MrBeast, the attention economy, and Me
Our reality seems to be mediated by the conflict between our lived experiences and the ones we see expressed through the media. After the rise of the smartphone, this conflict of reality is one consistently brought into question. With endlessly interactive screens glued to our hands, our reality isn’t something we walk through, but something we scroll through. I feel self conscious knowing I don’t indulge in entertainment the same way I used to, something I used to consider a break from this disputed reality. Nowadays, all it takes for me to be entertained is to open my laptop and click on the brightest thumbnail I can see. I didn’t realize how long I’d been working for free at YouTube; data, advertisements, engagement, et cetera. This newly adapted way of life is the result of our newfound attention economy, where the time spent on our phones directly contributes to the economy through our interactions with advertisers and other for profit social media companies (Ormen ...
