Evolving Landscape
Aemula Writer Spotlight - 12.26.24
Our options for sharing and discovering information online are falling short. What was once a structured ecosystem of traditional media channels and nascent social platforms has become a fragmented landscape. The experience for creators and consumers has become increasingly unsatisfying.
In our search for alternatives, we seek new formats that foster community, nuanced conversation, and meaningful discovery. While some niche platforms have found early traction, we still bear the burden of navigating an ever-changing online ecosystem.
However, we are now at an inflection point — old norms are beginning to collapse, and technological innovation is unlocking new possibilities. Platforms that truly align incentives with transparency and quality are within reach.
We believe this transformation begins by amplifying the voices of those at the forefront of this cultural shift. This week, we feature writers who understand the intricate dynamics of building the online communities that are shaping the future of digital media. True progress emerges from their willingness to embrace uncertainty while committing to their ideals.
One Thing
Written by Kyle Chayka, a freelance journalist, critic, and author of Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture and The Longing for Less: Living with Minimalism, and Nate Gallant, a writer covering religion, aesthetics, and politics, and a Japanese, Chinese, and Tibetan to English translator.
“Kyle Chayka: (…) Jess and I go to the restaurant not knowing exactly what to expect, sometimes just for a cocktail and a snack, sometimes for the full tasting menu. We’re always happy with whatever they come up with. Last time, they delivered us an off-menu concoction of a crispy, deep-fried puck of mashed potato, on a bed of sweet potato mash, topped with a pyramid of mandolined cauliflower slices tossed in chili oil. (They treat their regulars very well.) It made no sense and was totally surprising, but also one of the best bites I’ve ever eaten.
What does this have to do with newsletter formats, or One Thing as a project? Idk, maybe it’s just a vibe. There’s a constant feeling of care and attention in a neighborhood restaurant. You get to know everyone, staff and customers alike. There are expected specialties as well as surprises. A context or frame of reference develops over many repeated visits. You get to know the operators’ taste. It is a finite, enjoyable experience beginning to end (scarcity creates meaning). These are all qualities I also want in a newsletter, or a new generation of media publication.
Nate Gallant: Let's begin with something not to expect. You will find here no moral takes nor evaluation of the whirring cauldron of digital media. I don’t know how it should be fixed. But, as a human bound to the internet and experiencing its spillover into fleshy reality, I know that “content creation” is exhausting me, and itself.
By content creation I mean the use of highly delimited platforms of expression, designed to someone else’s specifications for the sake of profit, to create something that can be consumed the instant it is produced. Most social media is a formulaic means of endless production, commodifying individuality like coal being shoveled into a train engine. Not particularly desirable, is it? We are not facing a novel problem, however. Production versus consumption; bland entertainment versus the search for art, or the specificity of curiosity; inspiration versus banality — these are conflicts as old as media. Therefore, we can try to solve it, by experimenting and creating a new form.”
The Prism
Written by Gurwinder Bhogal, a British-Indian author with work featured in The Free Press, Areo, Quillette, The Humanist, and The Sunday Express.
“There may be no shortage of information, but there is a shortage of information about how to consume information, and how to act on it. Without this meta-knowledge, all the data in the world is of little use, because it'll be distorted by your biases, reshaped to fit your existing beliefs, and misapplied to rationalize your basest behaviours.
This information-hijacking is already widespread; instead of using data to grasp the truth, we're increasingly using it to distract ourselves from the truth, and the growing demand for delusion has begun to transform the internet itself, from a vast archive of human knowledge into a predatory amusement park that exploits our worst impulses.
The evidence is everywhere: in the corrosive tribalism that pervades social media, in the tawdry clickbait that fills once-reputable news outlets, in the conspiracy theories that gestate on message boards, and in the constant micro-manipulations by big tech companies to predict, control, and monetize our most primal behaviours.”
The Honest Broker
Written by Ted Gioia, a cultural critic, music historian, record producer, jazz pianist, and author of 12 books.
“Newspapers have downsized their music and culture coverage to the point of near extinction. There once were full-time jazz writers at every major newspaper in the United States, but I doubt there’s even one left now. And the same is true of other categories of culture. Book reviews, concert reviews, and full-length culture features ought to be put on the endangered species list. And the few articles that get published have often been squeezed and downsized and sometimes dumbed-down too.
But even more, there’s a crisis of confidence. Sometimes I’m a little bit suspicious that reviewers have some other priority than building the reader’s trust and offering honest guidance. Maybe it’s more important for them to please an editor, or they’re writing to impress other critics, or make friends with musicians, or get tenure, or—well, who knows what they’re trying to do? But after getting guided to disappointing albums, books or films too many times, I’ve become far less trusting of the system. You probably have too.
So I made a vow to be the Honest Broker. I’m even adopting it as my official title. And though it seems like the most humble nickname imaginable—what could be more lowly than a mere broker in the grand world of music and culture?—it’s a role I take seriously.”
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