’t very useful and shouldn’t be conflated with more reliable concepts such as “accurate” or “false”.

However, apart from a few people living on the international space station, we’re all Earth-dwellers. And we don’t yet have many alternatives in terms of moving ourselves elsewhere in the universe. And even if we did have a few options, it would be stupid (albeit not wrong) to destroy any of those homes.

“It’s wrong to destroy our planet,” is a false statement.

“It’s stupid to destroy our planet,” is an accurate statement.

As you’ll learn, in the absolute absence of moral entanglement, stupid and smart are both central to my political framework.

The during (rationality)

No matter which famous (infamous?) political idea you study, you’ll find that the most of those ideas have occurred as a consequence of the context in which they were implemented.

If I were living in a cozy cave thousands of years ago and a tribe of violent troublemakers came to slaughter me and take possession of my humble abode, I would surely fight for my survival. Not because I happen to have some intrinsic right to my life or to that cave. Not because the troublemakers happen to be intrinsically wrong in trying to take something from us.

I would fight because that’s the natural pattern of my context-based rationality.

Throughout human history, lots of people have felt the need to kill each other. They have felt the need to steal, rape, and enslave each other. Not primarily because some of them were right and some of them were wrong in some absolute sense, but mostly because both aggressors and victims found themselves in stupid (i.e. primitive) contexts.

The civility of society should be measured
by its capacity for general stupidity.

Primitive cave-dwellers from tens of thousand years ago were highly intelligent, but they were too preoccupied with surviving to engage in less stupid forms of progressiveness. It’s not right or wrong to make scientific discoveries, to cooperate as a species, and to create safe spaces were we can divert some of our physical and mental energy away from surviving and into exploration, art, and love. But it sure is smart.

Since there’s no such thing as ethical absolutes, there’s only what we as a society allow based on our general capacity for being either smart or stupid. Similar to superstitious beliefs, right and wrong as absolute concepts can never be proven, but what constitutes smart and stupid can be established through natural logic in the science-fictionist view:

As long as we have some idea of where humanity’s going.

The after (transcendence)

Stupidity isn’t likely to be eradicated anytime soon, but as conscious and reasoning beings, we can think rationally about our future as a species. From a broad rational perspective, our conceivable future seems to have three main branches:

Future 1 = we go extinct due to natural patterns beyond our control.

Future 2 = we go extinct due to circumstances induced by stupidity.

Future 3 = we go on existing for millions or even billions of years.

While there’s no right or wrong, and potentially not much of a free choice either, the third future should at least appeal to most of humanity. As follows, we can deduce that a journey signified by scientific discoveries and safe spaces for exploration, art, and love into that third future would be our smartest bet.

What can we assume about such a third future for humanity?

By extrapolation, we will take full control of our evolution and engineer our DNA with great precision. We will merge with artificial intelligence through augmentation. We will harness energies far beyond what we understand today. And while we may never be able to manipulate time or distance, we will be able to alter the way we perceive time and space. That is, if we aren’t stupid and kill ourselves first.

Rationally, we cannot trust any dogmatic ideologies of today to get us there.

Capitalism will break down eventually when we transcend ownership. Socialism will break down eventually when we transcend social structures. Liberalism will break down eventually when we transcend individuality. Communism will break down eventually when we transcend centralised power. Conservatism will break down when we eventually transcend traditions. Humanism will break down eventually when we transcend what we today think of as being human. Religious belief will break down eventually when we transcend superstition.

All ideologies and religious beliefs
born out of necessity will be
outgrown by auxiliation.

The only thing we, as humans, can trust will get us into the third future, is transcendence.

This science-fictionsit future is by no means an utopia, but it is the future we get if we manage to outsmart the many perils along the way. And even if we, for some reason, revert to a totalitarian society completely void of any scientific progress for thousands of years, thousands of years are still only a blink of an eye in the face of that unfathomable distant third future.

Beyond right or wrong, such a science-fictionist future demonstrates through extrapolation of natural patterns what is actually smart and what is actually stupid — today.

Photo by Rod Long on Unsplash.

Yes, it can certainly feel like that sometimes.

The other day, I stumbled upon the article Going Postal — A psychoanalytic reading of social media and the death drive.

In the article, the writer Max Read tells us the story about his personal relationship with social media in light of reading The Twittering Machine by Richard Seymour.

And yes, Read tells us that he’s quitting social media.

Read’s article is well-written, both poignant and entertaining. And he does a tremendous job of conveying his thinking on the subject. The trope “I’ve had enough and here’s why I’m quitting social media” has been an internet staple for years, of course, but Read’s take is a classy blend of wit and cool.

Despite disagreeing with Read’s conclusion, I enjoyed his article wholeheartedly.

“I quit Twitter and Instagram in May, in the same manner I leave parties: abruptly, silently, and much later than would have been healthy. This was several weeks into New York City’s lockdown, and for those of us not employed by institutions deemed essential—hospitals, prisons, meatpacking plants—sociality was now entirely mediated by a handful of tech giants, with no meatspace escape route, and the platforms felt particularly, grimly pathetic. Instagram, cut off from a steady supply of vacations and parties and other covetable experiences, had grown unsettlingly boring, its inhabitants increasingly unkempt and wild-eyed, each one like the sole surviving astronaut from a doomed space-colonization mission, broadcasting deranged missives about yoga and cooking projects into an uncaring void. Twitter, on the other hand, felt more like a doomed space-colonization mission where everyone had survived but we had to decide who to eat.”

Although I agree with Read’s observations on a case-by-case basis, there are a few missing perspectives that should be taken into account before we dismiss social media — and carry on with our lives blissfully.

For the sake of such an argument, imagine replacing social media with television.

“I quit watching television in May, in the same manner I leave parties: abruptly, silently, and much later than would have been healthy. This was several weeks into New York City’s lockdown, and for those of us not employed by institutions deemed essential—hospitals, prisons, meatpacking plants—reality was now entirely mediated by a handful of broadcast companies, with no meatspace escape route, and the shows felt particularly, grimly pathetic. Day-time television, cut off from a steady supply of reality celebrities and cued studio audiences and other covetable experiences, had grown unsettlingly boring, its inhabitants increasingly unkempt and wild-eyed, each one like the sole surviving astronaut from a doomed space-colonization mission, broadcasting deranged missives about yoga and cooking projects into an uncaring void. Late-night television, on the other hand, felt more like a doomed space-colonization mission where everyone had survived but we had to decide who to eat.”

In light of this comparison, I’d suggest that we ponder two additional perspectives:

Firstly, this type of media critique stems from a long and proud tradition going back a long time, at least to Neil Postman and Pierre Bourdieu. This doesn’t take anything away from the critique explicitly, but it does point to the fact that we might as well be blaming media logic overall.

After all, the medium is the message, right?

Secondly, and as follows, there are definitely many reasons for cutting back on watching television. My gosh, the amount of crap on there is sometimes staggering.

However, context does matter; if you think that binge-watching daytime television instead of going to work and getting a healthy amount of exercise makes you worse-off, then you’re probably right.

But if your diet consists of BBC documentaries in moderation, you should be fine.

The reversal of Read’s arguments can actually become rather uncomfortable:

“There’s no information overload,
only filter failure.”

— Clay Shirky

It’s not complicated. If you’re not happy with what you’re reading and seeing on Instagram and Twitter, you’re simply using them wrong. The same goes for YouTube, Twitch, Quora, Pinterest, and TikTok, too.¹

Even Google’s search engine has a social component; just stop searching for (and clicking on) crap and your algorithm will better understand that you’re a serious person who wants serious search results.

Tweaking your social media exposure isn’t really different from switching channels on your television set — or even turning it off once in a while.

Quitting social media cold turkey isn’t necessary the obvious solution to your problems.

Yes, I fully agree that the ecosystem with interconnected devices, behavioral big data, and dopamine-triggering notifications is more addictive and more accessible than television ever was. Just like television was so much harder to resist than radio.

There’s a case to be made that many people, too many and maybe even the most of us, are ill-equipped to manage our transition into a wired world.

Many of us don’t have the sensibilities to manage these “new” technologies — not yet.

As I was playing around with my Nokia 1611 in the classroom back in -98, my history teacher gently reminded me that the biggest disadvantage of being a slave is that they were always accessible.

Maybe this is a key point?

Maybe older generations have yet to understand that you don’t have to reply to emails, comments, phone calls, text messages, and DMs. The mindset, ”The phone is ringing, shouldn’t someone pick it up? Might be important,” will draw anyone into a headspace of enslavement.

If you try to contact someone and you’re unable to pass through their filters for whatever reason, then it’s on you, the sender. It’s not on the recipient for “not picking up”. In this wired world of ours, when anyone can so easily contact anyone anywhere and at scale, it’s just different now.

Your inbox quickly becomes everyone else’s agenda for your time — if you let it.

If you’re a Fortnite streamer, then you know that Fortnite isn’t just a game — it’s a social platform in its own right. And as a popular streamer, you can’t let the audience decide when to stream or how and when to reply to whoever. In fact, if you’re streaming using the Twitch social platform, there are built-in functions to allow the audience to literally pay the streamer to get some sort of response.

And other social platforms (even Facebook) are following suit by implementing new ways for influencers to get paid.

For example: Imagine if those old wall-mounted telephones had a coin-slot where you paid real money to encourage whomever you’re dialling to take your call. Who would you pay to take your call?

This reversal might seem absurd at first, but the underlying logic is rather obvious to most younger demographics.

Don’t get me wrong; this isn’t an “older-people-just-don’t-get-it” rant. That would be unfair. Those of us who got to experience the world before social media, we’re the first to explore how to manage our platforms properly at different stages of life.

We have no playbook and no older generations to learn from.

Max Read goes on to write:

“These people, with their just-asking questions and vapid open letters, are dullards and bores, pettifoggers and casuists, cowards and dissemblers, time-wasters of the worst sort.”

If this is true, and it might well be, then what do we call all those people who are allowing these time-wasters into their social feeds? I don’t have any big words on this, but fools come to mind.

In summary: We need to try better, not stop trying.

Photo by Antoine Barrès on Unsplash.