The Culture Of Decline

Here is a relatively new buzzword circling the drain of our mostly debased vocabulary: Enshittification. It’s not a word I like to use, hear, or even read in writing. For one, it is a portmanteau of the corniest, too on the nose type. However, its meaning is relevant and describes a phenomenon that deserves description, explanation, and confrontation.

Enshittification: also known as crapification and platform decay, is a pattern in which two-sided online products and services decline in quality over time.

What this refers to more specifically is online platforms, and how, with tinkering, they eventually begin to deteriorate, resulting in a noticeable decline in user satisfaction and productivity. Facebook, Google Search, and Instagram have all had the term thrown at them, and I imagine for good reason.

The term has been bouncing around much as of late, particularly here on Substack. Users have noticed large sweeping changes in the main landing page, the user dashboard metrics, as well as a hard break-to-a-stop of interaction and engagement, even when compared to just a few months ago.

The noticeable night and day difference is that of a platform that has, I suppose, enshittified itself, for reasons not always known, but one might hazard a guess, and assume it may have something to do with money. But the readers and writers of Substack have little alternative. The question is just as much “where else would you go?” as it is “should you stay at all?”.

But I digress. I merely mention Substack as a vehicle for thinking about how quickly and instantaneously that night and day turn can feel, particularly at the hands of even minor algorithmic changes. And what the algorithm and its power have done to culture at large is devastating.

What we can say fairly confidently is that the algorithm culture is merely the attention culture. Algorithm gaming is seen as a means to many ends: financial independence, sponsorships, fame, etc. This may be less true here than on other well-established platforms, but the trend is heavy here, too. The algorithm is we know it is giddy on all things fearful, angry, rage bait-y, and so on. It seems to prey on humanity’s worst characteristics, which is perhaps why those feel-good photos of kittens can amass such high engagement rates; we simply overcompensate to feel joy.

However, in regard to social media at large, the feeling that you are an influencer, a celebrity du jour, is the only metric by which we shall gauge the value of our actions. The algorithm has set itself up to be gamed. Not because the algorithm is the game, but it is certainly the stage, and humans are its trapped chess pieces, being shuffled around the board blindly, dumbly as somnambulists who have willingly given up much of their decision-making to the outcomes of scrolling on a screen. You could say we have been blindsided, and you would be correct. Completely blindsided by tech we do not understand, designed to enslave us to its will, yes, literally. Yes, we have been gamed.

And this may not be so bad if we were able to level it down to a basic striving on the internet. After all, we can see some good gets done on social media. We could use the internet as a tool for more human flourishment, but with the nature of late-stage capitalism at the root of all decision making, you’re likely to be taking the lowest common denominator route, which generally excludes doing anything of value, but doing whatever is trendy, be it multiple men scenarios for OnlyFans, or recreating the latest of whatever is happening right now on TikTok.

And this is not just an internet/social media theory. The enshittification of every point of the cultural star is almost complete, if not complete already. Film, food, and many aspects of the arts in general are getting bigger, faster, louder. Not because any of that is good, but because it is extreme. Let’s Give ‘Em Somethin’ To Talk About may be the nearest phrase describing this paradigm.

Well, at least this sad state of affairs used to be the case, until around basically yesterday. It has long been known that to rise above the noise of culture, one must make more noise. And to make more noise means appealing to the lowest common denominators throughout every possible display. But what is even more unappealing is the new injection of A.I. videos at every turn. There are currently entire channels dedicated to A.I. garbage, practically on auto-run, either earning their keep by impressing the vulnerable, or attracting clicks to those sick of the slop, but will rage-view anyhow.

I believe that our collective consciousness has not quite gotten to the point where we really understand the many forces of the algorithm, social media, and the influencer in general. We are not experienced enough with a system that can elevate so quickly those who nobody would choose as their voice, not as their leader, would not choose these people at all. Many influencer types have seemingly won first place in the repugnancy pageant, except there are no jurors, no judges, no discernible design to the spectacle. Only a befuddled audience, wondering if they truly asked for any of this at all.

And we must keep in mind that these influencers are not just your average good lookers having a good time on the internet. They hopscotch through many boxes of culture, including music (take a popular influencer and add autotune, and there ya’ go), as well as areas of sports, and even more importantly, politics.

These influencers and the algorithms that allow them to thrive host prominent political figures (including presidential candidates), have had real consequences on political outcomes and leanings, and will eventually lead to the creation of the first influencer candidate, one could confidently postulate.

When the culture of the now becomes so dominated by Influencer status, algorithmic gaming, and the newly added dimension of Artificial Intelligence, the lobotomy will be complete. We have shown we will sop up any form of content or entertainment. That we are willing to watch blindly, unjudging, uncaring, for what the images on our screens are doing to us. What, then, shall we expect next? What then shall we say we deserve coming down the next cultural pipeline?

As Einstein once said, when asked what weaponry we could expect from WWIII, Einstein simply replied, “ I don’t know, but WWIV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

Perhaps that is what we can look forward to. Whatever culture we erected, can surely be blasted away when the thinking, the reading, and the humanity of it all is tossed aside for staring into the blue glare of demise.

Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author’s own.