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"The Airbnb-ification of the arts." How social media algorithms are gently nudging the art world towards sterility, comfort, and predictability (www.staygrounded.online)

submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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This is an essay I wrote in 2022, inspired by Kyle Chaka's 2016 viral essay, "Welcome to Airspace". After seeing an excerpt from Kyle's new book on the front of /c/Technology, I thought y'all might be interested in reading this piece of mine, which is less about the design of physical spaces, and more about The Algorithm™'s influence on creative practice in general.

This is a conversation I can have a million times, so I hope you enjoy.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

You're not wrong but that's not at all what the essay is about. I actually anticipated this how-shall-we-say reddity response in the post itself:

Before you dismiss me as a curmudgeonly millennial in nostalgia-colored glasses, realize that I am not implying that art that falls closer to the “challenging” side of the accessibility spectrum has gone away, or that it has a smaller market share, only that it does not bleed into the mainstream as often as it once did.

[–] SheeEttin 3 points 9 months ago

And that's what I'm disagreeing with. When experimental or edgy art moves into the mainstream, it always gets sanitized for the general public. It has never bled into the mainstream unchanged. Look at the bowdlerization of Shakespeare for mass-market publication in 1818. Look at the literal fig leaves added to works of art for display in the 16th century.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

How do you define "bleeding into the mainstream" such that doing is less often doesn't imply "smaller market share"?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I mean, I explain it in the essay. But picture a Venn Diagram with a big "mainstream" circle, and smaller "artsy fartsy" circle. Now picture them slightly further apart so the overlapping area is smaller, but the circles remain the same size.

Don't get me wrong, if you told me weird and challenging art indeed does have a smaller percentage of the market share than it used to, I would believe you, that's just not what the essay is about, and I also don't have that data to back it up anyway.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I think they also meant to say that challenging art has always failed to bleed into the mainstream much

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Yeah I understood with what they were saying, it's just not at all what the actual post is about.