PRESENTATION: (DIS)INFLUENCE

Social media has become a powerful force in shaping our taste. From TikTok influencers to Spotify playlists to Boiler Room sets to streamers, taste has become something not only externally performed but monetized by brands and corporations. How do you know what you like is what you really like? Pitchfork editor Jeremy D. Larson welcomes you to the age of "fiat criticism," a chaotic new web-based framework of critique that is reshaping our lives. Is fiat criticism good? Is it bad? Does it matter? (Dis)Influence will explore the emotions and contours of this new critical framework and, finally, uncover tools to recenter discovery within and without the web – to arrive at a new theory of taste that can be sustainable in our increasingly dislocated, automated, artificially generated future.