The Overlords Standing On the Castles of Your Attention

Reclaiming Our Attention Is Reclaiming Our Power

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed these days, but there is a source of individual power right under our fingertips. One that is seldom talked about. Your attention.

While you cannot directly impede any executive orders, change the way algorithms work at Meta, or curate the crowds at X, there is something you may have been overlooking.

For what are those overlords without your attention? What is Mark Zuckerberg without Facebook, what is Elon Musk without X, and even, what is Donald Trump without the ears to receive the amplification of his speech online?

It’s called the attention economy precisely because it hinges on our attention. Without it, it falls apart.

Have you considered what measures you can take to control where your attention goes? In a way that is more aligned with the power you want to concede or withdraw from these overlords?

It seems that the overlords are neglecting the ultimate source of their power: the attention of the people. For it is not the oligarchs or the 1% billionaires who sustain social media. It is the poor and middle-class people who sustain social platforms, with their eyeballs, and the purchases they struggle to buy…