Notes on the aesthetics of antisocial media

Wired just discovered this publishing platform. Ian Bogost identified the aesthetic reasons why people want to use connected computing devices for their own sake (specifically: things like doorbells and kitchenware that don’t need, or would have their functions palpably degraded by, “computerifying” them).

Writing in/“on” txt.fyi has the same aesthetic appeal. You don’t care if anyone sees it. But simply hitting that PUBLISH button is a necessary part of the process. Typing some text into iA Writer on my phone, just to do so, doesn’t do the trick. Putting a message in a bottle has no intrinsic poetry if there isn’t a ocean to throw it into.