I think back to one of the many brilliant bits of this tour de force UCLA address from the great Ray Bradbury (https://youtu.be/R1Q0k1k43-Y) and around 17min mark, he says in perfectly exasperated tones: "I don't care if you want to go out and make the best pair of shoes in the world; for Christ's sake, go do it. But give QUALITY to the world. Good GOD, there's so little quality."
In 1968.
I really do feel like we're turning the corner on this influencer-era of the internet. Not just because of the democratization of media, but because when you have access to so much from across history, it is hard not to notice how much great work has been made. And while some turn to automated curators, and get sent down a whole host of other problems, I think those who are starting to care are going to grow in number and start demanding more of this system. More than what it can currently deliver. The old guard will wither, and the new, however scattered, will supplant them in due time. It would just be lovely if someone could give a final shove to get people over "Brand ___" not being good anymore. I wonder who that will be...
I've seen more and more people asking the question about why there's been nothing "great" to emerge from the twenty-first century so far. I'd argue that there's a few movies that will stand the test of time, but not much in the way of anything else, like literature and music. I think it's difficult to judge what's truly "great" in a timeless sense since that distinction will be made by future generations and it isn't our call to make, but, yes, 90% of everything in the current media landscape is largely disposable, forgettable, and made to be that way. I think, like most things, the answer is going to be found off-line, divorced from the internet. Unfortunately, for as good a tool as the internet it is, it's become so thoroughly captured by moneyed interests and sclerotic that it's effectively dead as a generator of culture (i.e. you still see old memes from 4chan circa 2005 floating around, but memes spawned from TikTok live about as long as a fruit fly, if that). Meaningful content creation on these platforms (and not just TikTok; for example, Amazon's bookstore is effectively a non-starter for pretty much anyone who wants to start an indie publishing career these days) is impossible, and new avenues will have to be found. Once the demand for it becomes big enough, I think we'll see the shift. That day can't come soon enough.
You're going to love the upcoming article that one day (really, I promise) I'm going to write about the Vtubing scene and how it made the jump from "robust new media" to "soulless corporate politicking" in record time.
It's a strange one, especially with how not only the walled garden of Hololive, there's all kinds of pockets and factions that have nothing to do with each other. Corpo vs indie, is one divide, except that some indies and corpos aren't like the other girls. Kayfabe vs barely concealed fleshtuber is another strange see-saw. Some who have little kayfabe manage to be ideologically in line with the alterworld dreamspace of the deep kayfabe.
Then there's vtweeters. Utter cancer.
4chan's /vt/ has perhaps one of the highest volumes of women and drama brained men, a bizzare land for a odd sub-culture.
Ah yes, the men.
Perhaps one of the strangest parts of the thing.
Turns out that being a literal peanut is probably better than being an anime pretty boy, and female parasocial fan are by far one of the most terrifying forces on this planet.
A realm of innocent dreams and horrifying predators, but is it surprising coming from the masked people, that people are freed under mask to express both great love and disgusting desires?
Those in the depths of kayfabe who never acknowledge their own reality, who don't offer girlfriend experience or lewdtuber services are brilliant mad artists, this teller salutes those who wether they have love or hate of their audience, never let the mask slip.
May they be spared the anti and the tourist.
...
A final note, not only is there all the odd divisions, but by language too, the vtubers are set apart...
I love Townsends. He had that series where he and his friends built that colonial period cabin that was so interesting. And the guest specialists he brings on are always good.
I remember staying up into the early hours of the morning in my darkest days of college watching his videos. Silly as it sounds, they brought me a lot of happiness in their relative simplicity. One of these days I'd love to visit his living history museum... on the off chance I ever find myself in Indiana.
Townsend's does yeoman work in making 18th century history accessible to laymen which is something us 18th century historians really appreciate, because there are hundreds of 18th century sites that could use volunteer staff to do living history programs. He's a gateway.
Huh. I don't know who any of these people are except Rowling. I've heard of MrBeast and I think you detailed this Jojo character already but my eyes glazed over at some point.
This is what winning the ignoring celebrities game looks like. You don't even have to know that they exist. For lack of comparison I don't know if it's better than the alternative but I can confirm it is possible.
For what it's worth, whether the subject you're writing on is something you dislike or not, I'm personally of the opinion that you've been successful in your efforts to present them in a way which is intellectually engaging and quite often edifying. Most any other writer wouldn't be able to elucidate on the differences between Jojo Siwa and Chappell Roan, for example, and draw an iota of interest from me about the subject. (Nor would many be able to successfully make a compelling comparison between Townsends and MrBeast, for that matter.) That's owed to the effort you put in, the extra steps taken to show that sure, the essay might be about Siwa on the surface of it, but there's more to it. Deeper meanings that go beyond the surface level chatter about things like Siwa being cringe and Roan being more genuinely artistic.
In short, your essays aren't just about people and events in pop culture. They also deftly touch on numerous ideas thrumming beneath the surface and subsurface.
Thank you, it's nice to know that these don't just come off as polemics against a certain person or thing since that's really not what I want my articles to be. I genuinely appreciate the insight.
I always learn something from your articles, and this one is no exception. This time I learned that I have no idea what Vtube is, and that I'm better off not knowing - attention is currency, after all. Thanks for another great read!
Thank you for reading. And, for your own sanity - you really are better off not knowing about Vtubers. It's a voracious black hole that will take from you everything and give to you nothing but psychic damage, best observed from a distance with a pair of tasteful opera glasses.
First -you should check out sumo, because Taylor Fuckin' Swift ain't rolling up to the Osaka Basho. Seriously. Day 3 of the March tournament just started and you can watch it with English commentary in lots of places.
Second- ALL chaps are by definition assless, otherwise they'd be pants.
Townsends is someone I used to ridicule before realizing he was one of the coolest people in the world. He really cares, and it's rare to see that especially now with manufactured care being "good enough" for marketable audiences. I remember watching a videos where he essentially had a mid-life crisis about how no matter how accurate he became, he could never perfectly recreate the conditions of that time, but sometimes he got flashes and he could almost feel it. That man is a Great Gatsby for the modern day and we have all benefited from his passions.
Great article! I always enjoy reading your write-ups. I haven't heard anyone discuss Pokimane since the cookie debacle, but I like how you brought her in to the conversation. I hadn't thought of that before.
Out of all the "influencers" working today, though, I most respect Anthpo. Spent his time posting videos that Youtube was actually meant for - young people messing around - got burnt out by the reality of modern Youtube and influencer friendships, then decided to retire from Youtube when he graduated college while all these older Youtubers continue on as a shadow of what they used to be. He returned to Youtube this year, but his whole focus now is on building events and community. I get the feeling that if it ever gets to a passionless point, he's one of the few who would be willing to stop.
Comparing Jon Townsend to Jay Gatsby... bold claim, but... I see it. I really do. That being said, I'd love to do a full deep dive into Pokimane at some point - in my opinion, she's probably one of the most fascinating people to come out of the Twitch scene; I don't want to say she's completely devoid of charisma, but it's very obvious which of her qualities brought her success, and it wasn't her sparkling personality. Yet, in her success, she's built herself a prison; like MrBeast, she seems to subsist in a Hell of her own creation, forever doomed to pander to losers on the internet to fund a lifestyle she can't maintain if she stopped (and given the amount of luxury goods she's most likely financing, would lose overnight if she ever did). She's the definition of suffering from success.
I respect any "influencer" who chooses to pursue other paths in life, as the one you mentioned; being an influencer, to some degree, relies on cool, and cool has a shelf life. It's a very limited window of opportunity one can utilize before it begins to close, and those that don't plan accordingly end up crashing and burning.
I'm glad you enjoyed the article, and thank you as always for reading. It means a lot.
Not only did I read the paranormal articles, I had no idea who JoJo Siwa was before you wrote your first article on her, and I can attest I've never thought of her existence once between the posting of that article and this one, so I guess I'm not doing too badly. :P
More seriously: thanks for this, many good points here. While the topic overviews can be interesting enough, I always enjoy when you make these wider connections and put things in a greater context. I definitely try to practice the attention thing. Of course I couldn't help think of the elephant in the room here either: a certain President who's build his whole political career on exploiting people's inability to not obsess over what they hate.
Ever since the word "content" started to become common around a decade ago, I've always felt some aversion to it, without being able to articulate quite why. I think you do a good job of laying it out here. "Content" just implies a formless substance to fill a container, without any intrinsic value. It's interchangeable. Or, in a word, slop.
Maybe you're slightly unfair on Donaldson, in that I don't think his passion is or was filmmaking, but rather the craft of making money. So I see him as someone more like a classic Uncle Scrooge/old school American business tycoon type, who does enjoy commercialism as a game and an art of sorts in itself. Could be I'm too charitable, but still.
"Influencers are the rent-seekers of culture" was my clear favorite here. As JMG would say, "a fine theme for meditation" for sure. Your quote also made me think of Wolfgang Streeck (sp?) and his definition of capitalism as a society where collective reproduction is an unintended side effect of profit (or was it accumulation?), which is honestly pretty insane when you stop and consider it.
And add me to the "I have only the vaguest idea what a vtuber is, and at this point I'm afraid to ask" club, haha
The whole "rage bait" thing where people obsess over objects of ire without any meaningful analysis, study, or even any take-away that isn't just blind, inchoate rage has become so tiresome that I always fear falling into it. It is quite literally the laziest type of content. Perhaps you could say... "slop". It is funny how everything made on the internet has now become "content". People don't make videos anymore, it's content. They're not filmmakers, they're content creators. It comes off as a very sterile term that you just know spawned in a corporate boardroom at some point and trickled down to the masses.
On Donaldson, I actually think I'm a little too charitable; when I was doing my deep dives into him and his buddies, I watched some of their earliest videos. They were mostly sketch comedy bits, like so much of YouTube was at the time. You get the sense that they were doing it for fun rather than chasing trends; just some bored teenagers from North Carolina with nothing to do and access to a camera. He definitely is an Uncle Scrooge type but I just don't think he started off that way, but, again - I could be affording him a very generous amount of goodwill and doubt.
As for Vtubers... we'll get to it. Some day. Just know that, somewhere out there, there's a not-insignificantly sized community of grown women who pretend to be anime girls that stream video games for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people (not just horny male simps, either). The revenue it generates is insane, as is the seemingly never-ending chain of drama, back-biting, and general insanity. Like I said - I love exposing people to The Horrors (TM).
Hey, I didn't mean to do it. If I'd had my way he would have never gotten into football and, if he did, I would have picked literally any other team for him to be a fan of... except for maybe the Redskins.
Even the worst bad guys can have some "value" - but we identified a "won't go there". The parable of "and they will perform wonders" hints a bit a my idea. Eh, some said "no thank you".
Even if they have some "value", skills or else, they should - before anything - assess if people want it - and resepect that. Any digression from this becomes... tyranny and so we ought to act accordingly if the fact.
But that's already a step further, as people have been hammering "no we don't want your stuff".
The road, starting from there, would have been for them to literally abandon their "project" - but - they opted for "un-acknowledging this fact". The road for them amounts to practically get rid of "the opposition" - so as to eventually come forth and say "look, everybody wants our stuff".
but no. enough voices stating "not interested". After all, that's how it works. How much credit do they attach to free will? Are they to try to leverage this with "complexity" - while it's a simple matter of "not interested, we'll ring you in case"? They would remain in some "our project". They have to let go off things in benefit of the majority. And it's "no ,sorry". This amounts surely to completly dismantle all their efforts. If they don't, the universe will do that for us, after much destruction of course. At some point, they should just shut up and get the hell of. Do they have room for that? Not being at the front position 100% of the time? I am sure and they play a nasty game, but overall there seems to be a limit in the possibility of them not being "in charge of things". They cannot "conceive of loosing".
We don't need to check too much about Roan's skills because it would suck us up in some mesmerization of super powers. We just know it's not the way so we don't take the time. Point A > point C (technically it's point > to B but illustrating. That's because they insert a new point B but it's up to us to consider it or not. I vote no, the old B is perfect. No "new branching").
Great article though two points. Firstly this applies to domains well outside of attention and is intact deeply political. When you pay no attention/money to vegetables for example you need to grow your own. Same with housing. I see shit houses as standard they cost too much to make, are built with industrial shit and line the pockets of arseholes. So you build your own out of straw mud stone bush poles whatever.
Second - the ones who don't want attention - they are the ones to focus on. The Peter Thiel's the Larry Finks the Rothschilds and board members of Merryl Lynch.
"perpetual motion engine of clown-on-clown hyperviolence that is the current Vtuber scene"
Standing ovation for that prose marvel.
I think back to one of the many brilliant bits of this tour de force UCLA address from the great Ray Bradbury (https://youtu.be/R1Q0k1k43-Y) and around 17min mark, he says in perfectly exasperated tones: "I don't care if you want to go out and make the best pair of shoes in the world; for Christ's sake, go do it. But give QUALITY to the world. Good GOD, there's so little quality."
In 1968.
I really do feel like we're turning the corner on this influencer-era of the internet. Not just because of the democratization of media, but because when you have access to so much from across history, it is hard not to notice how much great work has been made. And while some turn to automated curators, and get sent down a whole host of other problems, I think those who are starting to care are going to grow in number and start demanding more of this system. More than what it can currently deliver. The old guard will wither, and the new, however scattered, will supplant them in due time. It would just be lovely if someone could give a final shove to get people over "Brand ___" not being good anymore. I wonder who that will be...
I've seen more and more people asking the question about why there's been nothing "great" to emerge from the twenty-first century so far. I'd argue that there's a few movies that will stand the test of time, but not much in the way of anything else, like literature and music. I think it's difficult to judge what's truly "great" in a timeless sense since that distinction will be made by future generations and it isn't our call to make, but, yes, 90% of everything in the current media landscape is largely disposable, forgettable, and made to be that way. I think, like most things, the answer is going to be found off-line, divorced from the internet. Unfortunately, for as good a tool as the internet it is, it's become so thoroughly captured by moneyed interests and sclerotic that it's effectively dead as a generator of culture (i.e. you still see old memes from 4chan circa 2005 floating around, but memes spawned from TikTok live about as long as a fruit fly, if that). Meaningful content creation on these platforms (and not just TikTok; for example, Amazon's bookstore is effectively a non-starter for pretty much anyone who wants to start an indie publishing career these days) is impossible, and new avenues will have to be found. Once the demand for it becomes big enough, I think we'll see the shift. That day can't come soon enough.
"mean nothing to most of you, since I’m assuming most of you are well-adjusted enough"
Hah! Joke's on you! I'm so mal-adjusted I recognized every name and context.
You're going to love the upcoming article that one day (really, I promise) I'm going to write about the Vtubing scene and how it made the jump from "robust new media" to "soulless corporate politicking" in record time.
SPOILERS FOR A POTENTIAL SERIES BY THE APE
It's a strange one, especially with how not only the walled garden of Hololive, there's all kinds of pockets and factions that have nothing to do with each other. Corpo vs indie, is one divide, except that some indies and corpos aren't like the other girls. Kayfabe vs barely concealed fleshtuber is another strange see-saw. Some who have little kayfabe manage to be ideologically in line with the alterworld dreamspace of the deep kayfabe.
Then there's vtweeters. Utter cancer.
4chan's /vt/ has perhaps one of the highest volumes of women and drama brained men, a bizzare land for a odd sub-culture.
Ah yes, the men.
Perhaps one of the strangest parts of the thing.
Turns out that being a literal peanut is probably better than being an anime pretty boy, and female parasocial fan are by far one of the most terrifying forces on this planet.
A realm of innocent dreams and horrifying predators, but is it surprising coming from the masked people, that people are freed under mask to express both great love and disgusting desires?
Those in the depths of kayfabe who never acknowledge their own reality, who don't offer girlfriend experience or lewdtuber services are brilliant mad artists, this teller salutes those who wether they have love or hate of their audience, never let the mask slip.
May they be spared the anti and the tourist.
...
A final note, not only is there all the odd divisions, but by language too, the vtubers are set apart...
Ah. it's a motif I've made reference a few times.
https://natewinchester.wordpress.com/2021/09/28/how-would-you-do-return-of-the-jedi-part-1/
"it is the moment where you can see that the Brand(tm) of Star Wars started to overwhelm the Story of Star Wars"
https://natewinchester.wordpress.com/2016/10/31/supernatural-retrospective-part-21-cas-crow/
"No, the real villain of S9 was The Brand(TM)."
So sounds like you're going to hit the only thing scarier than a villain arc for a character - the BRANDING arc of a character.
I love Townsends. He had that series where he and his friends built that colonial period cabin that was so interesting. And the guest specialists he brings on are always good.
I remember staying up into the early hours of the morning in my darkest days of college watching his videos. Silly as it sounds, they brought me a lot of happiness in their relative simplicity. One of these days I'd love to visit his living history museum... on the off chance I ever find myself in Indiana.
Townsend's does yeoman work in making 18th century history accessible to laymen which is something us 18th century historians really appreciate, because there are hundreds of 18th century sites that could use volunteer staff to do living history programs. He's a gateway.
Huh. I don't know who any of these people are except Rowling. I've heard of MrBeast and I think you detailed this Jojo character already but my eyes glazed over at some point.
This is what winning the ignoring celebrities game looks like. You don't even have to know that they exist. For lack of comparison I don't know if it's better than the alternative but I can confirm it is possible.
Sseth and Townsends...you're man of fine taste!
I am so glad someone else picked up on that reference.
For what it's worth, whether the subject you're writing on is something you dislike or not, I'm personally of the opinion that you've been successful in your efforts to present them in a way which is intellectually engaging and quite often edifying. Most any other writer wouldn't be able to elucidate on the differences between Jojo Siwa and Chappell Roan, for example, and draw an iota of interest from me about the subject. (Nor would many be able to successfully make a compelling comparison between Townsends and MrBeast, for that matter.) That's owed to the effort you put in, the extra steps taken to show that sure, the essay might be about Siwa on the surface of it, but there's more to it. Deeper meanings that go beyond the surface level chatter about things like Siwa being cringe and Roan being more genuinely artistic.
In short, your essays aren't just about people and events in pop culture. They also deftly touch on numerous ideas thrumming beneath the surface and subsurface.
Thank you, it's nice to know that these don't just come off as polemics against a certain person or thing since that's really not what I want my articles to be. I genuinely appreciate the insight.
I always learn something from your articles, and this one is no exception. This time I learned that I have no idea what Vtube is, and that I'm better off not knowing - attention is currency, after all. Thanks for another great read!
Thank you for reading. And, for your own sanity - you really are better off not knowing about Vtubers. It's a voracious black hole that will take from you everything and give to you nothing but psychic damage, best observed from a distance with a pair of tasteful opera glasses.
First -you should check out sumo, because Taylor Fuckin' Swift ain't rolling up to the Osaka Basho. Seriously. Day 3 of the March tournament just started and you can watch it with English commentary in lots of places.
Second- ALL chaps are by definition assless, otherwise they'd be pants.
You know, I never thought about it before, but you're right.
Townsends is someone I used to ridicule before realizing he was one of the coolest people in the world. He really cares, and it's rare to see that especially now with manufactured care being "good enough" for marketable audiences. I remember watching a videos where he essentially had a mid-life crisis about how no matter how accurate he became, he could never perfectly recreate the conditions of that time, but sometimes he got flashes and he could almost feel it. That man is a Great Gatsby for the modern day and we have all benefited from his passions.
Great article! I always enjoy reading your write-ups. I haven't heard anyone discuss Pokimane since the cookie debacle, but I like how you brought her in to the conversation. I hadn't thought of that before.
Out of all the "influencers" working today, though, I most respect Anthpo. Spent his time posting videos that Youtube was actually meant for - young people messing around - got burnt out by the reality of modern Youtube and influencer friendships, then decided to retire from Youtube when he graduated college while all these older Youtubers continue on as a shadow of what they used to be. He returned to Youtube this year, but his whole focus now is on building events and community. I get the feeling that if it ever gets to a passionless point, he's one of the few who would be willing to stop.
Comparing Jon Townsend to Jay Gatsby... bold claim, but... I see it. I really do. That being said, I'd love to do a full deep dive into Pokimane at some point - in my opinion, she's probably one of the most fascinating people to come out of the Twitch scene; I don't want to say she's completely devoid of charisma, but it's very obvious which of her qualities brought her success, and it wasn't her sparkling personality. Yet, in her success, she's built herself a prison; like MrBeast, she seems to subsist in a Hell of her own creation, forever doomed to pander to losers on the internet to fund a lifestyle she can't maintain if she stopped (and given the amount of luxury goods she's most likely financing, would lose overnight if she ever did). She's the definition of suffering from success.
I respect any "influencer" who chooses to pursue other paths in life, as the one you mentioned; being an influencer, to some degree, relies on cool, and cool has a shelf life. It's a very limited window of opportunity one can utilize before it begins to close, and those that don't plan accordingly end up crashing and burning.
I'm glad you enjoyed the article, and thank you as always for reading. It means a lot.
Not only did I read the paranormal articles, I had no idea who JoJo Siwa was before you wrote your first article on her, and I can attest I've never thought of her existence once between the posting of that article and this one, so I guess I'm not doing too badly. :P
More seriously: thanks for this, many good points here. While the topic overviews can be interesting enough, I always enjoy when you make these wider connections and put things in a greater context. I definitely try to practice the attention thing. Of course I couldn't help think of the elephant in the room here either: a certain President who's build his whole political career on exploiting people's inability to not obsess over what they hate.
Ever since the word "content" started to become common around a decade ago, I've always felt some aversion to it, without being able to articulate quite why. I think you do a good job of laying it out here. "Content" just implies a formless substance to fill a container, without any intrinsic value. It's interchangeable. Or, in a word, slop.
Maybe you're slightly unfair on Donaldson, in that I don't think his passion is or was filmmaking, but rather the craft of making money. So I see him as someone more like a classic Uncle Scrooge/old school American business tycoon type, who does enjoy commercialism as a game and an art of sorts in itself. Could be I'm too charitable, but still.
"Influencers are the rent-seekers of culture" was my clear favorite here. As JMG would say, "a fine theme for meditation" for sure. Your quote also made me think of Wolfgang Streeck (sp?) and his definition of capitalism as a society where collective reproduction is an unintended side effect of profit (or was it accumulation?), which is honestly pretty insane when you stop and consider it.
And add me to the "I have only the vaguest idea what a vtuber is, and at this point I'm afraid to ask" club, haha
The whole "rage bait" thing where people obsess over objects of ire without any meaningful analysis, study, or even any take-away that isn't just blind, inchoate rage has become so tiresome that I always fear falling into it. It is quite literally the laziest type of content. Perhaps you could say... "slop". It is funny how everything made on the internet has now become "content". People don't make videos anymore, it's content. They're not filmmakers, they're content creators. It comes off as a very sterile term that you just know spawned in a corporate boardroom at some point and trickled down to the masses.
On Donaldson, I actually think I'm a little too charitable; when I was doing my deep dives into him and his buddies, I watched some of their earliest videos. They were mostly sketch comedy bits, like so much of YouTube was at the time. You get the sense that they were doing it for fun rather than chasing trends; just some bored teenagers from North Carolina with nothing to do and access to a camera. He definitely is an Uncle Scrooge type but I just don't think he started off that way, but, again - I could be affording him a very generous amount of goodwill and doubt.
As for Vtubers... we'll get to it. Some day. Just know that, somewhere out there, there's a not-insignificantly sized community of grown women who pretend to be anime girls that stream video games for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people (not just horny male simps, either). The revenue it generates is insane, as is the seemingly never-ending chain of drama, back-biting, and general insanity. Like I said - I love exposing people to The Horrors (TM).
Today I learned about Jon Townsend, many thanks friend!! 😃
I'm always happy to expose people to the Pleasures (TM) rather than the Horrors (TM).
I paid a heavy price in learned pop culture knowledge to get to this nugget "influencers are the rent-seekers of culture", definitely one to keep.
Driving a friend into the arms of the Dallas Cowboys, some things can't be forgiven.
Hey, I didn't mean to do it. If I'd had my way he would have never gotten into football and, if he did, I would have picked literally any other team for him to be a fan of... except for maybe the Redskins.
You make interesting points, but God, your writing style is annoying.
"I don’t say all this to baselessly glaze Roan."
Even the worst bad guys can have some "value" - but we identified a "won't go there". The parable of "and they will perform wonders" hints a bit a my idea. Eh, some said "no thank you".
Even if they have some "value", skills or else, they should - before anything - assess if people want it - and resepect that. Any digression from this becomes... tyranny and so we ought to act accordingly if the fact.
But that's already a step further, as people have been hammering "no we don't want your stuff".
The road, starting from there, would have been for them to literally abandon their "project" - but - they opted for "un-acknowledging this fact". The road for them amounts to practically get rid of "the opposition" - so as to eventually come forth and say "look, everybody wants our stuff".
but no. enough voices stating "not interested". After all, that's how it works. How much credit do they attach to free will? Are they to try to leverage this with "complexity" - while it's a simple matter of "not interested, we'll ring you in case"? They would remain in some "our project". They have to let go off things in benefit of the majority. And it's "no ,sorry". This amounts surely to completly dismantle all their efforts. If they don't, the universe will do that for us, after much destruction of course. At some point, they should just shut up and get the hell of. Do they have room for that? Not being at the front position 100% of the time? I am sure and they play a nasty game, but overall there seems to be a limit in the possibility of them not being "in charge of things". They cannot "conceive of loosing".
We don't need to check too much about Roan's skills because it would suck us up in some mesmerization of super powers. We just know it's not the way so we don't take the time. Point A > point C (technically it's point > to B but illustrating. That's because they insert a new point B but it's up to us to consider it or not. I vote no, the old B is perfect. No "new branching").
Great article though two points. Firstly this applies to domains well outside of attention and is intact deeply political. When you pay no attention/money to vegetables for example you need to grow your own. Same with housing. I see shit houses as standard they cost too much to make, are built with industrial shit and line the pockets of arseholes. So you build your own out of straw mud stone bush poles whatever.
Second - the ones who don't want attention - they are the ones to focus on. The Peter Thiel's the Larry Finks the Rothschilds and board members of Merryl Lynch.
Let's talk about them A LOT.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mmAhPm8deMs&pp=ygUTTW9jayB0aGUgc2V0dXAgc29uZw%3D%3D