Editors note: “Enshittification” is a specific term coined by Cory Doctorow to describe how popular technology platforms end up degrading the user experience, with the aim of maximum profit extraction. The term has since spread to describe other applications and examples in real life.
The Portuguese version of this article is here.
“Drum And Bass On The Bike” rides have been enormously successful. A few weekends ago, Critical Mass Lisbon linked up with Dom Whiting for a “special Critical Mass event”. It is great to see so many people come out, who might never normally ride a bike, and join a real world event in their city. The more bicycle rides there are, the better. There is strength in diversity.
As an example, CM London has overlap with many other rides and scenes, but still essentially differs from them. It learns and gains from them, and builds relationships with individuals participating in and organising those rides. But those other rides are not Critical Mass rides. They have their own characteristics and values which are different from Critical Mass. And similarly “Drum And Bass On The Bike” rides are different, and should not make use of the Critical Mass name, in any city or town, anywhere. Here is why.
Critical Mass (CM) has always been explicitly heterarchical and leaderless. Any semblance of authority is decentralised. Even if informal hierarchies emerge, these are always kept in check by participants. Relationships within CM are based on knowledge, riding experiences, trust, volunteering, and mutual respect rather than self-appointment; and choices on aspects of the ride that affect all participants are taken openly and collaboratively. No single individual or authority makes the decisions, and instructs others to adhere to those, as the “leader” of the ride.
Critical Mass (CM) is inherently anti-commercial and anti-capitalist. Many CM riders would describe themselves as anti-authoritarian or anarchist. No CM should ever have sponsorship, product placement, advertising, or similar involvement from companies or organisations, whose primary purpose is profit. No CM ride should be used as a vehicle for a brand promotion, or for individual self-advancement, which enriches that individual’s commercial marketability.
CM has always been accessible to all, including information channels. There is no central point of communication, no single source of truth controlling the narrative. There is no exclusion of participants from discussions, based on their ability to pay or not. Riders are treated equally on CM, there are no tiers or subscription models required for CM riders to know more than others. The concept of being a “VIP” or “subscriber” with elevated privileges or knowledge above others, based on the ability to pay, is antithetical to CM’s ethos of equality.
CM is a militant cycling event against motor vehicle normativity, with specific messaging and politics, not just a bike rave alone. CM rides are there to create a rolling car-free space in the city they happen in, as well as to promote bicycles as an ongoing and future positive alternative to the cityscape dominance of cars. They emerged to promote an activity called “cycling” which happens all-year round in the cities that they happen in, not just a performative spectacle that happens once a year (or less).
CM has a long history of communicating key messages about ride management and safety. This includes “corking” of side roads to stop cars driving into the middle of the ride, endangering participants. Other tactics such as not riding between cars, stopping and waiting at large junctions, and slowing down at the front are promoted globally (distributed locally) via city-specific CM social media accounts and websites, as well as printed paper flyers at the start of the ride. These exist to advise riders about safer ways to ride together in a large group, for the care and benefit of everyone on the ride and those around them in the city, not just those at the front.
CM is about “the Mass”. It is a unifying and levelling group experience, where all participants are equal. They do not happen for the elevation of an individual. The focus is on community over content. For rides in bigger cities with hundreds of participants, the riders tend to take routes that are suitable to accommodate a large moving body of riders, which means that the event is reasonably free flowing and agile. This is instead of passing by “iconic” recognisable sites for increased social media exposure, which tend to result in the ride being bottlenecked and congested, slowing riders down to a crawl.
CM is an organic part of the city that it emerges in. Its participants live there and want to be a part of an ongoing community of riders that elevate the city, not just assembling once a year. They involve themselves with other activities and spaces in that city, building long-term relationships and networks. On any large CM, you can expect to hear a range of music genres being played, reflecting the breadth of taste of the Mass participants. No one DJ or sound system is elevated above others. Its sound systems are from that city or nearby, not transported from afar via air or road, which would have a huge associated carbon footprint, which runs contrary to CM’s roots in environmental and social justice movements.
CM can happen regardless of whether any one individual wants it to or not. It is genuinely leaderless. Nobody can ever decide to change the start time, or location, or cancel it because the weather is bad. CM is a “Deleuzian rhizome” - its roots are horizontal once it beds in. Or perhaps it is more like a “Lernaean Hydra” - it cannot be easily killed by one individual node’s removal. It is a genuine and authentic decentralised global movement, a rare third space free from commercial influences, and is not based on a transient or transactional exchange. It is there for the long-term benefit of all participants and the spaces in which it happens.
It’s understandable that smaller cities with less of a cycling community would want a social media sensation like Dom Whiting to come and put on a spectacle to draw the “bike-curious” out. By all means, people should do that, and use it as a springboard to carry on with other recurring events after his has left town. If individuals who normally participate in and promote CM want to do the same for other rides, of course that is great and obviously they are free to do that. But leave the title of Critical Mass out of the “Drum and Bass On The Bike” rides. Critical Mass is a beautiful thing. The movement has existed since before Dom Whiting was born, and it will continue long after he decides to quit what he’s doing now. Critical Mass has a completely separate name, structure, and process that shouldn’t be used or exploited. It has its own history, culture, and values that should be cherished and maintained, not enshittified.
Right - I can tell you for certain, the shadow state is very nervy and interested in music and cultural scenes, for some reason - and Lisbon is an interesting example, as this high tech area, the new Silicon what-have-you, with a lot of finance capital, AI interest via UK and US.
In a circumstance where you have this locus or focal point of the ride, what happens if they fall ill or are stopped from taking part in the ride, does the ride now stop or cease to go ahead? Or does the ride now revolt, become lured into "the mob", with a "naturally" emergent focal leader?
Finally - how does this intersect with the UK slow burn assault on freedom of assembly and expression, of protest and markings and signs - Critical Mass is so long-standing as a bike ride that it likely exists in a liminal zone around classification of protest, so it must "adapt or end".