I enjoyed reading this, you are a very animated and entertaining writer. And to answer your comment on my post, I do agree with you and I think multiple things are true at once. I agree, the lines are getting blurred, as Americans (please be American lol) we are obsessed with "justice" for sociopolitical reasons.
I actually have a theory that social media websites will only take off if there's two things: conflict with a clear winner and loser that an overwhelming majority of the website can agree upon and if a meme can start on that site and travel elsewhere. So I think your analysis part of why the debacle is addicting and drawn out. I like your definition and explanation of performance, definitely something to think about.
Thank you. That means a lot. I really enjoyed reading your article as well. I completely agree with you that multiple things can be (and probably are) true at once. And our cultural obsession with conflict and “justice” definitely fuels how these situations seem to play out (and drag on). Your theory about what makes a platform take off makes sense: conflict and virality are certainly the key ingredients. That seems to be the basic theory in the documentary, The Antisocial Network, as well. It’s a sad state of affairs we find ourselves in online (and off) these days. Quite strange.
Glenn -- lots to think about. I think in the issue at hand is the difference between Coltrane referencing his influences vs. If Coltrane pressed play on a recording of his influences and claimed that he wrote and performed it. Musicians get successfully sued for leaning too much on it - hip hop changed after it happened to Biz Markie, I believe Nick Cave's Grinderman lost a suit. I think these things tend to escalate not just when it happens, but when somebody wins with it, as had Maalvika.
The redux of Dada in online culture has been positing a philosophically problematic idea that no effort is the same as maximum effort. The laziest or most disconnected aesthetic plays with an audience who faces the broader conflict you're examining -- how can we declare that something commanding our time, ambition, effort, and agtention with total centrality to "not matter?" We need to decide, individually, what does or doesn't hold meaning for us, and then hold ourselves to those standards, and that proves nearly impossible without other participants to quit the program.
Especially in the arts, where unless you aim to languish in obscurity (which begs the question of why make anything and speaks to the non-point of neo Dada), you need these metrics to book shows, to get dealers or gallerists to look at you, to present a publisher with a prospect of readership. I don't think most people are strong enough to walk on their own or have the resources to facilitate a place or events that could help.
You’ve named the paradox so well: the nihilistic pull of a system that rewards irony and replication, even as we try to resist it. It feels like being stuck in a quicksand of our own design.
I think you’re right that what makes Coltrane feel acceptable (even noble) is the sense that he transformed what he inherited. Whereas with Van Winkle or Cave, it can feel more like copy-paste with a note or two changed. And yet, that very distinction points to a kind of moral spectrum we all seem to intuitively sense — somewhere between homage and theft is a line where we either shrug… or cringe.
The challenge, as you say, is not just in discernment, but in how to even enter the conversation without reinforcing the very dynamics we’re critiquing. Especially in an online space where attention becomes currency, and performance is almost unavoidable… it’s so easy to slip into hypocrisy.
I keep coming back to humility. Maybe that’s where the difference begins. Leonard Cohen said on many occasions: “If I only knew where the good songs came from, I’d go there more often.” That kind of reverence for what moves through us might not fix the system, but it feels like a better place to stand in the midst of it.
Grateful for your presence in this conversation. It’s the kind of exchange that gives me hope we haven’t lost the thread entirely.
Thank you for the comment and your thoughts, Tizeta.
I took a look at the article. It adds to what seems increasingly clear: Maalvika is a real person, with a public academic footprint and, I’d imagine, a real emotional journey through all of this. While I certainly don't condone what she did, I am sure that this has been a difficult experience for her as well.
As I mentioned in the piece, I wasn’t drawn in because I wanted to take sides or investigate further. I found myself pulled in despite myself. It wasn't the the drama itself, but the strange emotions it stirred in me: questions around authorship, integrity, and the fragile nature of trust in digital spaces. That trust, for me, is the real casualty here.
I’m not interested in digging through other essays or assessing patterns. While I was originally drawn into that spiral, I realize that's not my place. I imagine it’s something best left to the people directly involved, and to their own conscience.
Sometimes, the harshest things we notice in others are the very things we’re afraid might be seen in us. This one acted a bit like a mirror. It allowed me to wonder how much of my own thinking and creation is truly mine. That thought has softened my view of the whole situation, and reminded me how easy it is to judge when we’re hurting or scared.
Whatever the full truth may be, I sincerely hope this has been a moment of growth for everyone caught in its wake. I wish them both clarity, peace, and healing in their own time.
Glenn, this is truly a brilliant piece though a bit removed from your wheelhouse. It should be special interest to those of us over 60, 70, or like me in my 80s, because it makes us realize how far out of touch we are with the world of these two young women. They're bright, audacious and superb writers using a language far removed from our standard fare, the New Yorker, NY Review, the Atlantic etc. My generation has avoided social media because of how it has catastrophically impacted everything from culture to politics, undermining the civil and reasonable America we came to take for granted. Looking under the hood it was to designed to give voice to the worst of the worst. But there's clearly another side to it, probably quite small, where an intelligence we find hard to relate to flourishes. And at this age enormously interesting.
Thank you so much, Howard. I so appreciate this reflection.
You're absolutely right: this one did feel a bit outside my usual wheelhouse (I hope it wasn't too jarring). I don’t often follow Internet drama, let alone write about it. And yet, something in this story pulled it out of me. It seemed to stir something deep that I didn't quite understand at first: questions of voice, authorship, agency, and this strange tension I keep feeling between performance and sincerity in our digital lives.
You are so right about the catastrophe that social media has unleashed on our society. It hurts when I think too long about it. Witnessing this public unfolding and then recently watching The Antisocial Network brought all of that into focus in an awkwardly revealing way.
It still feels a bit strange to have written this. But I think that strangeness was the signal: a small emotional flare I couldn’t ignore. And the only way I know how to understand those moments is by writing through them.
Grateful, as always, for your thoughtful presence here.
Here’s to you Howard, and from another in the realm of counting in the eighties…
Glenn‘s article was mind blowing to me, because from the start I didn’t know if he was writing fictionally or reporting something. As he drove deeper, the implications of his own process and his observations really struck me. Everything seems to radiate 360° around every point. A pebble dropped ripples out in all directions. Everything is up for grabs. Everything relates to everything!
Oh i must comment or like… So I too for the most part avoid social media. It’s either too fascinating, to mundane or just too addicting. The issue addressed however, is a real one affecting real people in real ways. Very fascinating!
The casualty is trust - indeed! Such helpful observations, my friend.
“It’s all of us. Watching. Writing. Scrolling. Commenting. Quoting. Paraphrasing. Trying to find our place in a digital ecosystem where ownership is slippery, algorithms reward speed over process, and trust – real trust – is hard, if not impossible, to come by.”
Thank you, Abby — that means a lot. I’m so glad that line resonated. It’s a strange thing to write about trust in a space that often erodes it. Your comment helps me remember it’s still out there. Grateful for you 🙏
How your mind works and trails and deciphers, delineates, and …!
And then steps back and comments,
Like a witness, pulling the blanket off what is covered up.
it’s just mind blowing!
As I began the read it, I wasn’t sure whether you were actually writing a fictional story or whether you were reporting on something that was actually happening.
Now I gather there was a real issue between persons about whether something with plagiarized or not. Right?
See! See, I still don’t really know. Anyway, what a mind trip and what questions from the sublime and superficial to the deep and treacherous dark waters.
Well, I’m amazed!
Essential questioning. Essential deciphering of an issue, a phenomenon.
Still I think you ask and now I’m asking what’s it all about Alfie?
Who cares?
“Everything is a part of everything anyway you can have it all if you let yourself be. How come? Because. How come? Because everything runs in a circular motion, life is like a little boat upon the sea. Everything is a part of everything anyway you can have it all if you like yourself be”
Now, was that all from Donovan song? And did Donovan make it up or was he singing somebody else’s song? First seven letters I could’ve genuinely said just on my own out of the blue to somebody else who was talking about this particular topic. Yet if I go on with the rest of it, it is obviously me using somebody else’s words that have been used before and don’t actually belong to me. They belong to someone else. If you ask me, I would just tell you, I was just remembering Donovan’s song.
What do we know anyway?
“What is real? asked the rabbit one day…”
See, there I go again. Something from somewhere else or somebody else or something I read or something you said, reminds me of something that’s being discussed and I pop out with it in real life. You know, like a spoken word in a group of people. Perhaps one needs to pause and quickly footnote what is said, giving credit to someone somewhere.
I was at a friend’s gathering the other day… it was so wonderful to just sit around with a small group of people for hours and enjoy the meandering conversation with real people talking to each other in a real genuine way. People hanging out with people in real time. There is nothing like it. Very precious!
And yet I get caught up magnetized to the news and to substack opinions, and to just scrolling along…
Days, daze going by…
I think I’ll go water the garden and pick some vegetables for dinner.
Oh how I love thee, let me count the ways
I thought the poem before this one was a knockout.
Sadly, I could not copy the link. I would love to share that poem. It made me laugh and knocked my socks off and let me write back to you my own irreverentcy. (new word?Dunno!)
I enjoyed reading this, you are a very animated and entertaining writer. And to answer your comment on my post, I do agree with you and I think multiple things are true at once. I agree, the lines are getting blurred, as Americans (please be American lol) we are obsessed with "justice" for sociopolitical reasons.
I actually have a theory that social media websites will only take off if there's two things: conflict with a clear winner and loser that an overwhelming majority of the website can agree upon and if a meme can start on that site and travel elsewhere. So I think your analysis part of why the debacle is addicting and drawn out. I like your definition and explanation of performance, definitely something to think about.
Thank you. That means a lot. I really enjoyed reading your article as well. I completely agree with you that multiple things can be (and probably are) true at once. And our cultural obsession with conflict and “justice” definitely fuels how these situations seem to play out (and drag on). Your theory about what makes a platform take off makes sense: conflict and virality are certainly the key ingredients. That seems to be the basic theory in the documentary, The Antisocial Network, as well. It’s a sad state of affairs we find ourselves in online (and off) these days. Quite strange.
And yes, American 😜. Grateful for the exchange.
Glenn -- lots to think about. I think in the issue at hand is the difference between Coltrane referencing his influences vs. If Coltrane pressed play on a recording of his influences and claimed that he wrote and performed it. Musicians get successfully sued for leaning too much on it - hip hop changed after it happened to Biz Markie, I believe Nick Cave's Grinderman lost a suit. I think these things tend to escalate not just when it happens, but when somebody wins with it, as had Maalvika.
The redux of Dada in online culture has been positing a philosophically problematic idea that no effort is the same as maximum effort. The laziest or most disconnected aesthetic plays with an audience who faces the broader conflict you're examining -- how can we declare that something commanding our time, ambition, effort, and agtention with total centrality to "not matter?" We need to decide, individually, what does or doesn't hold meaning for us, and then hold ourselves to those standards, and that proves nearly impossible without other participants to quit the program.
Especially in the arts, where unless you aim to languish in obscurity (which begs the question of why make anything and speaks to the non-point of neo Dada), you need these metrics to book shows, to get dealers or gallerists to look at you, to present a publisher with a prospect of readership. I don't think most people are strong enough to walk on their own or have the resources to facilitate a place or events that could help.
Christian — thank you for this. 🙏
You’ve named the paradox so well: the nihilistic pull of a system that rewards irony and replication, even as we try to resist it. It feels like being stuck in a quicksand of our own design.
I think you’re right that what makes Coltrane feel acceptable (even noble) is the sense that he transformed what he inherited. Whereas with Van Winkle or Cave, it can feel more like copy-paste with a note or two changed. And yet, that very distinction points to a kind of moral spectrum we all seem to intuitively sense — somewhere between homage and theft is a line where we either shrug… or cringe.
The challenge, as you say, is not just in discernment, but in how to even enter the conversation without reinforcing the very dynamics we’re critiquing. Especially in an online space where attention becomes currency, and performance is almost unavoidable… it’s so easy to slip into hypocrisy.
I keep coming back to humility. Maybe that’s where the difference begins. Leonard Cohen said on many occasions: “If I only knew where the good songs came from, I’d go there more often.” That kind of reverence for what moves through us might not fix the system, but it feels like a better place to stand in the midst of it.
Grateful for your presence in this conversation. It’s the kind of exchange that gives me hope we haven’t lost the thread entirely.
The author of this article is Maalivka. If you are invested, you can see how much of this, if any, is plagiarized or AI.
When she lied in her apology and was caught, that was the absolute end for me.
https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3643834.3660722
Thank you for the comment and your thoughts, Tizeta.
I took a look at the article. It adds to what seems increasingly clear: Maalvika is a real person, with a public academic footprint and, I’d imagine, a real emotional journey through all of this. While I certainly don't condone what she did, I am sure that this has been a difficult experience for her as well.
As I mentioned in the piece, I wasn’t drawn in because I wanted to take sides or investigate further. I found myself pulled in despite myself. It wasn't the the drama itself, but the strange emotions it stirred in me: questions around authorship, integrity, and the fragile nature of trust in digital spaces. That trust, for me, is the real casualty here.
I’m not interested in digging through other essays or assessing patterns. While I was originally drawn into that spiral, I realize that's not my place. I imagine it’s something best left to the people directly involved, and to their own conscience.
Sometimes, the harshest things we notice in others are the very things we’re afraid might be seen in us. This one acted a bit like a mirror. It allowed me to wonder how much of my own thinking and creation is truly mine. That thought has softened my view of the whole situation, and reminded me how easy it is to judge when we’re hurting or scared.
Whatever the full truth may be, I sincerely hope this has been a moment of growth for everyone caught in its wake. I wish them both clarity, peace, and healing in their own time.
Glenn, this is truly a brilliant piece though a bit removed from your wheelhouse. It should be special interest to those of us over 60, 70, or like me in my 80s, because it makes us realize how far out of touch we are with the world of these two young women. They're bright, audacious and superb writers using a language far removed from our standard fare, the New Yorker, NY Review, the Atlantic etc. My generation has avoided social media because of how it has catastrophically impacted everything from culture to politics, undermining the civil and reasonable America we came to take for granted. Looking under the hood it was to designed to give voice to the worst of the worst. But there's clearly another side to it, probably quite small, where an intelligence we find hard to relate to flourishes. And at this age enormously interesting.
Thank you so much, Howard. I so appreciate this reflection.
You're absolutely right: this one did feel a bit outside my usual wheelhouse (I hope it wasn't too jarring). I don’t often follow Internet drama, let alone write about it. And yet, something in this story pulled it out of me. It seemed to stir something deep that I didn't quite understand at first: questions of voice, authorship, agency, and this strange tension I keep feeling between performance and sincerity in our digital lives.
You are so right about the catastrophe that social media has unleashed on our society. It hurts when I think too long about it. Witnessing this public unfolding and then recently watching The Antisocial Network brought all of that into focus in an awkwardly revealing way.
It still feels a bit strange to have written this. But I think that strangeness was the signal: a small emotional flare I couldn’t ignore. And the only way I know how to understand those moments is by writing through them.
Grateful, as always, for your thoughtful presence here.
Here’s to you Howard, and from another in the realm of counting in the eighties…
Glenn‘s article was mind blowing to me, because from the start I didn’t know if he was writing fictionally or reporting something. As he drove deeper, the implications of his own process and his observations really struck me. Everything seems to radiate 360° around every point. A pebble dropped ripples out in all directions. Everything is up for grabs. Everything relates to everything!
Oh i must comment or like… So I too for the most part avoid social media. It’s either too fascinating, to mundane or just too addicting. The issue addressed however, is a real one affecting real people in real ways. Very fascinating!
The casualty is trust - indeed! Such helpful observations, my friend.
“It’s all of us. Watching. Writing. Scrolling. Commenting. Quoting. Paraphrasing. Trying to find our place in a digital ecosystem where ownership is slippery, algorithms reward speed over process, and trust – real trust – is hard, if not impossible, to come by.”
Thank you, Abby — that means a lot. I’m so glad that line resonated. It’s a strange thing to write about trust in a space that often erodes it. Your comment helps me remember it’s still out there. Grateful for you 🙏
ooof incredible
Fascinating also reading the comments!
Oh my gosh! What a writing. Wow Glenn!
How your mind works and trails and deciphers, delineates, and …!
And then steps back and comments,
Like a witness, pulling the blanket off what is covered up.
it’s just mind blowing!
As I began the read it, I wasn’t sure whether you were actually writing a fictional story or whether you were reporting on something that was actually happening.
Now I gather there was a real issue between persons about whether something with plagiarized or not. Right?
See! See, I still don’t really know. Anyway, what a mind trip and what questions from the sublime and superficial to the deep and treacherous dark waters.
Well, I’m amazed!
Essential questioning. Essential deciphering of an issue, a phenomenon.
Still I think you ask and now I’m asking what’s it all about Alfie?
Who cares?
“Everything is a part of everything anyway you can have it all if you let yourself be. How come? Because. How come? Because everything runs in a circular motion, life is like a little boat upon the sea. Everything is a part of everything anyway you can have it all if you like yourself be”
Now, was that all from Donovan song? And did Donovan make it up or was he singing somebody else’s song? First seven letters I could’ve genuinely said just on my own out of the blue to somebody else who was talking about this particular topic. Yet if I go on with the rest of it, it is obviously me using somebody else’s words that have been used before and don’t actually belong to me. They belong to someone else. If you ask me, I would just tell you, I was just remembering Donovan’s song.
What do we know anyway?
“What is real? asked the rabbit one day…”
See, there I go again. Something from somewhere else or somebody else or something I read or something you said, reminds me of something that’s being discussed and I pop out with it in real life. You know, like a spoken word in a group of people. Perhaps one needs to pause and quickly footnote what is said, giving credit to someone somewhere.
I was at a friend’s gathering the other day… it was so wonderful to just sit around with a small group of people for hours and enjoy the meandering conversation with real people talking to each other in a real genuine way. People hanging out with people in real time. There is nothing like it. Very precious!
And yet I get caught up magnetized to the news and to substack opinions, and to just scrolling along…
Days, daze going by…
I think I’ll go water the garden and pick some vegetables for dinner.
Oh how I love thee, let me count the ways
I thought the poem before this one was a knockout.
Sadly, I could not copy the link. I would love to share that poem. It made me laugh and knocked my socks off and let me write back to you my own irreverentcy. (new word?Dunno!)
Amazing exchanges!
Obviously struck a cord there sonny!
Definitely worth of a “nugey” as either of your brothers might say.