The Human Condition: Audience capture

By Daniel Schnee on January 25, 2023.

Many years ago I was the student of Pulitzer Prize winning saxophonist Ornette Coleman. An icon of modern jazz music, Coleman is perennially included among any list of the great innovators of the 20th century. His musical philosophy (known as the “Harmolodic” system) made various aspects of music such as melody, harmony and rhythm equal in significance, giving an improviser much greater freedom to create.

Coleman himself was also an extremely kind and encouraging teacher, and brought out the best in all who knew him. This kind of positive influence creates a situation in which the student is inspired to both find and hone their strengths, bringing to light what was previously hidden.

In interpersonal relationships this is known as the Michelangelo Effect: how romantic partners, for example, can bring out the best in each other like how Michelangelo worked away on a stone to “find” the beautiful sculpture within it. Likewise, an individual can pursue their personal goals in such a way that the other is inspired, and says they are “a better person” because of it.

But this ability to progress toward an inherent, ideal self has become what you might call endangered – in the world of social media – due to a type of reverse influence from the audience themselves.

More than half the world’s current population regularly uses social media, meaning 4.5 billion people are looking at several million other people. The most popular of these millions are influencers: people who create content that informs, entertains, criticizes or brings awareness to new products. People flock to their content by the millions, and thus they practically dictate what food, fashion and such becomes popular.

In turn these influencers earn money through sponsorships and advertising, making millionaires of anyone and everyone no matter how young or old. But a major problem arises when, in the course of creating content, they come under the influence of “audience capture,” what you might call the opposite of the Michelangelo Effect.

For example a young influencer will notice certain video content brings in a significant amount of attention and financial benefit over other videos; audience demand incentivises increased production. If that content involves behaving in a certain way then that behaviour (or set of behaviours) is repeated often enough that it becomes the person’s online persona. That persona can then consume and replace any sense of self apart from it: superseding their fundamental individuality with whatever the audience desires.

This phenomenon has led to situations such as the career of Nicholas Perry, who went from being an aspiring Broadway violinist (and vegan) to a dangerously overweight Internet “eating broadcast” (Kor: mukbang) sensation, notorious for wild mood swings and consuming extreme amounts of food. Thanks to his efforts he eventually celebrated weighing more than 700 pounds, and now lives in a two million dollar penthouse in Las Vegas due to the attention it has all brought.

Though Perry represents an extreme, such lifestyles are becoming attractive career paths to those who desperately seek fame or money, thanks in part to the effects of audience capture. But thankfully we need only do the one thing necessary to help save people like Perry from dangers of gluttony for profit; one thing to stop audience capture in its tracks…

Stop watching.

Dr. Daniel Schnee is an anthropologist and jazz/rock drummer

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