Crowded Zoo, Empty World

One of the most manipulative aspects of the like vs. dislike framework is how much it limits our encounters with ourselves and others. Odell writes about how algorithms “incrementally entomb” us until we become a static, deeply monolithic sum of our likes—an ‘us’ that fosters self-understanding through tidy, world-shrinking formulas shrouded as play (137). Meanwhile, that which we dislike—the ‘other’ to our monument of likes—becomes a highly concentrated and dehumanized ‘them,’ perceived as though they are unperceiving.

Yet, when we limit our perception of the other, so, too, do we cut off our self-understanding at its roots. In other words, encountering others—however messy, unpredictable and unyielding to even the most generous spectrum of emojis—allows us to continually re-encounter self as plural, prompting us to explore ways of relating that aren’t visible when choosing to either like or dislike. Furthermore, we see how we are always already enmeshed with and rooted in others, even if social media algorithms have safely cordoned them off at a distance, like a ‘glimpse if you dare’ carnival attraction. (178) [JZ-13]

[Odell, 2019]

One thought on “Crowded Zoo, Empty World

  1. The phrase “always already enmeshed” hints for me at Kenneth Burke’s consubstantiality, a concept where the entwinedness among groups coheres through cosmologies/wordviews, ways of identifying, senses of value, and also the articulations, symbols, and communication practices that manifest such ties into findable, observable circulation. It’s sort of like asking continuously, What’s the stuff that holds those roots but that is not resigned to private memory or ineffable feeling?, and, although there are no doubt other ways to answer this, rhetoricians I think would frequently credit discourses as an important part of that relational epoxy.

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