https://autistics.life/@RoundSparrow/115060897216663372
https://bsky.app/profile/roundsparrow.bsky.social/post/3lwtdptnbok2l
Diary Of RoundSparrow
My mother was an alcoholic and cigarette smoker. I sometimes wonder if I would have been able to cope with things like she did if I had taken up smoking and drinking every day. She managed in the world better than I did mentally. I took up listening instead of booze and cigs.
Listening to people and thinking about what they say, write, communicate is incredibly painful. You eventually come to realize that people are not listening for understanding. Compassion is not a common ground, compassion is not on the agenda of most people listening. Power and wealth are.
When people blame "the media", "the mainstream media", especially in the USA , especially the past 40 years (since 1985)... there is no sense of listening. In USA, we have tens of thousands of choices of "media", and the shit people flock to is the smelliest waste shit. Crowds do not listen, audiences react.
In the past few years in USA, the term "vibe" has become common way to describe the situation. "vibe coding" for software generation. "vibe politics"
As an autistic person, communications input/output disorder, Autism Spectrum Disorder
I can listen to people and think a lot about how we communicate and say: "vibe media consumption" to "the news", "the mainstream media" - vibe media consumption. Very reactionary, shallow, superficial, clickbait. Baited by vibe clicking. Baited by vibe like Fox News and Joe Rogan "vibe media".
Donald Trump is the most charming person to ever communicate in North America because he is a master of "vibe communications". Donald Trump can spot what "gets under people's skin" from miles and miles. Donald Trump knows how to irritate people's mind into addiction to media. Donald Trump is walking talking vibe clickbait meme addiction personified. Donald Trump is "vibe mainstream media".
The problem is the audience. Not just voters. But Tony Clifton audience who seeks the "vibes" of Donald Trump getting under their skin. The power of Donald Trump is button-pushing the emotions of mob mentality, emotional button pushing of the worst kind. Donald Trump vibe is nothing short of self-harm of the mass mind.
Where do we go from here? We The People?
I think Marshall McLuhan, Neil Postman, James Joyce (Finnegans Wake, read everything McLuhan had to say about Finnegans Wake please) frame the problem.
What happened... we can't keep up with everything, can we? Some problems and issues get attention when others did not. We had an explosion of technology and population growth and travel technology. Not just travel of people, but goods and services. Transportation networks and communications networks. We The People, we the species, had an explosion of technology and information change. No way could we keep up on it all.
And we did not keep up on media ecology. We complained about "the media", "the mainstream media", "clickbait", "advertising", "ad-blocking", "paywalls", "television news", "the media". But we did not study and learn enough of 1950's / 1960's / 1970's Marshall McLuhan. Marshall McLuhan was all about self-awareness of "vibe culture", "vibe media consumption", "vibe of attraction and repulsion" in media systems. Donald Trump vibe media, charming with vibes, including hate and dehumanization vibes, that charm the mind and charm the crowd / mob mentality / mass man.
We just didn't keep up in facing what Marshall McLuhan was trying to teach. We didn't keep up with Neil Postman. We built information systems, we built machines to communicate and repeat messages even while we were sleeping - the messages still got sent for waiting people (answering machine, social media Facebook postings, Bluesky and Twitter messages are delivered even if you are sleeping, the machines do the work).
We didn't learn to focus on the vibes. All the things Donald Trump is great at, media vibes. Waves of topics, waves of popularity, pop culture, the vibe of breaking news, the vibe of headlines vs. fishwrap newspaper. If you listen to Donald Trump, there is a musical track - the music of Finnegans Wake HCE, in his gestures and movements and timing and communications via Twitter, Truth Social, or verbal. His shape and business suit are instantly recognizable to the vibe audience minds. You KNOW the brand, you KNOW the status symbol of who is communicating. Donald Trump is riding the waves of vibe media. Not just social media, any medium of media.
We The People, even our teachers, just didn't put the time into Marshall McLuhan and Neil Postman's teaching material. University of Toronto McLuhan, New York University Postman. There were so many other topics to cover, that learning the vibes of medium media, media ecology just didn't get that much attention. But it drives our sports empires, "the mainstream media", "the news", "the newspaper", "the front page of Reddit", "the latest trending hashtag", "breaking news". Donald Trump is the ultimate charmer of the information waves. Donald Trump has the vibes to charm, the natural talent and gifts, to charm Edward Bernays eye for the crowd vibes. What gets under the skin of mob mentality. Donald Trump is vibes of media, any media he touches, vibrates. Be it books, magazines, Reddit vs. Twitter, TikTok vs. YouTube, Bible vs. Quran vs. Torah vs. Upanishads vs. religion of Star Wars or any other media, Donald Trump can naturally see the vibes of media systems / information systems. Trump is gifted in vibe media. getting under the skin and charming the signals. Donald Trump is Tony Clifton, sometimes Andy Kaufman. Often Trump can vibe the medium of the media and communications networks, Neo in 1999 The Matrix film.
We The People just didn't see it coming. Few people after year 1995 in USA kept up with the ideas of Marshall McLuhan. Neil Postman carried it past Y2K vibe barrier, but once Neil Postman died, the vibe media was mastered by Putin and Murdoch and Surkov and Trump and a whole lot of social media junk. In terms of education and learning, around year 2007 with the introduciton of the first Apple iPhone - We The People left something behind, skipped a subject, lost a self-awareness gained from comprehension (McLuhan and Postman teaching material is the something back there, left behind). Donald Trump can ride the vibes and Putin believes he can tame the vibes and direct the waves of media vibes.
We The People without self-awareness at the Marshall McLuhan levels are stuck in 1985 "Amusing Ourselves To Death". Death by vibes. Donald Trump is the button-pushing emotion-button vibe ringmaster. Few recognize what has happened with our addiction to vibe media. We have already Amused Ourselves To Death with mockery and mocking and satire and paraody. Fox News already Donald Trump reality vibes.
The medium vibes are the message.
Vibe communications lyrics
When everything is made to be broken
In a boat on the ocean of media vibes, language vibes.
Can't fight the tears that ain't coming.
When everything feels like the movies...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdYWuo9OFAw