Tom Nicholas
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Into the Metaverse | The Friday(ish) Update
🕑 Added 2021-11-15 18:05:36 +0000 UTCWelcome to the Friday(ish) Update! On a Monday! Time is a social construct anyway so…
What have I been up to this week?
This week, work has really picked up on writing my next video which… *drumroll*… is going to be about… *drumroll gets a bit louder*… platform capitalism and the “metaverse”. I’m sure many of you will have seen clips from Mark Zuckerberg’s keynote presentation at the Facebook Connect conference by now. For those unaware, he essentially used the event as an opportunity to pitch a vision of the future of the internet which uses virtual and augmented reality technologies to create an “embodied internet”—something he (and others) are calling the "metaverse".
Much of Zuckerberg’s presentation is highly speculative, with the use cases he discusses relying upon technologies that are some distance off. Rather than get too lost in the weeds of discussing fanciful technologies of the future, then, I’m going to focus on trying to develop a better understanding of the present and the ways in which digital platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Uber etc. etc. have already transformed our lives (and, mostly, the economy, labour and politics). I’m going to be drawing on the work of Nick Srnicek and others to try and conceptualise what it means to live in a platform-dominated world. The goal is that, in doing so, we can all be in a far better place for trying to gain a materialist understanding of less concrete, futuristic ideas such as the metaverse.
I’ve so far been having a lot of fun writing this video—it’s a fairly meaty topic so I’m trying to make sure there’s a decent strand of humour in there to keep things light and engaging. I’ve also got lots of fun, creative ideas to make it really visually interesting. Hopefully it turns out half as good as it’s looking in my brain right now, haha!
Alongside writing, I’ve also been working on some cool behind-the-scenes stuff which I should be able to announce at some point in the near future. So… watch this space!
And outside of work?
There’s not anything particularly spectacular to report from the rest of my life this week—definitely nothing to rival going to Oslo last week, anyway! Nevertheless, I’ve managed to have quite an active weekend. It’s been the “peak” week of my training schedule for the half-marathon I’m preparing for. This is the part where the distances get super long before you begin to taper off for the race itself. As such, I ran a full 20 km across the moors on Saturday—much further than I’ve ever run before. It was a bit of a slog but I managed it and I’m really excited about the race now!
What I’ve Been Reading/Watching/Listening To
I suppose my first suggestion for reading/watching/listening this week has to be Nick Srnicek’s Platform Capitalism. For a book which is largely about business models and economic systems, it’s a really engaging read. It’s also, you’ll be pleased to hear, pretty short at just over 130 pages long. So, if you want to get ahead on the ideas I’ll be looking at in my next video, it’s definitely one to check out!
Also, I’m a couple of weeks behind with this one, but I wanted to recommend Carlos Maza’s latest video Critical Race Theory And “Moral Panic”. It’s a really great look at how the moral panic around CRT has been manufactured by the American right. I’ve long been a fan of Carlos’ work but this is probably my favourite of his videos so far!
That brings us to the end of this week’s Friday Update! See you next week all and thanks as ever for your generous support!
Comments
Tom Nicholas
I'm so glad! I wasn't sure whether this would be a bit of a weird one so I'm glad people seem keen for it!
Dwayne Monroe
Truly. Materialist analysis of the tech industry is desperately needed. This sector, perhaps more than all others, deploys mystification as a propaganda tool
Max DeVos
Incredibly excited for this one Tom!
Muntasir
Looking forward to this one! I read McKenzie Wark's "Capital Is Dead", which also tries to put forward a materialist understanding of big tech. She focuses on the infrastructure and techniques that allow for massive data collection (e.g. current user/consumer behavior), processing of that data to make predictions about future states (e.g. future user/consumer behavior), and the wielding of existing infrastructure in other industries (e.g. logistics, factories) to act on those predictions. She calls this a mode of production distinct from capital and one whose power capitalists are subject to. Mileage of the ideas vary but I think attempts at a fresh materialist understanding of technology today are laudable endeavors.
