THE LUDIC LOOP of the internet has automated our inner worlds: we don’t have to choose what we like, or even if we like it; the algorithm chooses for us. Take Shein, the fast fashion leviathan. While other fast fashion brands wait for high-end houses to produce designs they can replicate cheaply, Shein has completely eclipsed the runway, using AI to trawl social media for cues on what to produce next. Shein’s site operates like a casino game, using “dark patterns”—a countdown clock puts a timer on an offer, pop-ups say there’s only one item left in stock, and the scroll of outfits never ends—so you buy now, ask if you want it later.
Shein’s model is dystopic: countless reports detail how it puts its workers in obscene poverty in order to sell a reprieve to consumers who are also moneyless—a saturated plush world lasting as long as the seams in one of their dresses. Yet the day to day of Shein’s target shopper is so bleak, we strain our moral character to cosplay a life of plenty.
Automation isn’t forced upon us: we crave it, oblivion, thanks to the tech itself. As the ascendant apparatus of the labour market, it’s squeezed already dire working conditions to a suffocation point, until all we desire is the sweet fugue of scroll, our decision maker set to “off.”
— Read on thewalrus.ca/collapse-of-self-worth-in-the-digital-age/
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