The presentation of selfie in everyday life is all around us, and the words I always refer to paraphrase this are
When everything becomes image rather than action, you can’t judge the value of any act. You can only judge what it “looks like”. But when all of society is doing that, it means that you’re being judged on everything. After all, you may not always be acting, but you are always appearing. When it’s your appearance that determines worth, there is no moment to rest. There’s a social invasion.
The Uruk Machine
I brought this up recently (again) in the context of how we are increasingly optimising for (others’) consumption as opposed to our own creative needs. Seeking validation is natural, literally, and thanks to the all-pervading nature of money, a linkage was a natural progression too – from social validation to monetising it. But before we get there, a bit more of context.
We’re all playing The Great Online Game.1 Historically, the internet has been very good at replacing the traditional middle man with something that is more suited to its purposes and style. In the (relatively) early years, FAANG prospered on the arbitrage opportunity to link consumers to things they wanted to consume – products, services, information, people, interests etc. Now, the march of technology is already putting pressure on these new gatekeepers. We could see it as a continuum of how trust is evolving on digital. On the other side, the abundance of choice is also allowing consumers to redefine value, values and status-seeking. And virtue signalling is not limited to brands. With that bit of context, let’s continue.
To begin with, there is the unbundling of trust from the platform to the individual, and then monetising the social capital. While DTC was step one, practically every platform is now releasing tools that will help the individual to run a business. And it’s not just products and services. Beyond Cameo, from Substack to TikTok to Twitch, individuals are finding ways to create value, become stars, and to get paid for it. The creator economy is well underway – it is going beyond “influence” as the product.2, and there are many platforms allowing more people to productise their value in a customised manner. 3 And there’s lots of money in it. At some point, there will be a technology that might edit out the platform too!
In the meanwhile, the central bank currency, popularly known as “money” has retained its stranglehold despite the original egalitarian promises of the internet. But beginning with the blockchain and its economic application – cryptocurrency – the internet is now taking aim at the middleman. How far it will be successful is still up in the air, but it does seem that in the internet games, crypto is the currency that is a natural fit for storing, sharing and distributing value. Beyond DAOs and NFTs, it is now ready to play at the individual level. An example of the ability to convert social validation into valid digital currency is BitClout, a social network that runs on blockchain technology, allowing users to “speculate on people and posts with real money.” (more) There is some precedent for it – remember the IPO man? It’s all probably not Spotify yet, maybe Napster or less. But if it even gets to Napster, it will be a tectonic shift.
A small note on the “humans” before we end. It’s a 24*7 reality show, for life, with no moment to rest. And it’s already taking a toll on influencers (insightful stories on Vox, Harpers). When “value” is determined by the market, it will more often than not, find ways to make it all more efficient. The price to be paid for value is probably not something that the human body and mind can manage. But maybe there is a different solve to that, and that’s a different post.
2 thoughts on “$ocial Validation”