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@davidgerard Fahrenheit 451:

“Classics cut to fit fifteen-minute radio shows, then cut again to fill a two-minute book column, winding up at last as a ten- or twelve-line dictionary resume. [...] [M]any were those whose sole knowledge of Hamlet [...],was a one-page digest in a book that claimed: ‘now at least you can read all the classics; keep up with your neighbours.’ Do you see? Out of the nursery into the college and back to the nursery; there’s your intellectual pattern for the past five centuries or more.”
“Speed up the film, Montag, quick. Click? Pic? Look, Eye, Now, Flick, Here, There, Swift, Pace, Up, Down, In, Out, Why, How, Who, What, Where, Eh? Uh! Bang! Smack! Wallop, Bing, Bong, Boom! Digest-digests, digest-digest-digests. Politics? One column, two sentences, a headline! Then, in mid-air, all vanishes! Whirl man’s mind around about so fast under the pumping hands of publishers, exploiters, broadcasters, that the centrifuge flings off all unnecessary, time-wasting thought!”

@davidgerard I would like to able to use the web without encountering the solipsistic ramblings of tech-industry cyborgs, please.

@davidgerard On the one hand, terrible.

On the other, I admit that if there was an option to tick to automatically remove any scene where the procedural's main character angsts about his stock-issue sad manpain, I would tick it. Like, technically of course I'm sorry your wife tragically died before the show even started, but also I don't care.

@davidgerard I would like a word with Adriana's parents.

Meanwhile, me to my 5-year-old: "Being bored is GOOD! It's great actually. It's when your mind wanders and you get your best ideas." She always rolls her eyes at me, but nevertheless I persist with this message 😅​

@davidgerard I mean we joke but that kind of thing is where Netflix wants to push people towards (the whole "Audience of One" thing). On LinkedIn that perspective probably kills. Because nobody there appreciates anything.

@davidgerard This reminds me of the pirated Star Trek episodes that the uploader had taken upon themself to scrub of profanities, non-hetero affection, or trans people.

"I want to watch this but without the gays, socialists, and/or POC — even if it makes no sense that way" is always their endgame.

@davidgerard I keep being reminded of the story "The Diamond Age" where the poors get customised news feeds while the upper class in some parts of society get uniform news print.

@davidgerard Her take on films and series is chilling and screams "TikTok Brain" but she's right about the web (although she could have worded it much better).

Originally, one of the ideas behind the web was that every user could customize his own viewing experience trough browser settings and custom CSS overrides. As websites become more complex this idea faded in the background but its still alive as proven by extensions such as YouTube unhook which allow you to customize YouTube's UI removing or replacing its annoying or distracting parts.

@davidgerard Why do I kind of suspect anyone who would want such a feature doesn't want it due to how the character is written, or for storytelling reasons but has other motives for wanting to see shows made in a way certain characters can easily be white... Washed out?

@davidgerard Analysis Paralysis As A Service

@davidgerard I often skip whole scenes. I watched the whole of the Walking Dead ouvre in 30 mins flat just by skipping those pesky zombie scenes

@davidgerard I *do* have to admire the launch on this one. No smooth introduction, no personal anecdote, not even a capital letter, just straight in on the stunning proposition "films and series have filler characters". Six words in and this is already wild.

@davidgerard our finest minds are truly on LinkedIn

@davidgerard I would go further: Watching a story unfold is very limiting. What if you want to see something from a different angle? How about we make one character selectable and you get to control them with a kind of controlling device? And what if every character you see has a icon above their head that tells you what they are all about? And what if there's a sort of mechanism that records your individual progress in the narrative? You could call it something catchy like Interact Vid!