The promise of the internet was that unfettered access guaranteed a diversity of interests.
At first, it appeared true — the web broke down the masses into a web of niches. The accumulation of distinctiveness created a long tail that when combined outweighed popular trends.
But little by little, those niches turned into popular tribes where everyone started talking about similar things.
The standardization of tastes, political parties, and lifestyles spread like wildfire. Individuality lost out to group-think.
The anarchic mindset requires one to imagine a world not yet in existence. Who would we be without digging deeper and envisioning the non-existent?
Culture attracts sameness. But we can change the default setting. All it takes is reevaluating and encouraging the realm of distinctiveness.
It’s impossible to synchronize all the world’s attention with the nearest click. But life is way more interesting when we instruct ourselves to think different.