“We all document ourselves and are documented against our will, and these documents can always circulate uncontrollably, accumulating misinterpretations and subtexts, causing theoretically limitless amounts of collateral damage. Part of this damage takes the form of entrenching our friends in a marketing matrix.” – Rob Horning, “Living in Microfame”
“Social media, as well as the pervasiveness of cameras and other surveillance apparatuses, have the potential to persecute anyone as though they are an undeserving celebrity due for a takedown. In a world where motion-sensitive cameras lie in wait to transmit images of your walking down the street in real time to online observers for judgment, where facial- recognition technology can durably attach all the insults to your name, where privacy is increasingly interpreted as secrecy and the mere procedures of exposing anyone are seen as blows against power, we are all subject to unexpected and unwanted scrutiny. Yet at the same time, in a social environment that’s increasingly congested by transparency and competing and unceasing claims for recognition, we must clamor for the attention we do want and find ingenious (if not exploitive) ways to get it. Not only are we all under surveillance but we are compelled to then justify why we’re being watched. This stems from social media’s seemingly objective measures of individual reputation and influence (Klout is merely the most egregious of these), which we ‘deserve’ by being active online — turning our thoughts, opinions, friends, and relations into useful marketing data. Social media provide the infrastructure for the economic mobilization of the personality, in which our efforts to ‘be ourselves’ must confirm themselves by being demonstratively productive.” – Rob Horning, “Living in Microfame”