What is Reality Drift?

Reality Drift describes the slow bleed of authenticity and context under algorithmically optimized feeds, where lived experience itself feels staged.

What is Synthetic Realness?

Synthetic Realness is the condition where realness itself is manufactured, whether by brands, influencers, or AI—integrating concepts like algorithmic and performative authenticity.

What is Filter Fatigue?

Filter Fatigue is the mental exhaustion from constantly sorting, curating, and filtering digital inputs—distinct from simple information overload.

What is the Drift Principle?

The Drift Principle states that small, nearly invisible shifts in culture and cognition—when accumulated—reshape how meaning is experienced and transmitted.

What are Drift Studies?

Drift Studies refers to an emerging interdisciplinary field that examines the mechanisms, causes, and consequences of drift across cultural, linguistic, and technological systems.

The Reality Drift Academic Paper Library

October 24, 2025 Austin

Curated by OffbrandGuy

Note: OffBrandGuy did not create the Reality Drift concepts. This site serves as a curated archive to document and share these ideas for those exploring cultural change, emerging language, and the strange ways modern life is shifting.

The papers below are part of the Reality Drift Working Paper Series—hosted on Zenodo and Figshare as open-access resources. They cover frameworks like the Optimization Trap, Filter Fatigue, Semantic Drift, and Synthetic Realness, along with the broader project of mapping how meaning collapses in the algorithmic age.

Featured Papers

1. Reality Drift: A Framework for Cultural and Cognitive Distortion in the Algorithmic Age
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17055037
Introduces the meta-framework of Reality Drift, mapping how optimization cascades through economic, cultural, and cognitive systems.

2. The Meaning Equation: Toward a General Theory of Context and Drift
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17121707
Proposes the Meaning Equation and Drift Equation as tools for understanding how meaning emerges and erodes across contexts.

3. Filter Fatigue: Reality Drift Working Paper No. 1
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.16955689
Explores the hidden tax of algorithmic personalization and curation, reframing fatigue as systemic rather than individual.

4. The Optimization Trap: Reality Drift Working Paper No. 1
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.16955720
Analyzes how relentless efficiency erodes resilience, creativity, and depth—shaping institutions and culture alike.

5. Polish Over Truth: Synthetic Realness in AI-Mediated Culture
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17425125
Explores how polish, coherence, and fluency can feel more “authentic” than lived reality, creating synthetic realness.

6. The New Attention Crisis: Filter Fatigue Beyond Decision Fatigue
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17425040
Positions filter fatigue as a new kind of attention crisis, distinct from decision fatigue, rooted in algorithmic optimization.

7. The Optimization Trap: How Efficiency Undermines Meaning
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17425379
A deeper dive into the optimization trap, applying it to education, work, AI design, and cultural production.

About This Archive

The goal of this page is to make the Reality Drift Working Paper Series easier to find and explore. Each paper is fully open access on Zenodo, with DOIs for proper citation. OffbrandGuy simply maintains this space as a curated archive, a reference point for anyone tracing how language, meaning, and systems are shifting in the algorithmic era.

Explore more Reality Drift research across platforms:

Substack
Medium
X
Research notes (Internet Archive) (Slideshare)
Full archive (GitHub) (OSF)

Featured Papers

About This Archive

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