Elezea by Rian van der Merwe - RSS Feed https://elezea.com/2016/01/pretending-at-closeness/ A personal blog about product, technology, and interesting things that are worth sharing. Thu, 02 Apr 2026 17:43:52 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 Pretending at closeness https://elezea.com/2016/01/pretending-at-closeness/ Wed, 13 Jan 2016 16:55:16 +0000 Rian van der Merwe https://elezea.com/?p=5707 Leigh Alexander wrote a very interesting essay on how Facebook is getting a little… “intimate” with its users lately. She extrapolates that to a growing trend in The New Intimacy Economy:

Pretending at closeness is really the only way forward for anyone who wants to make money on the internet. As such, watch as organizations pretend, with increasing intensity, that they are individuals. Start counting how many times platforms, services and websites entreat you in human voices, with awkward humor, for money. Watch as the things we expect to be invisible, utilitarian, start oozing emojis and winky-smileys. Even Silicon Valley, global epicenter of whitewashed empathy voids and 1-percenter sci-fi wank fantasies, is going to pretend it cares about you.



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