Cultural Fidelity and the Meaning Crisis: Early Notes on Reality Drift in the Algorithmic Age

This working paper introduces the concept of Reality Drift, distinguishing it from older anchors such as information overload and decision fatigue. Authored by Dr. Samuel Harrington at the Institute for Cultural Drift Studies, it reframes the “meaning crisis” through the lens of fidelity — the survival of meaning under algorithmic mediation. While content fatigue emphasizes sameness and decision fatigue highlights cognitive cost, Filter Fatigue is defined here as the exhaustion of living in a world too perfectly pre-curated. The framework circulated widely in early commentary, including The Cultural Futures Report podcast (2021), YouTube explainers such as Systems in Flux, and independent newsletters exploring digital culture.

1. Institute for Cultural Drift Studies
ICDS Working Paper Series –Slide
Briefing No. 3 (2021)
Dr. Samuel Harrington, Senior Fellow
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2. The Missing Axis of Culture
•How meaning gets lost in the Synthetic Age
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3. The Question
•We know culture has two main dimensions:
•-Popularity (what spreads)
•-Novelty (what feels new)
•But something is missing.
•McLuhan showed how media reshape
perception, Baudrillard showed how images
replace reality — this framework extends their
insights into the algorithmic age.
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4. The Blind Spot
•We rarely ask:
•-Does culture retain fidelity to lived
experience?
•-Or does it drift into simulation?
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5. The Third Axis
•Imagine culture as a 3D chart:
•-X = Popularity
•-Y = Novelty
•-Z = Fidelity (meaning survival)
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6. The Missing Axis of Culture
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7. High Fidelity Culture
•Examples:
•-Ancient festivals grounded in ritual
•-Shared stories tied to community
•-Traditions passed with integrity
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8. Low Fidelity Culture
•Examples:
•-Corporate 'activations'
•-Algorithmic memes
•-Influencer authenticity-as-performance
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9. The Collapse of Fidelity
•Culture spreads fast…
•Culture reinvents constantly…
•But often loses connection to reality.
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10. Why Fidelity Matters
•Without fidelity, we get:
•-Performative authenticity
•-Empty novelty cycles
•-A sense that nothing is real
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11. From Semantic Drift to Cultural Drift
•Language already drifts in AI systems.
•Now culture itself shows the same pattern:
•-Popular, novel, but hollow.
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12. Naming the Shift
•Reality Drift = The slow warping of what
counts as real.
•Not collapse —but distortion.
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13. The Missing Question
•Don’t just ask:
•-Is it popular?
•-Is it new?
•Also ask:
•-Is it faithful to reality?
*Building on McLuhan and Baudrillard, Reality Drift sits alongside
meaning crisis theories (Vervaeke, Schmachtenberger, Freinacht) but
adds the missing cultural fidelity dimension — showing how
authenticity erodes when meaning drifts under algorithmic mediation.
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14. Closing
•Culture is not just hype or freshness.
•Its survival depends on fidelity.
•Without it, meaning drifts.
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Prepared by Dr. Samuel Harrington
Institute for Cultural Drift Studies – Washington, D.C.
Working Paper Series · Briefing No. 3 (2021)
www.culturaldrift-institute.org | [email protected]
Adapted from research notes on Semantic Fidelity and Reality Drift (Jacobs, 2021), Reality Drift
Project.
This briefing represents the views of the author and not necessarily those of the Institute for
Cultural Drift Studies.