Over the years, we have received countless enquiries as to why we are not “on” Facebook; and why do we not “weigh in” on X.
Now comes the voice of esteemed media theorist Geert Lovink with a few excerpts from an interview (worth perusing in its entirety) centering on his 2019 book, Sad By Design.
Read on:
In my book, Sad by Design, I contrast technologically induced sadness not just with the historical ‘illness’ melancholy but also with boredom, depression, loneliness and similar sombre mental states that are dominant today. We read a lot about ‘male’ anger, from trolling and shitstorms to cyber-warfare but less so about the regressive side. Emotional rides are no longer experienced in solitude; the virtual others are always there as well.
It is a truism that we are lonely together (a subtle but crucial variation of Sherry Turkle’s alone together). We cannot put the phone away — there is no relief. In my essay, I have tried to minimize the comparison between the current wave of technologically-induced sadness and the rich historical descriptions of melancholy. […]
The predictable continuity thesis is not just elitist, it is escapist. It walks away from the dirty present, much in the same way romantics did in the industrial 19th century.
Techno temperaments generated by computer code and interface design (also known as nudging) causes overload and exhaustion and produces a gloomy state that flickers, without ever becoming dominant on the surface. Sadness today is an indifferent micro-feeling, a flat and mild state of affairs. This should be contrasted with the much heavier illnesses such as depression, stress and burn-out.
One or two centuries ago these would be labelled melancholia. Some artists make this an explicit topic of their work such as Lil Peep and Billie Eilish.
Sadness is no longer hidden and is becoming part of pop culture. Youngsters feel the anxiety, the stress, and become sad about empty promises and diminishing opportunities. They are experts at reading daily life through the sadness lens. This does not mean we should medicalize them. We are not sick.
How do we comfort the disturbed? Not by taking their phone away. What can we do that’s liberating and prevents moralism? […]
Right now, social media are either the domain of marketing or an object for (moralistic) concern of teachers, parents, politicians). Critical internet research is still a joke in terms of funding, schools, research programs. […]
Social reality (SR) is so much larger than hyped-up technologies such as virtual and artificial reality. SR is also am ironical hint to sociology, the discipline that so far has failed to contribute to a better understanding of the ‘social in social media’ as I called it in 2012 in e-flux, an essay I updated in Social Media Abyss.
I no longer believe there is some raw and truthful reality outside of the social worlds that tech companies have created.
Dichotomies such as online-offline and real-virtual are no longer meaningful. I like the idea of a social reality that people carry with them. Once they grab their phone and start swiping and scrolling through the updates on their ‘social’ apps they are in it again. You go on ‘social’, as the Italians say. Have you seen it on ‘social’, as the Italians say.
We need to re-invent the social, which is now technical and digital. I would not say it ‘affects’ us as such an understanding somehow suggests that we are outside, victims, subjects. The user perspective teaches us that we’re fully involved—by design—and constantly interact, contribute, upload, klick, respond, like, swipe, whatever. The extractive data machine lives of that.
[…]
Self-design can be a somewhat naïve term. The daily reality, in particular for young people, is a brutal one, in which the construction and maintenance of the self-image is a matter of life and death. We should not underestimate the internalized values of the neo-liberal precarious reality in which people are forced to compete with each other and life never quite succeeds.
There are always mishaps, fall-outs, missed opportunities, break-ups, strange downtimes in our mood, an endless period of boredom in which nothing seems to work. The self-image constantly breaks down, we get angry or depressed, can’t finish a deadline. This is all recorded and captured, processed and turned into data points that are added to our profile. Self-image is no longer a cute selfie, it has become much more complex and contradictory. […]
Silicon Valley has all but killed the speculative imaginary—and they are acutely aware of that. This was their aim. Not merely own it but shut it down by pulling it into the background. A growing movement is reclaiming the net but it’s an uphill battle.
It sounds weird but ‘another internet is possible’ has almost become a subversive slogan. If we want to overcome homo extractionist, we need to organize and fight, in visible manners, build and use those alternatives we desire so much! […]
Right now, there is hardly anyone working on the speculative re-design of the social. This space has been poisoned by the systems of likes, followers, updates, newsfeeds, ‘friends’ you name it. Let’s get rid of this jargon. However, we want to reinvent the social we need to acknowledge that we can no longer distinguish between the social and tech.
Forget offline romanticism. Secondly, we need to get rid of the Silicon Valley online presence inside our conversations, our lives. Let’s minimize the presence of third parties and focus in a pragmatic way on what needs to be done and what tools support this strategy.
No more invisible moderators, filters, censors. The algo ain’t no friend of mine. Alt.social will have to confront itself with various challenges: monetization and democratic decision making. Both aspects have been quietly removed from Silicon Valley’s agenda and their related start-up venture circles. For art and activism redistribution of the ‘wealth of the networks’ and collective decision making are essential. We need to dismantle the ‘free’ and invent new ways to work together and deal with difference and disputes.
We can no longer delegate the management of the world to these IT firms. Silicon Valley is part of the problem and we no longer expect them to resolve the growing tensions in the world.
True, all that, in 2019 — more deeply so in 2025!
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In his remarkably prescient book 
Law professor 
Reviel Netz’s idea of history as a
Desperado Philosophy 