Are Louis Theroux's 'Manfluencers' Suffering From Technoplasmosis?

It’s not an excuse, but it may provide a reason for their loathsome views.

Technoplasmosis is a word coined by Rory Sutherland, who is a man you should follow despite the fact that he is the vice chair of Ogilvy & Mather, a former ad agency turned management consultancy that has been trading off a dead guy’s name for nearly 30 years. You know those bands that continue to tour despite having no original members left in them so they sound like a tragic tribute to their former selves? It’s like that.

Anyway, I digress. The origins of his term are in toxoplasmosis, which is a parasite that takes control of cats so that they act in ways that best help the parasite to spread. The cat doesn’t know it’s infected with the parasite, it carries on about its day thinking it’s in charge whilst unwittingly carrying out the parasite’s plans. Now imagine humans as the cats and big tech as the parasite - that’s technoplasmosis.

Much of our modern behaviour, certainly at work and increasingly outside it, is governed by tech, which subtly changes what we do and how we do it. This can have positive and negative effects. For instance, if you go for a run because you want to keep your Strava stats up, or practice your Mandarin to maintain your Duolingo streak, where’s the harm?

However, if you start spouting misogynistic hate speech to keep your views and likes up and sell your get-rich-quick courses to teenagers then you have replaced your moral compass with a YouTube dashboard because you’ll do just about anything to keep those stats going up and to the right. See, that’s the best reason I can come up with for why those toxic ‘manfluencers’ in the Louis Theroux documentary ‘Inside The Manosphere’ say the things that they do (or why the likes of Lily Phillips and Bonnie Blue do the extreme things they do).

This was the other reason I came up with…

Watch the show and it’s clear they don’t believe a word of what they’re saying, they exist purely to please the algorithm and as algorithms take over more of our lives we’re in danger of living to make machines happy instead of the other way around. Think about it…

• Amazon warehouse workers, amongst many other blue collar workers, are already monitored, pitted against robots and have their toilet breaks timed to increase productivity and ensure they reach their “performance goals”. Any moment of their day not spent scanning items is accrued and deducted from their score so they urinate in bottles to keep the performance algorithm happy.

• Uber uses its pricing algorithm to ensure drivers make just enough money to survive but not enough to take breaks so they continue to drive even when they are tired or hungry or need to use the bathroom, which of course increases the danger to them and their passengers.

• Instagrammers, instead of making what their heart desires, hang on Adam Mosseri’s every word trying to work out what they can do to please his algorithm hence the prevalence of “trending” videos, which is to say thousands of creators ignoring their instincts and all making the same content using the same music and the same attention-grabbing hacks because it’s what the algorithm rewards right now. Last month it was the 2016 “trend”, this month it’s the Mom/Dad, what did you look like in the 90s “trend” 🥱.

A post from Adam Mosseri’s Instagram profile.

And now it seems people are beginning, intentionally or not, to adapt their written and spoken language to sound more like AI. Like any parasitical infection this is a sickness, so what’s the cure?

The cure is simple and is already being adopted by hundreds of thousands worldwide, it’s simply doing things that cannot be tracked or measured. Reading printed books, listening to tapes, records and CDs, going to gigs and movies, writing and drawing on paper because I don’t need to know how far through a novel or album I am, how many gigs and movies I have watched, or how many words I’ve written. Not EVERYTHING has to have a goal. Read what you want at your own pace. Pick it up and put it down. Stop trying to please the machine and please yourself instead.

The consistent rise in consumption of physical media over this decade is a response to two things; the inconvenience of not being able to access anything without a $1,000 device, a data package or wifi connection, remembering an impossible password plus a two-factor authentication code THEN sitting through a 90-second ad for a shitty mobile game only to find that the thing you wanted is not on the platform anyway. And, wanting to enjoy things privately, at our own pace and over time. Books are not only enjoyable when read, they also furnish a room. Albums do not only have value when they are being played, they function as artwork and conversation pieces in your home. My writing is not purely for readers but to help me clear out my mind and figure out what I think about a topic.

If HS Tikky Tokky, Sneako and the other ludicrously monikered men in Theroux’s documentary could stand to be alone with their own thoughts for a second they might find out what they actually believe outside of the algorithm…but then, how would they know if their thoughts were the right ones?!

Cover photo by Armin Lotfi on Unsplash

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To Do List

My recommendations for new things to read, watch, look at, listen to and do this week:

• For the locals, my mate Derek is playing a gig with his band USB at Coastal Rhythm near the wake park in Singapore’s East Coast on Saturday 28th March. There’s two sets, 5 - 830pm and 830pm - midnight. Get your tix with Derek’s discount code JAC9USB here: https://www.philstudio-events.com/event-details-registration/jam-cheese-vol-9-1

• Also for the locals, indie cinema Filmhouse.SG is running a ‘Women In Focus’ season including the local movie ‘Amoeba’, directed by Tan Siyou with a soundtrack by Weish - the polymath behind ‘Secondary: The Musical’ with Checkpoint Theatre last year. All I can say is, just check out anything and everything she’s doing - here’s a tune to start you off:

• Speaking of musicians turned theatre-makers, Inch Chua has created ‘Myles - Soulmate in a Box’ about a woman who gives up on dating and creates her perfect mate with AI. Early bird tickets are available until 29th March, we’ve got ours, get yours here: https://www.srt.com.sg/show/myles/.

  

• Needle scratch - back in the 1990s every Friday night started at 6pm on Channel 4 with ‘TFI Friday’, an anarchic variety show hosted by Chris Evans. It was like a televisual version of ‘Loaded’ magazine featuring every mover, shaker and Britpop maker of the era. And it’s back as a YouTube show! 7 eps have been release so far, recreating that irreverent 90s vibe that we used to call… what was it now? Oh yeah, fun!!

• Another British revival, though not from as far back, is ‘Mock The Week’, the satirical news quiz starring the best of British comedy talent in a battle of wits that was decommissioned in 2022 but is back due to popular demand - yay!

Right, that’ll do ya! Cheers, Nx