Venkatesh Rao ☀️ pfp
Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
Thinkers who achieve zeitgeist resonance often live in uncanny valleys between the sweet spots of different media. They don't quite fit the medium at either end of the spectrum. I think one reason Byung-Chul Han has suddenly resonated in the last few years despite being 65 (b. 1959) is that his "medium" is somewhere between the impenetrable german philosophy book and the extra-long blog. To philosophers, he's a blogger pretending to be a philosopher. To bloggers, he's a philosopher pretending to be a blogger. His location on the spectrum is "monograph" length, but it's really an uncanny-valley blook. I think I too earned some of whatever zeitgeist resonance I've achieved this way. My longform style is somewhere between blogs and talk show monologues. But I'm not a typical example of either.
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Venkatesh Rao ☀️ pfp
Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
I initially thought he was a young guy, possibly younger than me, and possibly an intellectual successor to Francis Fukuyama. Turns out, he's more of a contemporary to Fukuyama (b. 1952), and just a late bloomer in the crossover-success game. Fukuyama had his zeitgeist-fit moment in 1991, at age 39 or so.
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