11/30/2023 0 Comments Slack tide mediaAs on social media, the urge to weigh in, react, inveigh-in short, to post-has taken over, whether or not actual work is being facilitated in the process. ![]() A work-chat self now feels distinct from a work self, let alone a whole self. This is work for a generation that thinks that work is or should be like the internet, and vice versa.īut Slack embraces both the light and dark sides of social-media life. At Slack-centric companies, the stream of a popular channel runs as quickly as a social-media feed, posts swimming past, several people are typing. You could create custom emoji for your company, supporting in-jokes and private languages ( The Atlantic’s Slack features a phalanx of alt-tacos). Eventually, posting became its own end: pursuing likes or shares, growing a following to monetize, transforming into an “influencer” or a “creator”-a professional poster whose medium was social media itself.įrom the start, Slack’s hip vibe made it feel more like social media than enterprise chat. Clever quips, suggestive photos, funny memes, viral videos all said whatever they said, but they also fashioned people into online caricatures, constructed or evolved to garner more attention. As the private domains of social networks-friends, family, co-workers-grew into the global commons of social media, performance overtook all other goals. Social media made individuals into a burlesque of themselves, an “online version” that spoke or acted independently from their whole being. To finish drinking from the fire hose was impossible, but dipping into it offered instant gratification-something to love or hate, two emotions that seemed to fuse in life online. Email and then blogging had begun that process, but social media massively increased the quantity of posts and posters. As the smartphone matured, Twitter and Facebook, as well as Instagram and LinkedIn, buried boredom behind an infinite scroll of content. Slack was everything that email wasn’t: soulful, fun, energetic, young.Īnother flavor of software from that time felt the same way: social media. It exuded a “casual, effortless culture,” as my colleague Ellen Cushing wrote in 2021, that pervaded companies-especially tech and media companies-during the second Obama administration. But Slack offered a distinctive product at an opportune time, emerging from the corpse of a failed video game just as the internet took over everyday life. Office chat software is nothing new-I used ICQ and AOL Instant Messenger at work in the 1990s. The ring-ring-ring of an office, the ping-ping-ping of arriving emails, the ability to access those messages from home (or the train, or the toilet): All of these innovations converged on the same effect. Technology has strengthened this illusion. Without you, the whole place would fall apart! (It wouldn’t.) “How are things?” a colleague from another department asks in the workplace kitchen. Being endlessly on call produces misery but also signals consequence. Idleness was once the ultimate goal of the rich and powerful, but over time, even they would embrace workism. The overwhelm associated with contemporary white-collar work is legendary. ![]() These are tallied separately from notifications on the “Home” tab, which light up channels and DMs, and “Unreads,” a collection of every single post I have not yet seen but apparently ought to. The new Slack is not, in fact, “more focused.” It adds a dedicated “Activity” tab, which catalogs every user’s movement in your vicinity on the software, along with a numeral that counts them up: mentions, emoji reactions, replies, thread replies, app notices. But this change felt distinctive because it laid bare a difficult fact: Office work is now more like social media than like office work. (Later on, she messaged me separately to see if I would write about Slack’s terrible new format.)Īll change is bad when you don’t think you need it. “all my slacks are: I hate the new slack,” slacked Adrienne LaFrance, the magazine’s executive editor. “I am reverting to sending physical memos on personal letterhead,” posted another. “folks I cannot handle this new version of slack and will be taking the rest of the month off,” one Atlantic staffer said. Slowly, over the days that followed, complaints about the new Slack started trickling into our chats. On my screen, the program’s interface was suddenly a Grimace-purple color. ![]() “A fresh, more focused Slack,” it promised, or threatened. “Oh,” I slacked my Atlantic colleagues earlier this week, beneath a screenshot of a pop-up note that Slack, the group-chat software we use, had presented to me moments earlier.
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