NOTE #001 // CATEGORY: CULTURE // PART 1 OF 4
memeχ: Part 1 -
Cultural Oscillations
By Aireus // 5-7 minute read
The media landscape is oversaturated, and algorithms have run rampant, immobilizing society’s ability to think critically.
It’s for this reason, that we need a new way to understand our relationship with media, both physically and digitally. This is the foundation of the memeχ framework.
Understanding Oscillations
In physics an oscillation is the movement between two points. Commonly this is represented by a pendulum swinging between two extremes. Within the human experience, oscillations occur within technology and culture. memex seeks to understand how these oscillations influence human behavior, particuarly in media engagement. These oscillations, reoccurring and predictable, are the driving force behind cultural evolution.
These oscillations are shaped from collective values and behaviours of differing, contrasting natures; analog v. digital, sincerity v. irony, or community v. individualism. Once we understand how and why trends emerge, we can position ourselves to create experiences will be better perceived by future generations.
As an inherited trait, media engagement builds upon the foundation of its generational predecessor, creating an expectation for media engagement.
Media engagement is an inherited trait, in that each generation builds upon its predecessor, creating a lineage—and an expectation on how to interact with media. Newer generations reinterpret the information they receive, forming an oscillation between the future they’re born into and the past that molded their upbringing.
Example: Growing up in the 90s/2000s might meantyou experienced a hybrid of portable CD players, digital music stores, and eventual smartphone streaming. Now, there’s a return to vinyl records—an oscillation between nostalgia for tangible, physical media and the convenience of digital platforms.
Through memex we understand vinyl not just a return nostalgia, but a return to physicality, an oscillation to ownership—and an oscillation away from data-driven algorithms. Instead, vinyl has returned us the human-centric curation of crate-digging. As such, vinyl presents an opportune moment to showcase how oscillations exist in several forms across a singular idea.
This oscillation of analog v. digital is an inevitable contstant:
Photography: The revival of film cameras and the popularity of devices and applications to mimic polaroids show the desire for the aesthetic of unpredictabilty.
Reading Culture: #BookTok and virtual librarians have pushed back against e-books and digital libraries.
Digital Ownership: NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) are an oscillation of physical into digital. It rectify’s the issue of digital, provable ownership by forcing scarcity, while also leaning into the early internet-days of Neopets and forum-signature pets.
Conclusion
Through observation and awareness, we move ourselves outside the field of passive [media] consumers, becoming intentional creators and consumers that understand the forces that shape experiences. These oscillations, which are gifts from the past trying to uphold relevancy in the present are present are what we’ll explore further in part 2 — The Auteur and The Participant
Most oscillations, can be understood as an inheritance of the past, trying to maintain, and uphold its relevancy in the present. What may be obsolete to one generation might just be essential to the next. And what was groundbreaking, may too become limiting, especially as new technology inform how we interact with media.
This is Part 1 of the 4-part "memeχ" series.