Platform structures are fascinating in the way they promote availability and ease of access. They almost propel the notion that anything we want is available, anytime, anywhere. What is more, we are not alone in our wants and needs.
Let’s refrain from talking about goods and services on Internet platforms. Content platforms reveal even more about the human’s psyche than any other market. Or should we call it the market of desires?
Independently of whether goods platforms or content platforms emerged first, the latter can be a direct source of analysis of what people actually lack in terms of sensation and emotion. The Internet, however, has the ubiquitous capacity to turn every need into a possibility to supply either content or goods to feed this need. It makes us feel satiated, no matter what the need is. Whatever thirst we have, we can quench it online. This process almost becomes a market of desires. We can find an answer even to our sensations. Everything on the web is controlled by the laws of supply and demand; desires are searched for on the Web, so the Internet is bound to give them to us. Thus, for every demand, there is a supply mechanism. There are also others who take advantage of this supply because, as it turns out, we are never alone in our desires.
As the noted gay fiction writer and author of the bestseller “What Belongs to You” Garth Greenwell points out, the notion that there is an answer to every type of demand and that we are less lonely in our desires on the Web is beautifully illustrated with the example of queer people. Having continuously felt isolated and voiceless, gay people can now find the “supply” of their desires online. Although such a picture is disturbing to imagine, the Internet actually gives confidence to queer people because it not only provides them with the sensation they sometimes need, but also teaches them that they are not alone in their desires. They don’t feel the same type of solitude anymore, and are much more likely to open up in their status of queer people. It is very moving, Garth confesses, that in erotic sites everything that you imagine desiring is also desired by someone else.
Content platforms have provided us with a myriad of ways to illustrate and even get a sense of our own unconsummated desires. This is happening even to a disturbing level since nudity is currently more available than ever before. However, the Internet has actually allowed the queer community to feel less isolated and to find out that there is always someone with a similar desire on the other side of the wire.
Internet- degenerated market for desires or queer people’s sanctuary? You decide for yourself.
To get a sense of Garth Greenwell’s entire interview about the topic, follow the link to the article below:
https://logicmag.io/02-freaks-like-us/
Source: Weigel, Mora. “Freaks Like Us: A Conversation with Garth Greenwell on Queerness and the Internet.” Logic: A magazine About Technology. October 5, 2017.
