Narrative has always been a stabilising force. By ordering events, assigning causality, and creating arcs, it compresses uncertainty into intelligible sequences. It allows coordination — a shared sense of what happened, why, and who matters.
Platforms take this stabilisation and accelerate it, producing what we can call narrative compression.
From Arcs to Frames
Traditional narratives unfold in time:
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exposition, complication, climax, resolution
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gradual moral, social, or aesthetic learning
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revisability at each stage
On platforms:
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stories are reduced to frames, headlines, or snippets
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each frame carries compressed meaning
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complex temporal or causal connections are eliminated
The past is flattened; the future is foreshortened. Users are invited to coordinate instantaneously rather than reflectively.
The Permanent Present
Compression produces a permanent present:
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events appear immediate
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outcomes seem inevitable
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moral and affective responses are pre-aligned
Temporal depth — the capacity to pause, reconsider, or revise understanding — is eroded. Coordination becomes fast, visceral, and rigid.
Why Revisability Disappears
Revisability depends on temporal spacing:
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the chance to observe
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the space to reconsider
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the possibility of misalignment
Platforms accelerate the circulation of frames faster than reflection can occur. This means:
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errors are repeated before correction
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consensus forms before debate
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subversion is visible only after it has been absorbed
The system does not intend harm. It simply optimises for throughput, stabilising coordination in the process.
Affect Precedes Reason
Narrative compression is affective as well as temporal:
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rapid, emotionally salient frames trigger immediate responses
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affective alignment enforces coordination before deliberation
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repetition intensifies familiarity and reinforces style
Meaning, once emergent in slow, revisable time, is now constrained to what survives the algorithmic pace.
The Implication for Subversion
Attempts to intervene must contend with this acceleration. Traditional forms of narrative disruption — argument, counter-story, exposition — are too slow.
Effective relational intervention now depends on:
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pacing that resists compression
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styles that make familiar patterns appear strange
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timing that preserves revisability
In short, intelligibility must be repaired, not just challenged.
Closing
Platforms compress narrative, flattening temporal depth and eroding revisability. Coordination happens in the blink of an eye; alignment is established before reflection.
To act relationally is to care for temporal space, to intervene in rhythm, pacing, and frame before content alone.
In the next post, we examine visibility and participation — why simply being seen or speaking is no longer inherently disruptive
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