Quoting Mark Zuckerberg, a squirrel dying in your front yard may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa.
It's true, I've spent many minutes watching the neighbor's cat watching insects. I've also spent countless hours watching videos of cats watching birds and making weird sounds.
But let's rewind. Who's fault is that?
I read Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams and fuck Meta very much. Like we all know how toxic social media is and how much it is engineered to keep us there and care more about a random parrot on Instagram than our neighbor who needs help but how can you even get out of a system that's so embedded in everything we are and do?
Especially now, that I'm so far from my family and some of my friends (in both a literal but also metaphorical way, considering we're all busy all the time), I really want to know what everyone is up to. If you think I don't care about the photos of the beers you're drinking or the food you're eating, you're wrong. I care a lot, it's all I care about. I want to keep seeing them.
But also, knowing how all these apps were built and the disregard for rules and basic human decency that was involved in that, I'm just... I don't know, I'm double-thinking it. God, I hate thinking!
The book is about the experience of Wynn-Williams working at Facebook as their Director of Public Policy. In short, she was an instrumental person in the growth and power that Facebook amassed in its formative years. Just think that she was one of the people involved in Facebook entering Myanmar, where Facebook later promoted violence against a specific ethnic group. And you know what it's called when a specific ethnic group is targeted and killed: genocide.
But it's not just that the systems are terrible, it's more like the people who created these systems really have no idea about the damage they're causing because they're too far from it in their fancy private jets. And also when they do know, they don't care about it. And I hate that for us. They truly don't care about it, according to Wynn-Williams (also it's a bit sketchy how she talks about herself throughout the book, but I'll still recommend the book). They'll only say they do when they're forced to because they're losing power or money. They have no beliefs beyond their own satisfaction. People like Mark Zuckerberg and Lean In Sheryl Sandberg shouldn't have that much power.
One could say that it's completely hypocritical to talk shit about something while still using it and benefiting from it. And that's partly true. But it's also true that being part of these systems gives us, actually, all the arguments to criticize them. More importantly, being part of a system doesn't mean we have to conform to it or that we don't deserve better. Because we deserve better.
My main thought after finishing the book: maybe I should spend less time on social media. Or my phone. Or both. But then, what will I replace that with? My own thoughts?!?!? God, I hate my own thoughts.
me, trying to cut down my time on social media
me, using a screenshot from an equally evil social media platform to say I'm trying to cut down on social media
So yeah, I'll think about it.
y para seguir hablando de cosas malvadas...
oigan, estoy muy indignada de todas las imagenes generadas con AI en estilo "Estudio Ghibli", ¿no están viendo que el señor está completamente en contra de usar inteligencia artificial para hacer arte y van y hacen esto?
A few updates because I have basically been slacking off in any and all aspects of my life except the one and most important one: consuming every possible piece of content available. 💅
✷ leí Nadie nos vio Partir de Tamara Trottner. la verdad todo empezó bien pero por ahí de la mitad me pregunté por qué la historia sólo estaba dando vueltas y vueltas y vueltas. supongo que es una historia que tiene que contarse pero, ¿no pudo haber sido mejor un mail?
✷ 4 movies worth mentioning: The Outrun, The Brutalist, Queer and I'm Still Here. I'm Still Here is SO GOOD, should've won everything it was nominated for at the Oscars.
✷ actualmente OBSESIONADA con el nuevo disco de Ainda, es una joyaaa, joya, joyaaaaa. y además, estoy amando que están compartiendo en su Instagram todo el proceso creativo detrás del álbum, incluído un VIDEO INÉDITO con Jorge Drexler escuchando una de las canciones con las que colaboró para el disco. Jorge te amooooo.
yo escuchando el nuevo disco de Ainda diez veces al día
my personal internet spy noticing that I'm starting No Es Amor for the fiftieth time in the week
¡y les dejo un clásico de Ainda para celebrar la llegada de la primavera! see you soon, hopefully.
