tl;dr

I don't think enough has been said about the rise of social networking. But that will take a whole lot of time and a whole lot of internalization. In the space of a couple of years we have gone from being fairly anonymous and autonomous individual agents to being so many mined data points. This is the rise of affiliation. It started as a corporate marketing campaign and then went viral.

This is what I don't understand. What is the significance of our affiliations. I publicly connect myself to certain books, certain movies, certain companies, certain memes. And this defines me (from a lot of extant viewpoints). My dissonance comes from how that other definition interacts with my personal one. My mind becomes boggled at this point and refuses to pursue its quarry. It would be easier if I just didn't acknowledge that existence.

Now. What I really wish to do...in a way, is to eulogize the anonymous diner, the crappy motel. Hark back to the time when un-affiliation hadn't yet swallowed non-affiliation. Take a dive into some murky waters. Walk into a place and walk out again, intact.