Month: November 2013

I had been using the Ren­der Ghosts as way to under­stand some­thing about the Inter­net, but it felt like the Ren­der Ghosts, the Inter­net, were try­ing to explain some­thing to me. The Ren­der Ghosts are lost too, adrift in his­to­ry and vir­tu­al net­works, which increas­ing­ly resem­ble mem­o­ry. We can’t hear their voic­es but we can see them every­where, if we look: those parts of our­selves and oth­ers, the remem­brance of things, strug­gling to sur­vive in the churn of information.

Cul­tur­al­ly, a small por­tion of the pop­u­la­tion will be stuffed with hor­mone-inject­ed garbage (Huff­in­g­ton Post slideshows, Face­book linkbait and oth­er Chee­tos-like infor­ma­tion) while the oth­er por­tion lives in its own real­i­ty of tai­lor-made, high qual­i­ty infor­ma­tion that makes them increas­ing­ly wealthy and utter­ly detached. One side will be able to influ­ence, direct and exploit the oth­er side because one con­trols the media while the oth­er is at its mercy.