The mainstream, broken and beyond

It must have been the last week of 2019. I was in Sauerland, Germany. Surrounded by the most beautiful landscapes. Where the clouds embrace the forest and the trees lose their colour. Where nature becomes a black and white illustration, as if drawn on a white canvas. Or a tattoo.

“Look, just like in Photoshop” I hear myself say to my daughter. “That’s like the drawing app you use on the iPad, but more difficult” I answer her question.

Is that what summed up the last decade? That everything has become an app, I wonder while I’m taking a picture with my iPhone.

Obviously, I can’t want to summarise the last decade in one word. Besides it’s impossible to reduce 10 years to one trend, many looking back articles are already trying to bundle to a list. But the conversation with my daughter keeps coming back. If only because my daughter was born in 2010.

What do I tell her in 2030, when she’s twenty? In the first ten years of your life…

• VR grew up.
• Blockchain was invented.
• everything was app-ified.
• platforms power grew
• we became addicted to mobile phones.

Blockchain was invented in 2008 and VR can at best be called an adolescent. So it’s not that simple. And the 3D printer didn’t change our lives either. Because that was the promise at the beginning of the decade. Everything would be customised. Remember?

It’s not a tool that sums up the past 10 years. It’s how our tools has affected our reality. And this reality is broken. At the beginning of the last decade, I really believed that the nation state was coming to an end. Digital does not take into account traditional boundaries. The city was the future! That was the discourse. But not the nation state was declared bankrupt over the past 10 years. The concept of shared reality has been rejected. Our worldview changed. The monoculture is broken.

So, what’s going on?

Act 1: Less is no more

⏭⏭ An observation: we live in a culture of abundance. Too much news. Too much information. Too much data. That led to a crisis of control. Fortunately, Artificial Intelligence is finally becoming a reality. Because the filters from before don’t work anymore.

👉 Fake news. Let’s start there. A familiar phenomenon by now. News, made to believe.*

But don’t overestimate the invented messages. Hashtag fake news also describes the ‘alternative facts’ with which some politicians try to reach their supporters. Politicians also use abundance and flooding techniques to influence public opinion.

👉👉 Filter bubbles. Those too. Created by algorithms. But also curated by people. In niche magazines and chat groups. In this case, it’s about news based on real facts. Articles, used to reward.

Too much information. The result is that attention has become a currency. That’s a huge system error in the technology industry. Aza Raskin confessed two years ago that he regretted inventing the Infinite Scroll.

Result? When a luxury becomes omnipresent and self-evident, a diet won’t be a choice but a necessity. Curators grow to the top of Gartner’s hype cycle.

*Not to mention deep fakes…

Act 2: And then the mainstream disappeared

⏭⏭ Whut, did the mainstream disappear? While the traditional media lost their role as gatekeeper, other platforms emerged with surprising content and a better interface. Who doesn’t have (access to) a Netflix account? And winter is coming, because the streaming war has only just begun. Disney, HBO, Amazon, Apple all have productions and platforms.

This in itself is not new. But the cultural shift that this has created is not very much highlighted.

👉 Streaming services such as Netflix and HBO play a surprising role here. The platforms grew around large series that “everyone must have seen” (House of Cards, Game of Thrones). Today they are developing a much more diverse offer. Do you know which series your friends or colleagues are currently watching? We’re talking past each other.

Netflix is literally accused of being too progressive. Think of the many ladies in a leading role or the documentaries of Obama and #AOC. They show a greater diversity than the traditional industry (Hollywood). This super-diversity is not only a political statement, but also a commercial move. Nevertheless, finally people who have been ignored by mainstream media are coming into the spotlight.

👉👉 Niche communities. In the meantime, numerous channels and communities are emerging around issues that used to be called subcultures or underground. Here, the freedom of Youtube plays a special role. Think of make-up tutorials, food prepping, video game streamers, ASMR videos. Television for, and this time also by, common man and woman. Entertainment and emancipation in a colourful marriage.* The revolution has been televised.

Consequence? The viewer migrated from cable TV to digital platforms. Not only did this make the content richer, it also made it more diverse.

*Not to mention the new emojis…

Act 3: Political identity crisis

3️⃣⏭⏭ It is interesting to look at the political reality in the light of these trends. Indeed, terms such as migration and diversity bring us to the political jargon. To be politically successful in recent years, it’s best to know how identity politics work.* Think of political leaders like Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, Boris Johnson, Viktor Orbán, Matteo Salvini.

On Wikipedia, Identity Politics is described as follows: “the conduct of politics from the social identity of a particular group and the experience of social injustice shared by this group”. This feeling of injustice is often linked to an ethnic aspect, as a result of which identity politics has recently been pursued by the right. That was once different.

👉 But what if the situation is reversed? What if the feeling of injustice is not so much related to social, socio-economic or ethnic differences, but to the fact that the shared reality is broken? In today’s brave new digital world, isn’t the promise of a clear identity an understandable need?

In short, it is important to distinguish cause and effect. However, let that now be something that the technology sector itself is struggling with. For example. Facebook was not built because there was a demand for a global social network. That ambition was subsequently complemented. Linking the whole world together was an imagined need for a proof of concept. Facebook was built because it was possible. Marshall McLuhan described this phenomenon as the “figure and ground” relationship. A concept he himself borrowed from Gestalt psychology.

👉👉 By focussing on the images (figures) that come at us (streaming platforms, false news stories, political figures), we forget to see the context or environment (ground). Neither figure nor ground can do without each other. They relate to each other. Both exist at the mercy of a relationship. The same goes for local and global. After all, digital technology creates a borderless world in which citizens can act both globally and locally. It may seem paradoxical, but the reality is that through the international networks the hyperlocal forces are gaining force. The result is an identity crisis for both citizens and politicians themselves.

So, by looking at political reality through digital media glasses, I can better understand political emotions. Because a shared image of reality was replaced by shared feelings about this reality. By the way, it is confusing when the monoculture in which you grew up suddenly disappears. An emotional reaction such as a feeling of insecurity, anger or injustice is therefore not incomprehensible.

Intermezzo: Love letters to Europe

“Whoever controls media controls society” Douglas Rushkoff writes in the book Team Human. The Brexit referendum in 2016 was a nice illustration of that. “Facts just doesn’t work. You have got to connect with people emotionally,” said Arron Banks, one of the founders of the Leave.Eu campaign in 2016. With a mix of emotional messages and digital filter bubbles, the Leave camp won the referendum that year. To their own surprise.

The Europeans of the continent also reacted emotionally to the broken world view. One of the reasons the Brexit have not been realised until 3.5 years later. At the end of December 2019, Frans Timmermans — executive vice-president of the European Commission — wrote an emotional letter to Great Britain: ‘My love letter to Britain: family ties can never really be severed’.

Timmermans still can’t believe it. He’s still in denial. “You have decided to leave. It breaks my heart, but I respect that decision.” what Timmermans describes is a mourning process. He says goodbye, not only to a political reality, but also to the image of Europe.

Meanwhile, the Brexit agreement has been approved in the European Parliament. While the MEPs hold hands and sing a farewell song, Nigel Farage flashes his stockings. It’s not goodbye, it’s au revoir’ is projected to the Parliament at the eleventh hour. But the Brexit Party has already left, to a party.

Act 4: Acceptance

4️⃣⏭⏭ Not only Europeans will have to accept that the Brexit has become a reality in the coming months. This week Boris Johnson gave green light to Huawei to roll out a 5G network. A decision that doesn’t make Americans happy. It points to an ambition of (some) Brits to become the bridge between the East and the West. Instead of being the springboard to the US, London will be Singapore at the Thames. That’s the idea.

👉 A huge gap has grown between past and present. In the day that connects yesterday with tomorrow, a decade is hiding. We see this when we look another 10 years ahead. Six of the ten largest cities in the world will be located in the East in 2030. In short, cultural attention will shift from London, Paris or New York to Tokyo, Mumbai and Beijing (link). Flanders, where I live, will have more over-67s than under-18s in 2030 according to research. And one in ten of these Flemings will be Muslim (link). Who will own the story then?

👉 What does that mean for our identity? The departure of the British gives room to other (already elected) members of parliament. This makes the ID party the fourth largest group in the European Parliament. ID stands for Identity & Democracy. In short, should the question of our identity be asked? Absolutely. Many people need it.

👉 A revival of the nation state seems to be manifesting itself. For some people, nothing could be further from the truth than this. While one group of people is staring at the pieces of the puzzle, another group is inventing a new puzzle. While one part of the population is nestling in the egalitarian future that technology promises, another part is retreating into the fortress of traditional values and stories.

Which of these two narratives will claim reality is as yet unclear. What is certain is that our concept of reality is already broken. So what do I say to my daughter? “When you turned 10, the monoculture broke down. It wasn’t an era of change, but a change of era.” Maybe she’ll be jealous, like I am of my parents for living during the summer of love.

The mainstream is broken. No, I don’t think that’s a bad idea. It’s what we have to accept today. Because when we get to that step of the mourning process, there’s an opportunity. Towards a new worldview. A promising future for the Continent too, in all its diversity. One in which different identities and realities live side by side. Imagine. The EU-tube: between the East and the West, an abundance of stories. A re-eunion of Europe, with freedom and security.