How to predict the future by looking through the headlines of 2019 – Screen Shot
Deep Dives Level Up Newsletters Saved Articles Challenges

How to predict the future by looking through the headlines of 2019

“We have sealed ourselves away behind our money, growing inward, generating a seamless universe of self,” said William Gibson-Neuromancer in 1984. He was most definitely predicting our society’s behaviour in 2019.

Another year has come and gone. With our deeper descent into the inherently complex social paradigms of technology and the world wide web comes a growing set of issues of a unique nature. Many say we’re beginning our culmination towards a culture of the self where anything and everything is tailored to our likes and dislikes, whether we want them to or not. Others believe that our right to free speech has now been clouded by a new wave of hyper-censorship and crowdsourced truth.

As we become more comfortable with our evolution into these instinctually digital beings, we must also continue our quest to understand the repercussions, implications and infinite plurality of the things we create. That’s why I took it upon myself to trawl the megahertz of headlines, and take a peek into the looking glass of what awaits us in the years to come. Don’t be scared, just enjoy the ride.

Finsta

Finsta accounts are on the rise: a solution to the pressure to be perfect online?

Death to main accounts! Long live the new finsta!

As we increasingly become disillusioned with Instagram due to its removal of likes (which became a currency of sorts to many) we veer into the ‘new aesthetic’. Individuals now prefer portraying themselves as ‘real’ and ‘raw’ over the pristine image initially pushed by our predecessors and disgraced influencers. However, we must remember that even though these expressions of the self are less pristine as their sleek counterparts, they’re still a result of a clear visual history for the platform. From first getting to grips with the selfie when Instagram first came onto the scene, to creating staged analogue shots, followed by the use of apps to mimic grain and light leaks, we have finally broken the fourth wall, and now accept the nature of this technological format and the freedom that comes with it. This breaking point has pushed us to crave a sense of authenticity best displayed by the nihilistic and perceived honesty of the finsta format.

The future of social media also hints at increasing compartmentalisation. As we become more aware of how public and permanent Instagram content is, we wish to instil sharper privacy settings. The age of public self-monitoring and self-censorship is no more, and the future of our online presence becomes less about what we put out there, but who sees it.

Instagram Doctor

A doctor is fighting health misin­form­a­tion on Instagram, one post at a time

Let’s look at Zuckerberg hopelessly trying to kill its own creation.

Instagram has enabled many to have a platform and incite cultural movements. But with that responsibility comes the growing necessity for us to acknowledge our own confirmation bias and seek out an ultimate truth in a society clouded by opinion. The need to cater to the moral necessities of us as individuals has surpassed the need to cater to ourselves as a society. So what can we do to remedy it?

According to Instagram, the solution lies within the independent fact-checking industry. Instagram and other platforms will now use ‘fake news’ screens to alert its users of misinformation. But how far will this monitoring go, as it indiscriminately moderates news articles and memes alike? Following hot on the tracks of third-party fact-checkers is also the emergence of crowdsourced news platforms, such as Wikitribune. Could we see a partnership between Wikitribune and social media platforms any time soon? Or will super companies like Google and Facebook remain loyal to these third-party companies, especially following the scrutiny that comes with them? Are we one step closer to establishing one ultimate truth per informational dilemma? Or is this just another quest into finding out if these fact-checkers have our best interests at heart?

OnlyFans

Up-and-coming adult actor shares how stress­ful the porn industry is. This is how OnlyFans helps

As call out culture increasingly dominates the ethics and inner workings of our digital landscape, we will see a decline in more permanent forms of content sharing versus live streaming and chat rooms. Websites like Telegram, Twitch and OnlyFans, which present themselves as constantly updated streams of content rather than a set grid, will not only enable users to interact more between the content put out and its administrator, but also make it harder for others to feel affected by the content they don’t follow.

The bigger idea of the ‘all in one’ censorship solution will fade as we move more into compartmentalising our content rather than tailoring it to the people who see it. So good news for people into gore and furry porn.

Instagram-removing-likes

Instagram is thinking of removing the ‘like’ feature, what does this mean?

Less lukewarm influencers, more authentic OnlyFans.

The whole system of rewards that comes with the amount of likes collapses, causing a disinterest in the platform in favour of crowdfunded websites. As our ability as independent content creators to monetise our content becomes inherently harder, we will look for new ways to make money online. Similar to the crackdown from YouTube for their creators to create more family-friendly content and modify the algorithmic rewards to their viewership, people will veer to independent sourcing platforms like Patreon, OnlyFans and Cameo.

Instead of appealing to the masses and amalgamating as many likes as possible, we’ll focus more on the tailored content experience. This will play in favour of authenticity and strengthening our sense of intimacy with each other. Lastly, advertisers will increasingly have to go through Instagram to get an understanding of how their partnered content is performing rather than the creators themselves, further enhancing our distrust in it—what a shame.

Cooler Screens

Cooler Screens is the future that is happen­ing in the frozen foods aisle

Finding that specific organic vegan vanilla matcha latte will become so much easier, even if you weren’t thinking of drinking one in the first place.

As buying perishable goods online becomes more normalized and optimised, our phones will learn more about our eating habits and cater our surroundings to it. That special detox matcha latte will become easier to find as your phone will signal where it is sold, and will even send you a notification when you might be near one (from a cafe to a local supermarket). Not only will this facilitate healthy eating, but it could present a breakthrough in customer demand and offer within the food industry.

As we figure out who eats what and when, quantities will be optimised and food waste will be increasingly limited. Cooler Screens will further feed into the self quantifying revolution as the supermarket can tailor its products on offer to your daily calorie intake and interests, including veganism, haram etc.

pay-influencers-friends-Iris

You can now pay social media influ­en­cers to be your friends

Riding on the back of Instagram’s collapse will be a further democratization of fame and how we access it. YouTube presented the first breakthrough as it propelled ordinary people to superstardom, by perpetuating relatability and vulnerability versus the pristine and manufactured image promoted by pop stars and film stars alike.

As celebrities like Will Smith or Karlie Kloss venture into YouTube and shed more light onto their real lives, the distance between celebrity and fan will get even smaller. This will have a ripple effect on Youtubers, who must find more ways to monetise themselves as their platform becomes more crowded. The main underlying theme within this will be a collective attempt to find digital remedies to real-world loneliness and perceived companionship. However, this will come with its own brand of contrivance as we rebel against synthetic forms of human interactions. Celebrity as we know it soon won’t really exist.

Opinion

7 ways deepnudes could change the way we wank

By Iris Luz

In the past century, the online sex industry has prospered—from ASCII porn, to Twitch streamers and tech dommes, camgirls have reached new heights but also new lows. With the recent emergence of deepfakes, many people are asking themselves what the future of porn, internet security and fake news will look like, and so do I. What measures must we now put into place to mediate this new form of content creation? I decided to venture into the universe of deepfakes, and research its repercussions on the inherently digital realm of cam girls, to see just how much it could change in the coming years.

For the newbies out there, neural networks use algorithms to generate deepfakes that then create imagery based on images they’ve been fed beforehand. Information flows through a neural network in two steps. When it’s learning or operating normally, patterns of information are fed into the network via the input units, which trigger the layers of hidden units, and these, in turn, arrive at the output units.

These algorithms have been used in the past to conjure up fake faces or even infinitely create death metal music based on an album by Archspire.

In this case, these neural networks are being used to accurately replace a person’s face with another, leading to incredibly realistic fake videos. It has become so rampant that there is now a whole category on Pornhub dedicated to falsified content of a plethora of celebrities. While deepnudes don’t affect celebrities that much, as these can easily be found and disproven, they will affect industries where the lines are more blurred, such as camgirling.

My predictions aim to be optimistic, but also acknowledge the potential setbacks of such emotionally detached imagery. From ideas of self-sufficiency to incel uprisings and computer-generated cam girl agencies, let’s have a look at what the rise of deepfakes could mean for the cam girl industry.

1. Camgirls will be able to do everything and anything

As any sex worker will tell you—everyone has their limits as to what they’re ok and not ok with. So what if they could still perform the acts they refuse to do without the physical and emotional labour? Being able to recycle content already online and fulfilling the client’s fantasy could be the answer to many performers wishing to keep a competitive edge. If you didn’t know your camgirl was faking this content, wouldn’t it be a win-win situation?

2. A constant stream of content

Being a camgirl is a full-time job, and the possibility of providing a steady stream of content to your fans could revolutionise the way they make their income. Will we reach an age where your favourite camgirl is always online? And could developments within emotional AI aid not only creating infinite content, but content tailored to you.

3. To use deepnudes is also to detect deepnudes

Another key aspect of the new deepnudes software is its ability to detect a deepnude, thus also serving as a means for sex workers to counteract content spread using their likeness against their will. This characteristic could potentially aid the mediation of this new software and, hopefully, give back control to those being unrightfully exploited in these images. The software could even hypothetically be integrated into websites where this content might be spread (ex: Pornhub), and limit its unlawful effects.

4. Tech Domme 2.0

Within the tech domme realm, anything that can make the sub/dom experience more vivid and interactive is celebrated. This new software could improve the relationship between tech dommes and clients, offering up new ways to please the submissive slave. This could manifest itself as videos utilizing their face and the dominatrixes’ tactics, bridging the gap between the virtual sphere and reality.

5. Uncanny valley

For some, deepnudes are a way to engage in intimacy without the complexities of human emotion. With the share of men under 30 who haven’t had sex in the past year having tripled, this seems like it could hinder society’s current efforts to combat incel culture and the increasing disdain our generation has towards sex. Will deepnudes steer us toward more automated and primal experiences regarding sex?

6. Computer-generated cam girl agencies

Since Lil Miquela, Imma, Bermuda, and Blawko, the idea of accepting virtual characters into our real lives, seems more legitimate than ever. Computer-generated cam girls could be the next step in the porn industry.

View this post on Instagram

Me and my mains! Always getting me through the roughest, there for all the highs, ride or dies, but maybe most importantly down for a ride to the taco truck at 2am. ILU guys! 💘🥰💘

A post shared by Miquela (@lilmiquela) on

7. Rent my face

Finally, representing the ultimate convergence between infinite post-biological profession and technology, is the concept of patenting your own identity. As we now increasingly value our faces as currency, could we see people selling their rights to their own face to these camgirl agencies? And, will we see retired pornstars such as Jenna Jameson or even Linda Lovelace, making a return to our computer screens?

While these things explore the ability for deepnudes to be used, I stand by the idea that, in a similar way to books, people will still seek out human connections. Rather than the industry becoming obsolete, it will evolve and provide a whole new realm of possibilities for creators and consumers alike. However, just like anything in the rapidly evolving digital realm, the most pressing issue is to have laws and procedures in place so that software can be used respectfully.