Key Concepts
This guide introduces the core concepts that form the foundation of my work on The Performance Age. These terms provide a framework for understanding how our relationship with truth has fundamentally changed in the digital era.
Truth (Operational)
Not truth as some eternal, philosophical constant, but the practical shared understanding that lets us coordinate as a society. This is the kind of truth that historically flowed through institutions like science, journalism, and academia. Operational truth doesn't require everyone to agree on everything—just enough common ground to work together and have meaningful debates. What's changed isn't that truth has vanished, but how we recognize it: now confident presentation often matters more than careful verification. This undermines the shared foundation we need for a functioning society.
Signal
The digital traces we encounter and create—posts, tweets, videos, likes, shares—that make up our information ecosystem. Unlike traditional information, signals often lack context, verification mechanisms, or clear authorship. In The Performance Age, a signal's strength and visibility increasingly determines what we accept as true, rather than its accuracy or reliability.
Simulacrum
Developed by philosopher Jean Baudrillard, a simulacrum is a representation that no longer refers to any original reality but presents itself as reality. Unlike simple copies that clearly relate to an original, simulacra exist independently. Think of social media personas that bear little relation to actual people, or news narratives that take on lives of their own beyond the events they supposedly describe.
Hyperreality
The condition where we can no longer distinguish between reality and its simulation. Hyperreality happens when simulacra become our primary reference points—when the map doesn't just replace the territory, but when there is no territory apart from the map. In hyperreality, manufactured representations become more "real" to us than the things they were meant to represent.
Epistemic Shift
A fundamental transformation in how society determines what counts as knowledge. We're living through such a shift now, as traditional knowledge authorities (science, academia, journalism) are challenged by algorithmic curation and performance-based credibility. What "counts" as knowledge is being redefined by new systems and infrastructures of information.
Performance
In The Performance Age, performance refers to how truth claims compete based on their presentation rather than their substance. The most confidently delivered claim often wins over the most carefully researched one. Performance encompasses the techniques, styles, and platforms through which information is delivered—often prioritizing certainty, emotional impact, and shareability over accuracy.
Hypernormalization
Coined by anthropologist Alexei Yurchak to describe the final stages of the Soviet Union, hypernormalization refers to a state where everyone knows a system is failing, but continues to perform belief in it—because no one knows what else to do. In our context, it’s not that we believe in institutions—it’s that we continue mimicking their behavior, even after belief has vanished. Bureaucracies still publish papers. Academics still hold conferences. Politicians still deliver speeches. But increasingly, these are rituals without roots. What was once institutional function has become a kind of empty signaling—performance that simulates authority, but no longer derives its legitimacy from trust, truth, or expertise.
Antifragility
Developed by Nassim Taleb, antifragility describes systems that actually improve from stress and disorder. Unlike fragile systems (which break under stress) or robust systems (which merely resist stress), antifragile systems need stressors to thrive. Jonathan Haidt applied this to human development: young people need challenges to develop psychological strength. In The Performance Age, our institutions have become fragile—optimized for stability rather than adaptation—making them vulnerable to catastrophic failure when confronted with volatility.
Vital Communities
A concept from Martin Gurri describing interest-based groups that form among networked amateurs often in opposition to institutional authority. In The Performance Age, these communities represent the fragmented public that creates alternate knowledge spheres where signals are amplified based on resonance rather than validity. They don't just consume information but actively shape it, prioritizing ideas that feel right over those that are methodologically sound. As each community develops its own markers of credibility divorced from traditional verification methods, they accelerate the breakdown of shared understanding essential for societal cohesion.
Signal Lock
A state where individuals or groups become trapped in self-reinforcing information bubbles. Unlike simple echo chambers, signal lock describes the active process by which algorithms, cognitive biases, and social dynamics work together to progressively narrow what information we can perceive and accept. In signal lock, contradictory information isn't just filtered out—it becomes increasingly difficult to comprehend or consider valid. As signal lock deepens, the ability to process contrary evidence or engage with opposing viewpoints weakens, creating a feedback loop that makes escape increasingly difficult without external intervention.
The Algorithmic Filter
The systems that decide what we see (TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, etc.) are not neutral. They’re trained to reward engagement, not understanding. Worse, we’ve internalized this. We shape our posts, our language, even our identities to please the algorithm. We made the system to optimize for advertising. Now we optimize ourselves to be more advertisable. We’re all doing SEO for our lives.
Center vs. Border
From Martin Gurri’s The Revolt of the Public. The "Center" refers to legacy institutions: governments, media, academia—once the gatekeepers of public knowledge and narrative. The "Border" is everyone else: a digitally empowered public now capable of challenging but not replacing the authority of the Center. The digital age destroyed the Center’s monopoly on publishing power but didn’t give the Border governing power. The result is chaos: institutions lose trust, the public gains voice, but no one has a coherent method for rebuilding shared understanding.
Hyperstition
A term from cybernetic theory and internet culture. Hyperstitions are ideas that become real because people believe them. They start as fiction, but their repetition in culture makes them true enough to change behavior. Think Dogecoin. Or QAnon. Or the idea that you must have a personal brand. Hyperstitions blur the boundary between myth and fact—and they thrive in the performance age.