Another tech/media bubble we should be thinking about
One of my favorite internet observers thinks short-form video is wearing us down—and wearing out its welcome
A "popular media studies"-type issue today to recommend a piece by Garbage Day's Ryan Broderick. This one is a little bit in the weeds of internet history and culture. But I know readers of this newsletter have found it helpful in the past when I've written about the old social media playbook and how its waning has implications for ministry.
By now, we have well and fully transitioned into the post-Networked era of social media. We can no longer credibly claim that we're "not hooked on our devices but hooked on each other." It's no longer true that we interact online most frequently with the people we're closest to IRL. In fact, we barely see "each other" anymore unless we are relentlessly hyper-vigilant, feed-pruning power users.
Oh, to be able to believe that technology companies wanted to connect people.
What we see instead is vertical video, created by professional (or aspiring professional) influencers. We can leave comments, but we're not really socializing.
The post I'd like to recommend to you has some developing language for the new status quo, and a tentative diagnosis that something different might be incoming.
Here's the heart of it:
For all that’s been written about the coming AI crash, very little has been written about the short-form video collapse that is clearly just over the horizon. The companies and content farms flooding your feed with clips to make it seem like a particular podcaster or streamer is actually popular and the platforms themselves clearly inflating view counts to keep advertisers satisfied. And because many creators are doing this (thanks to short-form video, everything is content, and everyone who makes anything is a creator), we assume it’s true for everything that’s “popular.” A death spiral for human creativity that, I would argue, is on par with AI. Though, of course, AI can make short-form videos now.
Read more about "clipping" culture from Broderick here. I don't know if it will make you feel better about the internet. But it might make you feel less confused about what you're seeing in your feeds.
For me, both the AI bubble and the short-form video bubble have the same implications for ministry leaders: whether in person or online or both, we should be investing in genuinely meaningful, personal, robust ways of relating and communicating.
Of course you can still do that with integrity and grace on social media apps, including TikTok / Reels / Shorts. Indeed, I admire a lot of colleagues who are. It's as important as ever that we each find ways to show up authentically and meet people where they are, even if they're swimming against the current of what the algorithms are looking for.
But I'd be lying if I said I don't welcome the thought of the short-form video bubble bursting in the coming months or years. And I'll take the risk of a little optimism that what comes next might be at least a bit more nourishing.
PS, there's more analysis along these same lines in Broderick's podcast video here:
You don't have to understand all the media they're discussing to appreciate the wider arc here
