Cyberflâneur

Two perspectives on virtual junkspace and it's cultural impact…

The Death of the Cyberflâneur, by Evgeny Morozov, for the New York Times:

This is the very stance that is killing cyberflânerie: the whole point of the flâneur’s wanderings is that he does not know what he cares about. As the German writer Franz Hessel, an occasional collaborator with Walter Benjamin, put it, “in order to engage in flânerie, one must not have anything too definite in mind.” Compared with Facebook’s highly deterministic universe, even Microsoft’s unimaginative slogan from the 1990s — “Where do you want to go today?” — sounds excitingly subversive. Who asks that silly question in the age of Facebook?

Arcades, Mallrats, & Tumblr Thugs, by Jesse Darling, for The New Inquiry:

There’s nowhere to “go” now that the green fields of the matrix all got built over by junkspace conglomerates. But so what? I’ll meet you on Twitter and let’s get fucked up. The flâneur, according to Morozov, is someone who doesn’t know what he cares about: if that’s what it takes, then surely flânerie is alive and well over on yelp and youtube and 4chan.

Via: new-aesthetic | Filed under: social media  junkspace  Evgeny Morozov  Jesse Darling