The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads

by Tim Wu

There’s little question that the revolt of the 1960s did lead part of a generation away from the attention merchants of the 1950s. But industry calibrated an effective response and perhaps ultimately read the public mood more accurately than any guru. For they had detected the essence of the spirit of liberation: for most people it was not an end of desire (as in some Buddhist sense), or a wish for solitary withdrawal (in a monastic sense), or even, as Leary had hoped, a spiritual longing equal to motivating an inward turn. Rather, after decades of relative conformity and one of ultimate conformity, what had been uncorked was powerful individual desires and the will to express them. Above all, most simply wanted to feel more like an individual. And that was a desire industry could cater to, just like any other.