Digital “Retrobait” Trades on Your Present Unhappiness to Collect Your Data

[searcher]

Digital “Retrobait” Trades on Your Present Unhappiness to Collect Your Data​

In September 2021, a photo of a young woman went viral on X, back when it was called Twitter. In the picture, the woman is seated before a CRT television, turning to face the camera with a Nintendo 64 controller in her hand, an acid-washed denim jacket hanging on the chair. The walls of her room are covered in outdated floral wallpaper and posters of 1990s icons and classics, from Guns N’ Roses to Pulp Fiction. A few VHS tapes are placed on a shelf, along with a Super Nintendo console.

The caption for the photo read simply: “I want to live in this era.” Out poured a torrent of nostalgic comments. One user took the opportunity to rage against the present, posting “Bands knew how to play music, dating wasnt a swiping system that devalued the other person. . . . No one got canceled, twitter didn’t exist & google wasnt monitoring your every move.” Another simply said, “It was the best.” And another: “It was vastly superior to today. I genuinely feel sorry for those that grew up in the 2000’s.” (My favorite comment skewered the nostalgia completely: “every public restaurant smelled like stale cigarette smoke.”)

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Digital “Retrobait” Trades on Your Present Unhappiness to Collect Your Data

Memes that trade on a longing for bygone eras are retrobait, racking up likes and shares in the name of cozy nostalgia. But behind the warm, fuzzy feeling is a digital corporation extracting your data and making bank off your longing.

jacobin.com

 

[Casey Jones]

When you read a piece like that, from a site like that, you wonder: What is the writer's aim? What's being sold? Not necessarily for money - what idea is being pushed?

I don't know, not yet. But the site is named "jacobin.com". Anyone who knows anything about European history, knows what the Jacobins were. They were not nice people or a benevolent group.

 

[searcher]

But the site is named "jacobin.com"

Jacobin (magazine) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

From the horse's mouth:

About Us

Jacobin is a leading voice of the American left, offering socialist perspectives on politics, economics, and culture.

jacobin.com

**I read all sorts of stuff. Left, right, doesn't matter. Always try to read between the lines, especially in articles like the one in the o/p or anything political. No matter what the article I always take it fwiw.

what the Jacobins were.

Jacobin (politics) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Casey Jones]

What Wikipukia SAYS about history, and what history IS, are two different things.

Whatever the Jacobins started out as, they became the bloodthirsty megalomaniacs behind the Reign of Terror. They wanted to change EVERYTHING - new religion, new clock, new calendar, the New French Citizen. It began by brainwashing the public, through the terror of random denouncements and executions - staring with nobility, and towards the end, milkmaids and stableboys. The idea was to drive the public insane through fear. Sorta like...today.

So no, I'm not going to accept anything put forth over the label Jacobin.