## Colophon tags:: url:: https://etymology.substack.com/p/when-everything-becomes-a-fragment %% title:: when everything becomes a fragment type:: [[clipped-note]] author:: [[@etymology.substack.com]] %% ## Notes > when everything becomes a fragment — [view in context](https://hyp.is/78I0JvwPEe-FE6te7xYdTg/etymology.substack.com/p/when-everything-becomes-a-fragment) ⬆️ date:: [[2025-03-08]] > Each television displays its own, larger picture—and yet you can only view the fragments that the artist chose to represent.The same is true on social media, where millions of videos are uploaded every day but you only receive the very few that the algorithm selected for you. This process, like the gashes in the fabric, initially seems random but is actually designed by the creators of the medium to reflect specific priorities. As I outline in my previous post, that means that all videos on the “For You Page” are first filtered out by platform “terms of service,” then by whether they generate engagement, and then by whether they fit your particular demographic. In the end, the content you see is little more than a micro-gash in the immense canvas of social media. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/RH_U3PwQEe-1TtOO5TNoIQ/etymology.substack.com/p/when-everything-becomes-a-fragment) ⬆️ I think there is more that can be said here about fragmentation of context, that happens with video, audio, text, etc. There are other factors/affordances that make this worse with video, perhaps, coupled with their persuasiveness (hypothesis that I have not validated/researched) > The artist believed that video technology frames ideas in a way that robs people of their ability to reason; the canvas is therefore a tongue-in-cheek warning of how the medium affects the message. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/VfJhTvwQEe-jl3-RY1D85g/etymology.substack.com/p/when-everything-becomes-a-fragment) > Today, video is so integrated into our consumption patterns that it’s become encapsulated within an entirely new medium, with an entirely new bias of its own. We view everything through an “algorithmic gaze,” forgetting the reality of how messages were brought to us in the first place (let alone how they’re contained). This can affect how we ultimately construct our idea of reality — [view in context](https://hyp.is/XTOOuvwQEe-zdPcSmHmU0w/etymology.substack.com/p/when-everything-becomes-a-fragment) ⬆️ From experience, I think it is how about we piece together fragments, without context.> The result is that we become politically passive. Each moment we spend scrolling is a moment we replace objective reality with this separate, fragmentary reality. We construct half-stories out of incomprehensible flashes, rather than more concretely understanding events as they occur. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/hN_PlvwQEe-Xqt9QzLGN6Q/etymology.substack.com/p/when-everything-becomes-a-fragment) ⬆️ hmmm...