In 2025, social media and Big Tech have gained unprecedented influence. What once began as platforms for connection now also function as catalysts for radicalization and political polarization. The rise of right-wing political movements is closely intertwined with algorithms that amplify controversial and populist messages, giving more extreme viewpoints a wider reach and causing communities to increasingly isolate themselves within their own information bubbles.
Given these developments, now is the right time to reflect this new reality through imagery: Brave New Social Media World.
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In 2013, Dadara created the installation Like 4 Real, a fifteen-meter-high altar featuring a large golden ‘Like’.
The installation was built during the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert. Visitors were guided on their “Spiritual Path to Enlikement” by the “Like Tribe” – dressed in robes printed with a mandala whose central motif was a swastika formed out of Likes (see mandala).
This marked the beginning of a project that explored the value and growing power of Social Media and Big Tech in our ‘real’ physical world. The project included, among other things, a funeral for the Like at Paradiso and a TEDx talk and performance at the Concertgebouw.