Just finished reading this excellent piece on Let's Plays and internet culture by Liz Ryerson (@ellaguro):
our culture is the newer, shinier, more confusing, and crappier middle school. that old middle school in the center of the town by the public library that appeared to function just fine - that, in actuality, had to be torn down because it contained asbestos... could not continue to exist. there was an unresolvable, unlivable poison at the heart of it. it had to go. and now as a replacement, we get something bigger and more colorful, but less centralized and far harder to navigate or understand. a real life space that appears more as a concept rendered by a computer than something made for humans. the nightmarish plastic kindergarten hospital of nonsensical rules we must now occupy, whether we like it or not. a red fog descends over the halls of the school and we move around in a dissociated daze like Paul's avatar in Petscop, unsure of what exact horrors lie ahead. there will be no Kid A to listen to on the bus ride home from school this time: no attempts to synthesize the alienation, dehumanization, and sense of diminished possibilities of the present. no escape from the further fracturing into micro-markets and forever becoming lost inside that hazy abyss. no escape from the total commodification of all aspects of life.