Reading and Writing in Online Culture
Index
Walker, R. (2014) How to Pay Attention..........................................................................................................................2
Swanson, B. (2021) The Anxiety of Influencers: Educating the TikTok Generation..........................................................2
Jarrell, R. (1960) A Sad Heart at the Supermarket...........................................................................................................2
Kiberd, R. (2021) The Disconnect: A Personal Journey Through the Internet. Introduction: A History of the World Since
1989................................................................................................................................................................................ 3
McGrady, C. (2021) The Strange Journey of ‘Cancel’. Washington Post..........................................................................3
Barbrook, R. & Cameron, A. (1995) The Californian Ideology..........................................................................................3
Marx, P. (2022) Elon Musk Is Convinced He’s the Future. We Need to Look Beyond Him................................................6
Barlow, J. P. (1996) A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace...........................................................................6
Horton & Wohl (1956) Mass Communication and Para-Social Interaction......................................................................7
Hitchcock (2021) Take Me Away: Consuming other people’s personalities as if you know them is a contemporary form
of escapism...................................................................................................................................................................... 9
Barthes, R. (1957/1972) Mythologies............................................................................................................................10
Video: What is Design Fiction?......................................................................................................................................10
Game: The Thing from the Future..................................................................................................................................11
Case study: SpeculativeEdu Project...............................................................................................................................11
Roupenian, K. (2017) Cat Person...................................................................................................................................11
Nowicki, A. (2021) “Cat Person” and Me.......................................................................................................................11
Nabokov, V. (1948) Good Readers and Good Writers....................................................................................................11
Fisher, M. (2018) No One is Bored, Everything is Boring................................................................................................11
Busta, C. (2021) The Internet didn’t kill counterculture – you just won’t find it on Instagram.......................................12
Citarella, J. (2018) Irony Politics & Gen Z.......................................................................................................................12
Horton, A. (2021) How Bo Burnham’s Netflix special Inside set the bar for quarantine art. The Guardian...................12
, Walker, R. (2014) How to Pay Attention
https://medium.com/re-form/how-to-pay-attention-4751adb53cb6
How to pay attention to other things that normally attract the attention (billboards, shops, etc.):
Conduct an overlooked-object scavenger hunt (eg. security cameras, payphones)
Single-color scavenger hunt
Spot something new every day
Change perspective (looking down/looking up)
Reframe the familiar
Walk with an expert
Talk to a stranger
Let a stranger lead you
Take a day-long walk through an unfamiliar part of town
Poeticize the irritating
Look slowly (or even slower)
Look repeatedly
Repeat your viewpoint
Listen
Soundmap
Follow the quiet (where is the quietest place?)
Look at anything besides your phone
Misuse a tech tool
Care for something
Swanson, B. (2021) The Anxiety of Influencers: Educating the
TikTok Generation
https://harpers.org/archive/2021/06/tiktok-house-collab-house-the-anxiety-of-influencers/
Content houses or TikTok mansions are collab houses in which teens live and work together, trying to achieve viral
fame on a variety of media platforms. Influencers are the new ‘A-list celebrities’, except they it is attainable for
anybody. Wealth, fame, status has never been more attainable for anyone in the history of the world they way it is
right now. It seems that the influencer economy has infiltrated every last sector of the market, as it currently
accounts 15% of the total global ad spend.
One of the owners of the content house says they see themselves as an influencer university.
The article is an interview with the influencers living in a content house in LA. The interviewer is worried about their
attention span, the ‘news’ that is partly fake on TikTok and their education.
Jarrell, R. (1960) A Sad Heart at the Supermarket
Advertising men, businessmen, speak continually of the ‘media’ or the ‘mass media’. The media, however, is the
plural of the word ‘medium’. The media needs us to be buyers, consumers; beings who want much and will want
more. The media shows us what our new needs are and it shows us how they can be satisfied; they can be satisfied
by buying something. Children by the age of ten are consumers, interviewed, graphed and analyzed. They are on
their way to becoming that ideal figure of our culture, the knowledgeable consumer. This person has learned to
understand life as a series of choices among the things and services of the world. Production has come to seem to
our society not much more than a condition prior to consumption. The values of media are business values: money,
success, celebrity.
In the past our culture’s frame of reference, its body of common knowledge changed slowly and superficially; the
amount added to it or taken away from it in any ten years was a small proportion of the whole. Now in any ten years
a surprisingly large proportion of the whole is replaced. Most of the information people have in common is
2
Index
Walker, R. (2014) How to Pay Attention..........................................................................................................................2
Swanson, B. (2021) The Anxiety of Influencers: Educating the TikTok Generation..........................................................2
Jarrell, R. (1960) A Sad Heart at the Supermarket...........................................................................................................2
Kiberd, R. (2021) The Disconnect: A Personal Journey Through the Internet. Introduction: A History of the World Since
1989................................................................................................................................................................................ 3
McGrady, C. (2021) The Strange Journey of ‘Cancel’. Washington Post..........................................................................3
Barbrook, R. & Cameron, A. (1995) The Californian Ideology..........................................................................................3
Marx, P. (2022) Elon Musk Is Convinced He’s the Future. We Need to Look Beyond Him................................................6
Barlow, J. P. (1996) A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace...........................................................................6
Horton & Wohl (1956) Mass Communication and Para-Social Interaction......................................................................7
Hitchcock (2021) Take Me Away: Consuming other people’s personalities as if you know them is a contemporary form
of escapism...................................................................................................................................................................... 9
Barthes, R. (1957/1972) Mythologies............................................................................................................................10
Video: What is Design Fiction?......................................................................................................................................10
Game: The Thing from the Future..................................................................................................................................11
Case study: SpeculativeEdu Project...............................................................................................................................11
Roupenian, K. (2017) Cat Person...................................................................................................................................11
Nowicki, A. (2021) “Cat Person” and Me.......................................................................................................................11
Nabokov, V. (1948) Good Readers and Good Writers....................................................................................................11
Fisher, M. (2018) No One is Bored, Everything is Boring................................................................................................11
Busta, C. (2021) The Internet didn’t kill counterculture – you just won’t find it on Instagram.......................................12
Citarella, J. (2018) Irony Politics & Gen Z.......................................................................................................................12
Horton, A. (2021) How Bo Burnham’s Netflix special Inside set the bar for quarantine art. The Guardian...................12
, Walker, R. (2014) How to Pay Attention
https://medium.com/re-form/how-to-pay-attention-4751adb53cb6
How to pay attention to other things that normally attract the attention (billboards, shops, etc.):
Conduct an overlooked-object scavenger hunt (eg. security cameras, payphones)
Single-color scavenger hunt
Spot something new every day
Change perspective (looking down/looking up)
Reframe the familiar
Walk with an expert
Talk to a stranger
Let a stranger lead you
Take a day-long walk through an unfamiliar part of town
Poeticize the irritating
Look slowly (or even slower)
Look repeatedly
Repeat your viewpoint
Listen
Soundmap
Follow the quiet (where is the quietest place?)
Look at anything besides your phone
Misuse a tech tool
Care for something
Swanson, B. (2021) The Anxiety of Influencers: Educating the
TikTok Generation
https://harpers.org/archive/2021/06/tiktok-house-collab-house-the-anxiety-of-influencers/
Content houses or TikTok mansions are collab houses in which teens live and work together, trying to achieve viral
fame on a variety of media platforms. Influencers are the new ‘A-list celebrities’, except they it is attainable for
anybody. Wealth, fame, status has never been more attainable for anyone in the history of the world they way it is
right now. It seems that the influencer economy has infiltrated every last sector of the market, as it currently
accounts 15% of the total global ad spend.
One of the owners of the content house says they see themselves as an influencer university.
The article is an interview with the influencers living in a content house in LA. The interviewer is worried about their
attention span, the ‘news’ that is partly fake on TikTok and their education.
Jarrell, R. (1960) A Sad Heart at the Supermarket
Advertising men, businessmen, speak continually of the ‘media’ or the ‘mass media’. The media, however, is the
plural of the word ‘medium’. The media needs us to be buyers, consumers; beings who want much and will want
more. The media shows us what our new needs are and it shows us how they can be satisfied; they can be satisfied
by buying something. Children by the age of ten are consumers, interviewed, graphed and analyzed. They are on
their way to becoming that ideal figure of our culture, the knowledgeable consumer. This person has learned to
understand life as a series of choices among the things and services of the world. Production has come to seem to
our society not much more than a condition prior to consumption. The values of media are business values: money,
success, celebrity.
In the past our culture’s frame of reference, its body of common knowledge changed slowly and superficially; the
amount added to it or taken away from it in any ten years was a small proportion of the whole. Now in any ten years
a surprisingly large proportion of the whole is replaced. Most of the information people have in common is
2
