I personally feel that the philosophy that everything is a remix has some truth to it, but I ultimately feel that it is rather reductionistic. As a socialist, I am keenly aware of the false perception of choice and diversity that lies before us. The socialist inside of me understands that we are living though the second era of absolute corporate control and rule of corporate monopolies, a reality that feeds the world a false sense of choice (for example, the 1000s of channels available on cable actually come from a handful of massive media conglomerates). However, I think to say that everything is totally and completely a remix is to dismiss nuance and the ripple effects of nuance. For example, the iPhone was indisputably not the first smartphone or PDA. The Apple Newton was a child of the 90, and I’m sure we can all remember the Blackberry (or Crackberry) craze of the aughts, but the iPhone changed the world. The absolute simplicity of the iPhone constituted a ground-up reinvention of the smartphone that delivered ubiquitous connectivity, the app economy, and the social media revolution that has upended the post-World War II world order. While yes, the iPhone is indeed a reconfiguration of all the smartphones which preceded it, I don’t think it’s accurate to simply call it a remix, because a simple remix of a 2007 windows phone wouldn’t have changed the world.