Love, Death, and Memory (for $9.99 only)

• The use of the word “memory” in this article encompasses both the cultural experience and the physical media created as a result of it.

• “Culturally rich materials” within this article is defined as such: Culturally rich materials refer to texts, media, artworks, artifacts, or other forms of expression that embody the values, stories, traditions, identities, or intellectual contributions of a particular culture or community. These materials are typically considered valuable for understanding cultural heritage, diversity, and memory.

Introduction

The vast expanse of the internet, unbridled, is a microcosm of people, places, and ideas intended to be kept archived indefinitely, to be accessed, viewed, and appreciated. However, is this description truly apt for the majority of internet users?

Where the act of accessing (in its most common form via subscription) can often exceed the physical equivalent, despite the digital copy being nearly always cheaper to distribute, this margin between a grounded cost of production vs the digitised reproduction has widened in the past 15 years(1,2,3). This is despite the cost of digitised products not scaling based on physical constraints. While physical ownership conferred long-term access, digital access almost always comes with time restrictions, regional limitations, and middle-company tiered payment models that further fragment availability for the consumer. The price to access (yet not longer own) has evolved from a tangible breakdown of material goods, worker pay, and profit margins to an almost entirely fabricated and top-down dictated price that, as a result of turbo-capitalism,(4, 5) must continually and exponentially increase for the sole benefit of shareholders. The monetisation of memory reflects not the cost of its preservation or production, but the speculative value extracted from its exclusivity. Cultural products, educational materials, historical archives, even personal data, each becomes an asset class.

This essay does not serve as a critique of individuals and collectives that monetise their works, but rather a critique of a system that does not accommodate digital spaces to access, archive, and distribute culturally rich materials, despite having excess means to do so. The contradictions are stark: bandwidth is cheap, storage is abundant, but access is throttled. Publicly funded research sits behind academic paywalls; national cultural archives are hosted on commercial platforms; and the act of remembering once intrinsic to social cohesion is now transacted through platform logins and pay-per-view licenses.

The final stages of the Mandala’s dissolution, photographed by Gerald Grow (Gerald Grow’s Home Page, “Dissolution of the Mandala,” January 2007).

1.1 Reaffirmation of existing societal dynamics.

The commodification of collective memory is no longer a hypothetical concern, it’s a defining feature of the current digital environment.

Access to information, culture, and history has increasingly become subject to subscription fees, licensing agreements, and platform-specific availability. Historically, processes of gentrification and restricted access to culturally rich materials have been structurally embedded within class-based systems, often constrained by the physical costs of reproduction and distribution, burdens typically borne by elites or state institutions. (6, 7)

This dynamic, however, has evolved where the contemporary divide in access is less a consequence of material limitations and more a function of corporate monopolisation, where “gatekeeping” is driven by the protection of proprietary interests and potential revenue streams. This divide has facilitated the further control of an uneducated, ideologically unchallenged, and intellectually unexpressed populace. This, to varying degrees, has, and will continue to be a function of class structures. Where it's adapted, however, is what is relevant here, in that its scale and organised interest by government parties has increased.

In short, a dynamic that began as a consequence of societal formation (that came with an in-built uneven distribution of resources) is no longer backed by this same degree of scarcity and logistics of material distribution that demanded its existence.

Since the advent of social media, then in mass-produced short-form content in quick succession, these preestablished socio-political structures have not been dismantled by digital access; rather, they have been subtly intensified. These platforms operate within algorithmic economies that prioritise content optimised for engagement, typically short, emotionally evocative and easily consumable, over content designed without the pressure to appeal to the algorithm, that generally has the meta-existential goal of offering the consumer enrichment beyond platform engagement. As a result, this brand of short-form content, arguably problematic and undoubtedly overstimulating, circulates widely; often without the contextual framework necessary for informed engagement & discussion. Without doubt, the introduction (and rise of) the digital age has substantially aided marginalised communities globally.

Broadly speaking, the greatest difference (besides that of individual economic status) can be observed in the digital landscape between the Global North and the Global South (8)

“Window Poetry” by Roland & Sabrina Michaud, 1985

Figure 1: Economic classification of the world's countries and territories by the UNCTAD in 2023: the Global North (i.e., developed countries) is highlighted in blue and the Global South (i.e., developing countries and least developed countries) is highlighted in red.

What may be a tool to empower underserved communities has thus far been monopolised primarily as a tool to extract capital in two forms.

1. Financial capital; conducted via online platforms, a direct evolution of physical monetary transactions.

2. Attention capital; a form of capital created from the advent of social media, used to collect and sell user data, and to influence mass opinions on global events.

   
   

These two are not mutually exclusive.

Despite already having viable business models, unlike (arguably) all predating economic models, modern companies require continuous growth as a baseline to survive. (9) Whereas stagnancy is vehemently opposed, even if paired with the adaptation of long-term company stability. This inevitably is challenged by reality. The reality is that traditional (i.e physical) products can only be consumed to such an extent.

1.2 Attention capitalised

The population of countries in the Global North is either stagnant or in decline. (10)Though this fact can be viewed in many different perspectives. Simply, this will hurt company profits. Therefore if physical (a.k.a) traditional forms of commerce’s growth cannot be maintained (due to a declining consumer base) finding ways to adapt becomes imperative. This is where the “attention economy” as coined by Herbert A. Simon is salient for this discussion. A key quote from Simon when asked to summarise this concept was

“A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” (11)

In the era when he first described the attention economy (late 1960’s towards the early 1970’s) the forms of popular media (cable TV, radio, newspaper etc) are now unrecognisable compared to today’s pop-media.

Despite this, if anything, his ideas have become more poignant over time. That being that private industry and government would assetise a populace’s attention as one would to an unrefined resource. Primarily for economic expansion, but inevitably as a tool of mass-influence. In that, as the day to day life of the average individual (6hrs and 38minutes)(12) is spent on the internet, this figure does not differentiate between those using it occupationally vs recreationally. Though, due to the innate nature of the digital landscape, the differentiation isn’t particularly important for this discussion.

Hung Liu, Ladies, 2014, mixed media with resin, 60" x 92 3/4", Photo: Trillium Graphics, images courtesy of Walter Maciel Gallery.

This increasing share of time spent on online interactions, and more broadly time spent within digital spaces. Further incentivising corporations and governments to capitalise digital spaces. Within this context, the framework of the digital attention economy provides a foundation for examining two interrelated dynamics: the gatekeeping of culturally rich materials and the meta-behaviours embedded within social media platforms.

These dynamics not only determine how information is accessed and prioritised, but also shape the conditions under which cultural value is produced, circulated, and constrained.

Algorithms must adapt to keep the user on whichever platform for as long as possible in order to extract as much capital (attention) as possible. Therefore, the content and broader activity the individual engages in doesn’t necessarily have to be enjoyable nor meaningful.

These algorithmic behaviours do not occur in a vacuum. They reflect the platform's underlying design, which is built not to inform, educate, or enrich, but to retain attention and extract profit. As such, culturally rich materials whether they be digistised artworks, oral histories, scholarly texts or film are deprioritised in visibility. They exist, but often in relative obscurity. Drowned beneath a digital sediment of overstimulating content, algorithmically refined to maximise profit. The very materials most capable of fostering critical thought, cross-cultural understanding, and historical literacy are either inaccessible for most, or algorithmically invisible.

What’s more, when culturally rich material does surface, it is often recontextualised to serve the engagement logic: history is reduced to trivia; political struggle to aesthetic; identity into trend. Digital algorithms do not differentiate between deep, often off-screen engagement and the quick, reactive interactions that dominate online platforms. While the Global North dominates the digital archive landscape, primarily through institutional digitisation and media. The Global South, especially in rural and low income communities, are more likely to consume content under asymmetrical conditions.

These asymmetrical conditions, which are without any framework by third-parties to provide space for thoughtful engagement and discussion.

This is Not a Burial, it’s a Resurrection (2018) dir. by Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese

This process, of prioritising the most “brainrotted” (13) a.k.a inflammatory content will have neurological (impaired working memory, reduced ability to engage with complex tasks) and cultural consequences. The constant influx of low-effort consumption of emotionally charged short-form content rewires an individual’s expectation of what knowledge looks and feels like. Cultural memory becomes fragmented, trivialised, and increasingly defined by sheer virality rather than sustained, enriching value.

Users, particularly younger generations or those with no prior access to structured educational content, may rarely encounter meaningful content. Not due to ill will or censorship, but because such content is not profitable to prioritise. In effect, the digital economy doesn't primarily gatekeep information through absence, but rather through saturation. The user will inevitably become overwhelmed, underguided, and algorithmically nudged toward content that is optimised not for meaningful engagement, but for an almost hypnotic session of “doomscrolling” (14) aimed at the user. Herein lies the paradox: the more connected we as a society become, the more controlled our informational landscape becomes, information filtered not by relevance, observed truth, or insight, but by corporate metrics of engagement. Within this framework, the power to remember, to engage with the past, once the domain of cultural custodians, communal institutions, or educational systems has shifted squarely into the hands of corporate algorithms. In most cases, what becomes “popular” does so at the expense of meaningfulness beyond metric-maxxing. The prevailing digital ecosystem is one which is a closed loop, where users will scroll, like, and consume... but are systematically disenfranchised against creating, accessing, and engaging with meaningful content.

The profitability of the model social media algorithm is unevenly distributed: digital colonialism ensures that the majority of culturally rich digital content originates from the Global North even when it references or repackages Global South realities. Communities in the Global South become not cultural contributors, instead they become data sources, scrolling, clicking, watching, but rarely curating or interacting with their own narratives. This imbalance matters. It determines whose stories are spun, how they are framed, and who gets to benefit from them. When access to media (memory) is paywalled, algorithmically obscured, or flattened into entertainment, cultural sovereignty becomes collateral damage.

Unlike the physical archives of the past, digital repositories can be deleted, deplatformed or geo-blocked with incredible ease. This status quo can reframe the present digital age as not just the age of access & distribution, but equally as an age of precarity, for memory, for meaning, and for human shared experience itself.

An old couple sit in their unheated living room in Vedea village, close to the southern border. Bill Clinton looks on from the TV screen. 2005 Tamas Dezso

Conclusion

Memory, once shared through communal archives and public institutions, is now often locked behind corporate paywalls, fragmented across proprietary ecosystems, and vulnerable to removal based on shifting business models.

In this context, forgetting is no longer a passive occurrence; it can be engineered. Entire archives, articles, or cultural artefacts can disappear with a policy update, content takedown, or the closure of a hosting platform. These forms of digital erasure disproportionately affect communities without the economic or technical means to maintain their own records or challenge proprietary control.

The governance structures that shape digital memory licensing, algorithmic content promotion, and opaque moderation are largely controlled by private companies. This results in a system where cultural visibility is dictated less by public value and more by profitability.

What we are witnessing is not an open digital commons but a tightly controlled digital marketplace. Access is framed as convenience, but the cost is exclusion. And while some content remains available for $9.99 or more entire histories may be quietly lost or rendered inaccessible.