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Ann K Sterzinger's avatar

Now I really regret not being able to locate Momus/Nick Currie's excellent essay, as my recollection of it is not complete. To avoid ambiguity, his stuff was always worth reading; it was in fact a treat/behind-the-curtain moment to see someone not only admit they benefited from inertia, but to initiate and elaborate the thought.

Imagine (any Tik-Tok or YouTube micro-celebrity) making a nod to such a thing. Rather than parading the spoils of what's more often a random attention lottery or of disgusting pandering.

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Oli Weatherall's avatar

Thank you for providing the extra context. The self-awareness and humility he showed to say the quiet part out loud is disarming, although the reality it highlights is disheartening.

If someone did the same for TikTok or YouTube, I wonder whether the spell—how many assume it works—would break and the reality you alluded to would become common knowledge.

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Ann K Sterzinger's avatar

(In my defense, it sounded like he can no longer find it, either; this happened pretty quietly, but not so long ago, the Old Internet was largely buried. To make room for more human cholesterol, or to help memory-hole stuff, I'm not sure which or whether.)

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