Digital Surrogates are Destroying Us

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Imagine a world where every instinctual need is commodified. You're free to fulfill any simple or complex desire. Sympathy, control, accomplishments, they are all there, just reach out and take it. This is an abstraction of the modern digital world. New websites and software succeed by exploiting human propensities the most efficiently. Our natural programming has plenty of weaknesses to exploit. In this presentation I will explore the consequences of attempting to fulfill our natural desires by using digital surrogates.

Amouranth is a digital monster of a similar origin. She has been manifested from the aggregate subconscious of tens of thousands of young lonely men, acting as a digital surrogate of their instinctual desire to support a woman.

The gondola meme is the embodiment of these concepts. Gondola gets to observe every fantasy space. But he has no arms and is destined to observe, never to interact. His fate is to sit still and become conflicted with the desire of wanting to experience, but will never have the ability to do so. A good metaphor for our new isolated online generation, observing every desire and fantasy possible through a screen that will never be fulfilled.