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Infinite Scrolling: Destabilizing Perceptions

June 28, 2025

ignorance, mediocrity, society, technology

Infinite Scrolling refers to a website design where there is no fixed height – and thus amount of content – but instead the page keeps displaying new material as the user reaches the perceived bottom of the page.

You might not immediately see anything particularly important about this, beyond its role as a design element. That is, most people might simply shrug and dismiss it as a simply functional element, limited to webpage design.

The truth is, infinite scrolling is an incredibly insidious factor of ideology and cultural destabilization.

As I’ll analyze in this post, infinite scrolling is responsible for both propagating mediocrity and destabilizing perceptions. Of course, the two are directly relevant to one another.

infinite scrolling. image of cat browsing the web — Infinite scrolling conditions you to be unsatiated, making you think there’s always something important or interesting if you only scroll a bit more.

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The Collapse of Criteria and the Prostitution of Art

March 4, 2024

Society

art, creativity, ignorance, literature, mediocrity, social masses, social media, society, writing

In an interview in 1991 (I will share the relevant excerpt translated/transcribed in this post), the Greek-French philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis pointed out a sobering fact: We live in an era characterized by the collapse of criteria and the prostitution of art.

That is to say, Castoriadis argued, we live in an era with no criteria by which to gauge art. As a result, art prostitutes itself and loses its true meaning. It becomes industrialized.

There are two important elements in this very short excerpt I will discuss in this post:

Castoriadis naturally spoke before the internet and – especially – social media. I wonder what he would think about them.
Importantly, Castoriadis argues that art should create its own criteria.

If art should create its own criteria, and we observe a collapse of criteria today, what does that tell us?

collapse of criteria. image of Acropolis — The Acropolis of Athens, Greece. Each era creates its own criteria. Parthenon still stands, 2500 years later

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Writing a University Thesis: or, Tales from the Academic Crypt

March 27, 2023

Criticism, Society

academia, criticism, mediocrity, society, writing

You probably think this post isn’t for you – unless you’re a student about to start writing a university thesis. But although in this post I indeed want to give some tips to students on their way to writing a Bachelor’s, Master’s, or even Doctoral thesis, there are important things we need to discuss about society and how our academic communities operate.

After all, much of what you experience in your everyday life is one way or another related to the academia. I’m not even referring to “knowledge” being born in the academia (I wish it were that simple). Rather, the people produced – that’s the right word – by the academia are your future employers and colleagues, mayors and decision-makers, and overall people you will have to deal with.

For those not familiar with me, I’ve spent 12 years at the university studying and teaching English literature. I’ve written a Bachelor’s thesis, a Master’s thesis, and a Doctoral thesis. I’ve seen the academia from the inside and let me tell you, the sausage metaphor applies.

Though I’ll structure the post around a way it would be most useful to a student – including what to expect, what to do, and what to avoid while writing a university thesis – I’ll add plenty of anecdotal details along the way that will make the post interesting to anyone.

Writing a University Thesis — University life involves learning when to talk and when to shut up. Writing a university thesis isn’t much different

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