Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
Thinking about what makes media like newspapers, TV, and twitter scratch a very particular “morning coffee” itch of where you go to plug into what’s up in the world. Though TV news is more a PM thing. Other media might be pleasurable (music) or socially satisfying (saying hi to friends) but don’t scratch this
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Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
There’s differences: newspapers are more summarized, TV is more live snippets, Twitter is a combination: conversational “takes” are summaries+snippets+opinion. But the common feature is, 5 minutes dissipates the claustrophobia of being caught in your own narrow life. All 3 connect you to whole universe.
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Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
I mean that literally, not poetically. Newspapers, TV, and twitter are the 3 places where you can reliably see run into everything from latest JWST photos to latest virus news. I’m going to call these 3 “saltwater media” as in oceans. As opposed to theme/perspective-restricted “freshwater” media.
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Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
This oceanic feel is a false consciousness of course. You’re still only getting a tiny non-random taste of the universe, with lots of systematic blindness. A Chinese person checking in on WeChat or whatever tastes a different, disconnected ocean with their morning coffee. But it’s a *nice* illusion.
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Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
Saltwater media only work if they allow suspension of meta-consciousness that it’s false. On mastodon even if you follow people on other instances you’re never unconscious of your local bubble.
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Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
Local newspapers have that mastodon feel too. Global newspapers/tv of record like NYT and CNN used to have unconscious saltwater vibe but it’s slowly collapsing. Twitter has flipped sharply from saltwater to freshwater in weeks. It’s not possible to forget you’re in Elon’s local bubble universe.
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