Some Indian Lemonade, Websites’ Revenge, and Excess.
A creative spot, a fresh illustration, a discussion piece.
1.
· Too Many ·
“There can be too much of a good thing.”
“You can never have too many ___”.
“Everything in moderation”.
“More is better”.
“Less is more”.
You might identify with some of these statements, or all of them, on different days and in different contexts. For example, eating moderately, buying shoes with abandon, binge watching, spending with care- all of these seemingly contradictory approaches can co-exist in one individual, through the miracle of ‘contextual behaviour’, powered by (or mollified by) cognitive dissonance. I have had to restrain myself from going down a rabbit hole of the concepts of ‘behavioural inconsistency’ and ‘contextual rationality’, which go some way in explaining the co-existence of some of these apparently differing approaches within us, sometimes.
This prelude to a ‘Friday Find’ is more conceptual than I intended, but is spurred by a spot that makes a very striking visual comment.
We are surrounded by commercial messages telling us to Buy, Buy, Buy!
This doesn’t.
I find myself steadily less enchanted by consumption and acquisition in my personal life, though my cognitive dissonance still happily allows the aforementioned behavioural inconsistency. So, this spot appeals.
I don’t know Vinted at all, and it doesn’t operate in my part of the world, but I’m sharing this creative because it speaks to a sense of restraint I think we would all do well to have more of. Also, hey-its a cool spot!
*Afternote: the problem of over-consumption is as much (if not much more) a problem of over-production, but that is another post altogether.
2.
· Refreshing Interlude ·
It is summer in much of the world, and a very, very hot summer in many parts. So here is this bold image of nimboo pani (literally, ‘lemon/lime water’), from artist Anirudh Kadav, who lives & creates in Mumbai, India and is co-founder of the studio ‘Hey Doode!’. Nimboo Pani is a favourite cooling drink all over India, with variations using salt, sugar, or black salt, mint and others, but its generally pretty brilliant.
His illustration has all those feels- bright, bold, summery, yet cooling. Enjoy!
3.
· Good Things Decay ·
In the wider field of media, news and content we have seen a trajectory in the last couple of decades where platforms, as digital gatekeepers, have increasingly become more influential, some would say all-powerful. They arguably are as much enablers of content, as controllers of information.
Countless media brands have ridden the roller-coaster of leveraging these platforms’ wide reach, only to be befuddled when they change the rules of their not-so-little little gardens, i.e. algorithms, and all the uncertainty they bring with them.
These have been good, even great platforms, but there are many who think they are now on the wane. Kyle Chayka wrote about an ‘internet after platforms’, last year.
There’s no place to call home, no central gathering point where the people I want to talk to congregate. The platforms that do exist feel worse and worse.
That despondent perspective of a user aside, it is also relevant for publishers. Jacob Donnelly (who runs A Media Operator) recently said about media businesses,
Publishers must accept that the mass-scale era will not always be there. It was a “false situation” in the first place, he explained. Now, social media is a reducing source of traffic and “search is potentially a reducing source of traffic”.
In these contexts, there is an interesting piece from The New Yorker , “The Revenge Of The Homepage” (also by Kyle), which makes the case for journalism and other forms reverting to their own websites to best capture, nurture and build their customer base- a “post-platform” world, if you will.
Digital-distribution infrastructure is crumbling, having become both ineffective for publishers and alienating for users. Social networks, already lackluster sources for news, are overwhelmed by misinformation and content generated by artificial intelligence. Surrounded by dreck, the digital citizen is discovering that the best way to find what she used to get from social platforms is to type a URL into a browser bar and visit an individual site.
I am not entirely convinced there is a critical mass of people who think/act like the digital citizen described above. Large masses of humanity continue to gorge on news and other content through social media platforms, with all their baggage.
“…giant social platforms may ultimately seem like an aberration in the history of digital journalism.”
I agree with how the system is broken in places, but am unsure enough people genuinely believe so in an actionable way. New players continue to look at providing better models of content in the face of disillusionment with the mainstream… yet still often predicate their offerings on existing social platforms, because the reach is too alluring.
It is an absorbing space though, and I do feel something will have to give in the coming few years, with mistrust in the content we consume, only likely to rise.
One welcome lesson of the post-platform Internet is that sticking to what you’re good at might be a better strategy in the long run than trying to make content that’s popular.
“Sticking to what you are good at” seems like reasonably wise guidance, something a parent might say to a young adult confused by myriad options. It might well be a good idea to take such advice.
· The Revenge Of The Homepage · Jacob D on publishers ·
· Related read that might be of interest - The Poster’s Guide to the Internet of the Future, exploring if there can be a “stuff-posting system” that can actually work for everyone who wants to… erm, post stuff. ·
Thanks for reading! ☕️