Where criticism interprets and contextualizes, trolling dismisses, and
shitposting removes context entirely.
Shitposting--the sharing of absurd, low-effort, context-free
content--has a more recent lineage. In early 20th-century Switzerland,
cultural and economic stagnation, dehumanizing modernity, and the rise
of nationalism triggered the Dada Movement, an avant-garde artist
collective that championed nihilism and absurdity. "The beginnings of
Dada," Dadaist poet Tristan Tzara recalled, "were not the beginnings
of art, but of disgust." Perhaps it's no wonder that, in the time of
algorithms, AI, and Hawk Tuah, a similarly nihilistic artform (or
anti-artform, you might say) designed for "maximum impact with minimum
effort" has hijacked our frazzled psyches.