Wired
•74% Informative
In the 1980s and ’90s , the virtual landscape of “cyberspace” was seen as just that, a multidimensional “frontier” to be traversed in any direction one pleased.
The first dominant metaphors for navigating digital space, especially the nascent World Wide Web , were athletic and action-oriented: wandering, trekking, and most of all, surfing.
Now, it is less like surfing and more like being strapped in place for an exposure-therapy experiment, eyes held open for the deluge.
While we typically scroll in isolation through context-collapsing timelines, the Chinese handscroll was social media in a different sense.
It was meant to be viewed collectively in small groups, perhaps during an evening of drinking and discussion.
The handscroll’s social dynamics were reflected in the colophon, or end papers, where owners and visiting viewers would write clever commentary.
The verb “doom scroll’s past life as a noun is a reminder that this is also an active and emotional practice, a desire to face the onrush of catastrophe and witness history.
In her practice, the artist and filmmaker Tiffany Sia often links the classical handscroll with the digital doomscroll as she reflects on the political repression and resistance in her homeland of Hong Kong .
VR Score
76
Informative language
77
Neutral language
5
Article tone
informal
Language
English
Language complexity
58
Offensive language
possibly offensive
Hate speech
not hateful
Attention-grabbing headline
not detected
Known propaganda techniques
not detected
Time-value
long-living
External references
2
Source diversity
2
Affiliate links
no affiliate links