Sublime

When we talk about Canadians famous for analyzing new media, we often think of Marshall McLuhan first. With his koan “the medium is the message,” McLuhan synthesized his basic idea: Our tools, from electric light to television to phones, change not just how we communicate, but what we communicate about.

The greatest discovery of the 21st century will be the discovery that Man was not meant to live at the speed of light.” – Marshall McLuhan

McLuhan’s view is that mediums matter more than content; it’s the common rules that govern all creation and consumption across a medium that change people and society. Oral culture teaches us to think one way, written culture another. Television turned everything into entertainment and social media taught us to think with the crowd.

McLuhan argued that, pushed to its limits, a medium flips or reverses its characteristics. Internet scale pushes information into disinformation, connection into loneliness, and desire into apathy.

But McLuhan would say, try not to only think about the fact that we make the tools. Think about how much the tools make us as well.