Maxxerism? Dumbmaxxing? Shallowmaxxing?
Yesterday, for no reason other than seeing an article about him on a newsfeed, I read the Wikipedia page for the online influencer Clavicular. A few days earlier, I did a shallow dive (another Wikipedia page) into “looksmaxxing.” I feel a few IQ points lower for having subjected myself to this information. The only good I might extract from my newly acquired knowledge is that I could probably (jokingly) use some new-to-me slang with the younguns at the bar telling them to stop jestering or mogging or whatevermaxxing. The other possible positive outcome, is that it has made me re-think how I might classify some of the things I write about. As an example, I could probably create a new category on this site called “TDTE” or the dumbest timeline ever. There, I could share my fist-shaking rants about the stupidity, absurdity, and averice of modern culture. So many rants to write.
As I read the articles, I was introduced to some of the terms being used and immediately thought I don’t know what the kids are talking about: looksmaxxing? mogging? black pilled? The old man in me (shaking a fist, of course) immediately thinks two competing thoughts: this is so stupid and ridiculous and oh wait, we also had our own dumb, self-centered vernacular. It turns out, both can be true…. sick, dope, psych, gnarly, grody (to the max), or adding the word NOT at the end of a statement. That was so cool, NOT!
Half of me thinks this stuff can’t be real, but then I’ll read an article from the BBC quoting a looksmaxxer, “If you don’t fit this aesthetic and you’re not at least working to change the way you look then you’re at risk of falling into the “sub three” category, as Marvin puts it, and becoming ‘not a very good-looking human.'” Sub three means a 3 out 10 in terms of looks, and how awful and nonhuman-like does Marvin sound as he talks about becoming a “not very good looking human”? That same article describes how young men are trying to achieve an alpha male look that will increase their sexual market value (SMV). This includes a chiseled jawline, hollowed cheeks, and piercing/hunter wolf-like eyes. Because nothing says that you’ll be a good mate more than hunting and piercing – yes, more lacerations please.
Good lord, what are we doing?
What takes today’s young person culture into dangerous territory (seemingly well-beyond any of the trends I experienced while growing up), is that the internet and social media provide an oversized megaphone for influencers (grifters) coupled with a significant profit motive to be outlandish in their promotion of harmful ideas and content. It’s reported that Clavicular was earning $100K a month through his streaming platforms. Kids eating tide pods or planking in the middle of the road probably should have been the tipping point that backed us away from the cliffs edge of stupidity and internet trends. Yet, here we are with people smashing the bones in their face (bone smashing) because someone bro told them the bones will grow back stronger and give them a more chiseled look. Bruh, you’ll be a 10/10 giga-chad.
Seriously, what are we doing?
For the Love of God, Can We Invest in People?
Just this past week, or maybe it was the week before, an entirely AI conceived retail store opened up around the corner from me. A new AI startup created an AI agent/CEO named Luna (could an AI agent have any more of an AI agent sounding name?) and gave it a three year lease and $100K to open up and operate a retail store. “The only parameters were to spend less than $100,000 while turning a profit.” The agent designed the store, ordered the inventory, conducted the interviews, and hired two human staff members. Humorously, it forgot to schedule the staff members for the store’s grand opening.
The goal, I assume, is to see if AI can take a retail concept (or perhaps eventually through market research find a retail concept) and execute on every aspect of opening a small business. Because AI isn’t infiltrating every other aspect of life (passions like art, writing, music, and film), let’s see if we can kill off the small business owner as well. What makes this particularly galling is that San Francisco has one of the best small business ecosystems in the country (we don’t have a lot of chain stores and the owners of the businesses are often neighbors and community members). I see my barber, my bartender, and the guys that run the hardware store out walking around in the neighborhood. Worse yet, on the same street as the AI store are at least two shops (owned and operated by humans) that might be considered in the same boutique market as the AI run shop. For the life of me, I can’t understand why these AI tech bros seem to hate humanity so much. Moreover, they seem to lack the moral compass that usually comes with studying the humanities. What’s the Jurassic Park quote? “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
This AI shit is straight from the Silicon Valley playbook: move fast and break things; raise capital and sell before anyone finds out you’re a charlatan; optimize everything; be a disruptor; talk in overly positive superlatives because it’s all part of the sales pitch; gain market share and then maximize profits through enshittification.
This is the playbook that disrupted regular and cable TV so that we can subscribe to a dozen services AND still have ads – unless, of course, we buy the super special platinum premium subscription. This is the playbook that decimated taxi systems in major cities. Taxi companies that were liable and accountable for the conduct of their vetted and licensed drivers. Instead, we have strangers who drive us around only to find out that at one particular ride-sharing company reports of sexual assaults or misconduct were filed almost every eight minutes. Now we’re getting driverless cars because it turns out we don’t want predators driving us around. This is the same tech playbook that convinced us to stay in someone’s home as opposed to a hotel only to find out that it put a squeeze on the housing market while also enabling a crop of creepers who install hidden surveillance cameras in their properties. So sure, let’s see if AI can teach our kids, create our music, and run our small businesses. With such a stellar track record of improving the human condition, a track record that’s never corrupted by money or perversion, what could possibly go wrong?
What makes this particularly sad, is that I’m sure dozens, if not hundreds, of people would line up for the chance to have $100k in seed money and a three-year lease to start their own small business serving a community they love. But time and time again we collectively show that we don’t want to invest in people.
Hey Siri, F*ck Off!
A recent article in The Guardian warns that AI/Large Language Models might soon change the way we speak. This warning is a pretty common refrain with developing tech. The alarmists become conservative and resist change. The evangelists point out that we were once worried that the written word would erode our ability to memorize things (it did) and the printing press would undermine authority by allowing any kook to print whatever they want (no comment). Meanwhile, the poets are still lamenting the fact that we no longer have liner notes for our albums. Both arguments have their place, and the poets are always right. Personally, I find myself and my 20/20 hindsight siding with the alarmists more and more – I wouldn’t be an angry old man if I didn’t.
As the article warns, “Our sense of the world may become distorted in ways we have barely begun to comprehend.” It continues:
A 2022 study found that children in households that used voice commands with tools like Siri and Alexa became curt when speaking with humans, often calling out “Hey, do X” and expecting obedience, especially from anyone whose voice resembled the default-female electronic voices. As we start to prompt chatbots and AI agents with more instructions, we may fall into the same habits.
Well, fuck. That’s just what we need more demanding petulant toddler-like adults who are especially demeaning towards women. Which is to say, I feel like the warnings are fair ones, and that not only might our language devolve into something less polite and decidedly more curt, but we will take yet another turn away from community and humanity in favor of selfishness.
I can remember hearing a talk or reading an article about how GPS maps changed the way we viewed ourselves in the world. Prior to having such maps on our phones, we had to have a print out and figure out where we were in relation to where we were going. Now, we are the center of the map, always. This shift in orientation puts us, our ego, and our expectations at the center of the world – everyone and everything must orient itself around us. Or as this article puts it, “We no longer travel from A to B but from Me to B.” To be clear, I love my GPS and the freedom (mostly from worry) it has granted me – but I’m acutely aware of what the tradeoffs may have been.
Algorithms (Google, Amazon, YouTube) have done a similar thing in changing both our experiences and expectations as customers, consumers, and browsers. The feed is curated based on our past searches and purchases. I remember working with a focus group of librarians where we asked them what they would like in terms of search functions across our multiple databases. Overwhelmingly they said Google. They wanted the simplicity of a single search box that miraculously returned good results without having to use a lot of clunky filters. Ironically, as Google tried to increase ad revenue, they made changes that have resulted in clunkier and less accurate search results. Yay progress.
Irony
Over the course of writing this, I gave serious consideration to starting my own substack or ghost or medium account (self-publishing platforms that allow people to court subscriptions and make a little scratch from their writing). It would be yet another weekly “news summary” site that highlights the absurdity of our era. With a name like The Dumbest Timeline Ever (TDTE), it felt like the type of thing that might accidentally catch on – at least with a few people. In doing so, I would at least have more cohesion around my subject matter and I would be forced to keep up with it (a weekly commitment to writing about the shitty and kooky things going on in the world). But, it would also “force” me to monetize and compete for attention and subscribers (platforms cost money – though so does this site). Doing so would place me uncomfortably adjacent to the influencer types that I so frequently rail against.
As I hit publish on this particular post, I have only a passing interest in switching things up or testing the waters of a different platform. Part of me says, “you spend your time writing and bitching about things anyway, why not try to get paid or at least cover some costs?” That said, I have no misgivings about how paltry my “reach” is or would be on a new platform. Moreover, I’m pretty convinced that I’m a mid-writer at best who isn’t terribly interesting. But, the biggest reason I can come up with for not changing anything or even attempting a weekly rant on this little blog, is I’m not sure I want to spend all of my time ranting about things. Or put more accurately, I would rather approach the world from a place of trust and love and wonder as opposed to skepticism, cynicism, snark, and hypocrisy. I may be convinced that we’re living in the dumbest timeline ever, but I’m not sure devoting my time to chronicling it would lead to more joy or wonderment.