THE MEDIUM IS THE MEH-SSAGE
final word: meh-gorithm
Over the past couple of weeks we’ve looked at all sorts of ways this algorithmic drag towards anti-remarkable-ness we’re seeing in fashion, movies, architecture, film, literature, music, more, is affecting the way we live/think/dress/shop.
We’ve looked at how life under the algo is at risk of crushing - or at least deterring - innovation - in the smallest creators to the biggest mega/meh-ga brands. Nobody and nothing is immune.
We talked about how it’s getting harder and more daunting to surface new, remarkable, audacious things, no matter who you are, what you’re creating, or what kind of brand you’re running.
We looked at how high status people are finding ways to hide from algorithmic surveillance, and how providing that kind of shelter could be a lucrative growing space.
And, we talked about how the technology that could be making this time of our lives into an explosion of never-before-imagined things and ideas, isn’t. Instead it’s stunting our growth, both personally and culturally. Ultra-processed culture is making us into ultra-processed people.
Bc algorithmic tech isn’t just changing how we consume, but also how we create.
All stemmed from that original pov piece 1 yr ago on how life under the algorithm is making us less interesting, less stylish, less ourselves. And how I think the 2020s is so far shaping up to be a meh-cade of widespread endemic mehification.
This week Ana Andjelic and Rei Inamoto took the concept into a powerful discussion about what happens next - post-mehification - via a guest post on The Business of Sociology and their special podcast ep.
All of which is to say that, as many others have said, culture got stuck when the algorithms took over. Driven more by looking backwards at what we already know and like, than looking forwards to what we could get to know and like.
That’s not progress.
So to close out this investigation series, one last thing:
Remember Marshall McLuhan's famous line the medium is the message? He who wrote Understanding Media: Extensions of Man, the ur-text for anyone interested in consumer culture…a book written in 1964, but feels like reading your fav Substacker c.2025? The baller who described himself as an intellectual thug?
Well, full-circle moment because my original piece in that whole series of stuff above opened with his words: "we shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us." And yesterday his grandson
wrote this on my LinkedIn:
Of course. You know when your heart actually sings?
(also: big brain energy runs strong in that family)
Marshall (let’s call him that, because we’re lucky to have more than one McLuhan here) famously argued that how we communicate shapes what we communicate more than the actual content does. Often in ways we don't even notice.
“We become what we behold”.
"Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate, than by the content of the communication."
- Understanding Media (1964)
And in an age of hot-takey, thirst-trappy, quick hit, instantly-gratifying compression of just about everything into thumb-stopping ‘content’ snacks (and a firehose of them), stuff ofc gets boiled down into soundbites.
When attention is the new oil, gotta make your point quickly.
But Marshall was right. The ways we consume our information does “work us over completely.” There are “personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical, and social consequences.” And the way we consume does “leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered.”
And what does that mean in 2025? The medium is the meh-ssage.
The more we see repetitive formats of derivative, iterative versions of ideas, thoughts, products and things, the more we think that’s normal…that this is what we like most and what we want more of. The more homogenised we get.
[just think of the vocal fry that’s crept into every accent, the millennial pause, the TikTok speak, the lingustic and behavioural and creative formats you see over and over again (someone - to pretty epic effect, actually, opened a meeting I was in the other day with ‘put a finger down if…’), the Instagram face, the ‘surprise’ voting landslides, the copy-and-paste fashion looks, the dense bean salads, and so on]
Our algorithmic culture is compressing the way we think. And making everything less interesting.
For brands and creators imo this feels like a penny-drop moment. Proper Truman Show stuff. A call to arms. Like Marshall said:
“Once you see the boundaries of your environment, they are no longer the boundaries of your environment.”
Before we move on to other weird/wonderful stuff next week, I think it’s safe to say that this tech/cultural force is ready for a rebrand:
the meh-gorithm.
Let’s call it what it is.
Until next time, tysm for reading.
Beth
This is part of an ongoing series on major shifts in contemporary consumer culture that will affect all of us watching/working in and around the fashion system (and its many related worlds) during 2025.
Hit subscribe to catch them as they drop.
Can't tell you how much I appreciate this series!!