media feels, learning about tech (1/4)
Thinking about the broader context of what's popular on youtube... from a blank account, you can click "Learning" under the "Best of YouTube" sidebar, and get various curated series, including stuff I'm familiar with like Coding Train, Crash Course, and Blender tutorials.
media feels, learning about tech (2/4)
I'm struck by thoughts of how my feelings about motivation have shifted since I last thought about Coding Train and the general field of getting youngsters invested in understanding and controlling the technical world around them. I always thought this was a really good thing, since it gives folks power and agency in a system that otherwise can seem quite opaque and hostile.
media feels, learning about tech (3/4)
But that was really a misunderstanding, a common and compelling lie. Understanding of technology isn't the key to agency and power in our system, it's just that power is the key to more power. The mechanics of how you learn to use this power amplification have been commodified, partly because of decades of assumption that this information formed a generic common good.
media feels, learning about tech (4/4)
It's not that I think obscurity benefits anyone, but in our rush to shine a light on the mechanics of computering, we've completely neglected to engage with the political realities. All of us who let that mechanical excitement fuel our lives become cogs in the accelerating machines of inequity.
