Actual thoughts on the effects of social media on content
Pure movement
Pure movement describes a movement of associations (from one association to another) which is dependent on the active neglect of the content of the associations by which one moves. In other words, it is a movement which does not care about content, but rather about the possibility of associations which is related to content. It is the crystallization of the principle of moving from one association to another.
One can imagine a chain of associations. This could be any chain, such as the chain ‘dog-weather-air-filter-feeling-time-forever-endless-seeing-hearing’. All of these terms are related to one another in non-linear fashion; ‘dog’ connects to ‘weather’, just like ‘dog’ connects to ‘feeling’, because ‘dog’, ‘weather’ and ‘feeling’ are equally part of the chain of associations. However, through the temporal experience of language, meaning follows and chases itself, such that the terms ‘dog’ ‘weather’ and ‘feeling’ become different from one another. Association can therefore be understood as a function of time – it only makes sense to speak of association as a movement between meanings, because meaning is split into discreet entities. This structure of association can be seen in all sorts of meaning, such as in this series of images from Instagram:
We can describe three moments in the structure of association:
1) The content of each individual signifier
2) the content of the relation between each individual signifier
3) the very relation between signifiers.
Each discreet entity of meaning contains this threefold structure. For example:
1) a single Instagram post is composed of signifiers
2) these signifiers are related to each other in a non-linear fashion, creating composite meaning, which is the meaning of the relation between signifiers. (The signifiers create a collage, which is, again, a signifier.)
3) a post is experienced as this specific post by virtue of its linear, temporal constitution; it is uniquely located in and as time, whereby it is discreet in relation to other posts. A post is experienced as linear succession (of signifiers), e.g., in relation to other posts one has experienced, and/or in relation to a manifold of signifiers of a post itself.
This threefold structure describes the fact that it is possible to analyse a discreet entity of meaning from a variety of angles: 1) a post can be split into a variety of signifiers, 2) a post can be built up into its own signifier, 3) a post can be experienced as simply experience, as temporal relation between signifiers, independently of the meaning of said signifiers.
This experience of pure temporal relation is pure movement. Importantly, the experience of pure movement rests upon the active neglect of the content of signifiers. There would be no temporal relation without signifiers; and it is only by experiencing movement between signifiers as movement, and not as meaning, that one arrives at pure movement.
Marx circuit of commodity production, M-C-M’, illustrates this idea. It is C which moves us from M to M’ - M becomes M’ by being mediated through C - thus creating surplus-value. However, the content of C is irrelevant for this movement as related to M; for what’s central is not the content of the commodity, but rather the very fact that it can be bought and sold. The content of C is thus simultaneously that which makes the movement of M to M’ possible, and that which does not matter for the movement itself.
Displaced desire
Instagram, in itself, can be read as a discreet entity of meaning. 1) Each post is a signifier; 2) the relation between posts creates a composite meaning; 3) these posts are experienced as the feed, which is structured in time. It is through the feed that Instagram keeps your attention. Instagram’s requires input from the consumers of content; the more time you spend on Instagram, the better, since it creates opportunities for advertisement and data harvesting. This creates a shift of focus: Whereas old media, such as newspapers, focus on the content it publishes, Instagram focuses on the very temporal way in which content is experienced. This is because it is the continuous movement from content to content which generates activity, not content itself. By demanding a desire for pure temporal relation, as opposed to discreet entities of meaning, the nature of the experience of posts is shifted, such that the active neglect of content becomes central; and this changes the nature of content, such that it is neglectable.
Noah Allaire describes this desire for pure temporal relation as “anorexic browsing, [where] the desire for engaging content is involuted into a desire for the desire for engaging content”. (Allaire 2021) Instagram creates a kind of displaced desire, which does not desire meaning. Instead, one desires the very movement which constitutes meaning; that is, one desires the very act of desiring content. The Instagram consumer is subject to pure movement, which moves only towards itself through itself, keeping the attention of the consumer, and creating interaction.
This happens when I pick up my phone, not because I want to see anything in specific, but simply because I want to look at Instagram, instead of at content; or when I doomscroll, simply because I want to scroll. The mediocrity of digital content can be understood by the fact that it must be “neglectable”; anything which breaks the pure chain of association is inefficient and does not satisfy the desire for the desire for engaging content.
When desiring to engage the feed, pure movement is satisfied with its own perpetuation. As Noah Allaire writes, this liberates the consumer of any specific content. (Allaire 2021) However, it also dislocates desire into a level where one’s experience does not point towards new associations; one’s experience is automatic, because the experience of pure movement is the experience of the active neglect of content, and therefor also of the experience of relation between interpreter and content. The desire for pure movement creates a profitable opportunity for posting bland content, which moves the consumer through the feed, precisely because it demands no interpretation of content.
(This appropriation of content through the construction of a desire for pure movement is characteristic of capitalism. Social movements, such as the climate movement or various anti-racism movements, mobilize people around a certain issue, around a certain content. This content can be interpreted and internalized, thus changing the nature of society. How is it possible that capitalism appropriate these movements, given that they’re internalization in society would result in conditions antithetical to capitalism?
If a kind of meaning generates a lot of movement, it can be used to sell. This is because every movement can be appropriated, not as a kind of content, but as a pure mobilization of people. The very act of consumption needs mobilization as mobilization, because it is necessary for people to desire the very act of consumption. Modern consumption is, from the point of view of the need for consumption itself, a kind of pure movement, in that mobilizing people to consume is what’s central, as opposed to the use-value of the commodity itself.)
Irrational-beauty
The active neglect of a discreet entity of meaning presupposes that it can represented in the logic of pure movement. Content must not provoke a sufficient amount of intrigue or confusion, because then it would break the chain of pure movement.
Any content which does not provoke interpretation can be drawn into the spectacle of pure movement, since it can be experienced without any need for interpretation. And, of course, Instagram’s business-model, which constitutes desire at the level of pure movement, promotes this kind of neglectable content.
Given that pure movement depends upon neglectable content, the interruption of pure movement is content which is ambiguous and demands interpretation. Ambiguity and interpretation can arise from anywhere, taking the form of an irrational message, which must be internalized in order to be understood. For the rationality of Instagram, any interruption is external to pure movement. Interruption might be facilitated by Instagram as a material platform, but it is antithetical to the logic of Instagram’s feed.
Irrational-beauty infects you with irrational direction, by demanding interpretation. Irrationality breaks the chain of associations; it simultaneously exceeds the comprehension of the consumer and escapes the logic of pure movement. The thought of irrational-beauty is spoken as glimpses of light in the sea of subsumed information; in passing from irrational thought to aesthetic meaning, obscure potential is transformed into a message. This content must remain irrational in relation to the logic of pure movement, for if the meaning of the post was within reach, it could easily be reified, and the message, as irrational, would be lost.
Irrational-beauty punctures the claustrophobic transparency of scrolling, by channelling the very real desire which is embedded in the feed; but instead of directing it towards the desire for desiring content, it directs it towards the desire for new associations.
Allaire 2021: The Feeding · Do Not Research