Where do we go from here

What defines new relational stages today, given they’re always mixed together with old ones on platforms eager to keep you engaged? How do you mark a new “era” when you’re keeping tabs on the day-to-day lives of hundreds of people who will never tangibly occupy your day-to-day life again?

A dazzle of Slack bases, Discords, Telegrams, and Circles later, and it feels like we’ve arrived somewhere. Maybe it’s the post-social media era, where people move off the open platforms and into a curated mosaic of niche, private, and cooperative spaces. Or, maybe it’s just that the web we needed was here when we needed it.

And so I remain at an unresolvable juncture: the intersection of the very strong belief that we must experiment with new modes and systems of communication, and the certain knowledge that every time I so much as glance at anything shaped like a social feed, my brain smoothes out, the web of connections and ideas I’m weaving is washed away, and I tu... See more