Terminal Optimism
Digital detox, Playlist moves to Apple Music, Minor Conflict, Cosmic Ear, Los Gigantes Dormidos, Lawrence English, Pharoah Sanders..
I’ve been pondering the enshittification of the Internet for some time as many others.
We’ve been swimming uphill against a barrage of algorithmic offers, distractions, unsolicited messages, and memes we didn’t sign up for; far longer than we should have. It has costed us our skill to focus, and our intentionality in browsing.
Every day I have gaps that I lose the context of what I’m doing and/or feel some kind of creative paralysis; mostly hoarding data to browse at a later date which would never come; giving me anxiety and a feeling of incompleteness. All the while the techno-capitalism earns more and more…
Ed Zitron says:
My core frustration isn't just how shitty things have gotten, but how said shittiness has become so profitable for so many companies.
Meta made $20.8 billion dollars of profit in its last reported quarterly earnings off the back of products that are bordering on non-functional, Microsoft made $24.11 billion in profit with an increasingly-deteriorating series of productivity products and cloud-based solutions that its customers hate, and Google made $26.5 billion in profit from multiple monopolies and making its core search product worse as a means of increasing the amount of times that people search for stuff.
I admit I’ve been a hoarder all my digital life since the mid 90’s and my condition is nothing new; whether it’s downloading or streaming 1000+ albums a year, planning to watch/read/listen more than I could/should or bookmarking tabs about stuff that are tangential to my profession. But finally, I have decided to kick the habit, only to see that I’m having a hard time doing it.
I’m finally starting a digital declutter detox (for the lack of a better term) or a digital minimalism campaign inspired by Cal Newport’s book.
Effective immediately:
I have started to quit all algorithmic social media, maybe except Bluesky for now. I know I’m at least 7 years too late.. Just as we collectively stopped using Facebook and nothing happened, I think it’s time to quit Instagram & that shithole called X altogether. I don’t think the mental cost I pay to share some stuff to friends & followers and reach a few more readers is worth it anymore.
I will quit all WhatsApp groups which are at best a distraction with their constant chatter and memes. I’ll strive to bring intentionality in my communications with people and my data consumption.
However, the most important for this newsletter and my profession is: I am stopping my subscription to Spotify; Spotify is cancer, and it should be gotten rid of. Daniel Ek, should be tarred and feathered and banished.
I will try to enforce my listening habits to albums only: Albums are indeed a superior way to connect with an artist, mood playlists/streaming/randomized collections are another late-capitalist distraction that results in the listener losing the context and get everything jumbled.
I will simply choose to opt out, and I need to do it cold turkey because Cal Newport says:
“In my experience, gradually changing your habits one at a time doesn’t work well—the engineered attraction of the attention economy, combined with the friction of convenience, will diminish your inertia until you backslide toward where you started. I recommend instead a rapid transformation”
“The goal is not to simply give yourself a break from technology, but to instead spark a permanent transformation of your digital life. Cal Newport - Digital Minimalism.
I know it will be hard at first, like quitting ciggies: “the compulsion to browse something is too strong to ignore.”
“Remarkably, we can be strongly motivated to seek information even when we know there is no way to use it to influence our future actions and outcomes – as if knowledge is a source of value in its own right.”
Ever wonder why you can’t resist pulling out your phone to look up something completely mundane? We’re information seeking creatures.
Of course, there’s no foreseeable winning condition in the short to mid term, as tech takes more space in our lives, smartphones, social media, AI and other forms of information systems will continue to dominate, but still as Jenny Odell writes in her fantastic book How to Do Nothing, Resisting the Attention Economy, Jenny Odell:
“Thoreau’s ultimate hope was that if enough individual people decided at once to exercise their moral judgment instead of continuing to play the game, then the game might actually change for once.”
I will keep you posted about how this change goes…
PS: For the record, I will be moving my Undomondo playlist to Apple Music. My Spotify playlist has around 1300+ subscribers but as there’s no push function, I don’t really know if they are really listening. Still, I know everyone and their moms (and kids) are on Spotify and I’m sure I’ll have a hard time at first.
While I am not sure if any musical streaming service is ethical and/or beneficial to artists.. I need an outlet to share music! If anybody has a better idea, let me know. I’ll keep the Undomondo playlist syndicated to Spotify for the time being, until I get used to Apple Music.
Playlist moves to Apple Music and gets rebranded Undomondo’s Terminal Optimism.
2025’s first proper playlist and my debut on Apple Music, starts with Indie & Folktronica, from the likes of Tunng, Metal Bubble Trio, David Allred, Blue Lake; fantastic jazz releases from Okonski & New Jazz Undeground (a cover of Kendrick Lamar’s Maad City), Louis Moholo-Moholo and reissue of Green Cosmos’ Abendmusik (origins of Bohren & Der Club of Gore?), experimental stuff from Astrid Sonne, Milkweed, Laura Agnusdei, Ichiko Aoba, anarcho soul from Sunny War, UK post-punk from Minor Conflict, and finish with some electronic music & dance, from Lara Sarkissian, new album by Fantastic Twins, Pye Corner Audio, Villager and a reissue of the only solo album of Ramasindiran Somusundaram.
I’ve been listening to:
♩Cerebral post-punk from Bristol's Minor Conflict. First time I heard them, can't stop listening to their EP, now.
"Evolving the propulsive angular rhythms, distinctive call-and-response sprechgesang.. " ah so this is called sprechgesang, what an apt name.
♩I’ve watched this mind blowing footage of Pharoah Sanders performing Kazuko in an abandoned bridge around SF, 1982.
♩Ritualistic, Aztec new age, world music from Los Gigantes Dormidos. For fans of the late Jorge Reyes and Suso Sáiz.
”This music is the result of a friendship established in Mexico between Marius Houschyar, Fabio Levi, Mazatl Alvarez and Mich Rubio who came together in the gardens of Central Mexico for spiritual and sonic exploration. All songs were recorded outside at the ranch of Mazatls father in Michoacán and the magical garden of the wise Abuelos in Mexico State between cactus plants and gigantic trees.”
♩I’ve spent last week listening to Kid Creole And The Coconuts, their brand of the 80s where punk meets disco & the Caribbean dance are seriously what's missing from the sonic palette nowadays. Look at him go at a festival, 70+ years old. I’ve done a longer thread about him on bsky, if you wanna check.
♩Drone & Ambient all stars show up on Lawrence English’s new release “Even the Horizon knows its bounds”. Soak it up from head to toe, features Chris Abrahams, Chuck Johnson and Jim O’Rourke among others..
That’s it from me for now… If you read this transmission, comments are greatly appreciated. Let me know how you feel about the state of music & social media, and see if you can commit to some form of digital detox yourself.
