Josh Szeps On The ‘Enshitification’ Of Social Media And Its Impact On Your Life

The term ‘enshitification’ was coined by British-Canadian blogger Cory Doctorow in 2023 to describe the decline of social media.

The term has broken into the cultural zeitgeist and is now being used to describe everything from major events to clothes, coffee and housing.

Australian media personality Josh Szeps spoke on The Briefing about why people are using this term right now:

Australian media personality Josh Szeps said the ‘enshitification’ of social media comes down to people circulating negativity online.

“We’re all going a little bit crazy on social media and that encourages a certain amount of negativity and whining and FOMO. We’re living in our heads and inside of algorithms, instead of actually touching the grass,” Szeps said.

Recently Sydneysiders used the term to describe this year’s Vivid festival. They say the festival has deteriorated as it becomes more profitable.

“The problems that we face, which are very real, climate chaos, the destabilisation of liberal democracies, Ukraine, Gaza… The cost of living, real things, [are] nowhere near as bad as the things that most generations have had to deal with. But we get to whine about them more on social media so we feel good about ourselves,” he said.

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