Rushkoff emerged in the early 1990s as an active member of the cyberpunk and the cyberdelic movements, developing friendships and collaborations with people including Timothy Leary, RU Sirius, Paul Krassner, Robert Anton Wilson, Ralph Abraham, Terence McKenna, Genesis P-Orridge, Ralph Metzner, Grant Morrison, Mark Pesce, Erik Davis and other writers, artists and philosophers interested in the intersection of technology, society and culture.[19][20][21]
Cyberia, widely acknowledged as the first book on cyberculture, on cyberculture, was inspired by the San Francisco rave scene of the early 1990s. The initially planned publication was scrapped, however; in Rushkoff's words, "in 1992 Bantam canceled the book because they thought by 1993 the internet would be over."[22] It was eventually published in 1994. Among other things, the book documented the role of psychedelics in the development of the personal computer and associated networking technologies, and warned of the potential for business interests associated with Wired magazine to “hijack” the net from the more countercultural interests celebrated by cyberpunks, artists, and writers associated with Mondo2000.
In his book Media Virus, Rushkoff coined the term “viral media,” using the Rodney King tape as the first example of a new media form: an unprofessional media artifact that nonetheless spread throughout the “datasphere” (another Rushkoff term), caused an ideological contagion, and eventually led to riots in a dozen American cities. Rushkoff analyzed media phenomena from Madonna and Michael Jackson to computer viruses and Beavis and Butt-Head as examples of mutating viral forms, dependent on “hidden agendas in popular culture” for their transmission and reproduction.
The datasphere as a concept in Media Virus was popularized by Rushkoff as advocate of cyberpunk culture and open-source solutions to social problems, in the 1980s. He approached the datasphere as the "circulatory system for today's information, ideas and images", understood as "our new natural environment".[23][24] Rushkoff's conceptualization, centered in media theory, was deployed to explain how 'media viruses' – ideas that capture public attention – rapidly spread. As such, Rushkoff's datasphere invokes ideas of information flow, rather than being focused on structured data and its analysis.
Soon after Rushkoff published Media Virus in 1995, as his books became more accepted, and his concepts of the "media virus"[25] and "social contagion" became mainstream ideas, Rushkoff was invited to deliver commentaries on National Public Radio's All Things Considered,[26] and to make documentaries for the PBS series Frontline.[27] Rushkoff was disappointed, however, that his book was received most enthusiastically by marketers, who employed the ideas for what became known as “viral marketing.”[28]
In 2002, Rushkoff was awarded the Marshall McLuhan Award by the Media Ecology Association for his book Coercion, and became a member and sat on the board of directors of that organization.[29] This allied him with the "media ecologists", a continuation of what is known as the Toronto School of media theorists including Marshall McLuhan, Walter Ong, and Neil Postman.
Simultaneously, Rushkoff continued to develop his relationship with counterculture figures, collaborating with Genesis P-Orridge as a keyboardist for Psychic TV, and credited with composing music for the album Hell Is Invisible... Heaven Is Her/e.[30] Rushkoff taught classes in media theory and in media subversion for New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program,[31] participated in activist pranks with the Yes Men[32] and eToy,[33] contributed to numerous books and documentaries on psychedelics, and spoke or appeared at many events sponsored by counterculture publisher Disinformation.[34]
Rushkoff has also collaborated with author, speaker, and podcaster Mitch Horowitz, known for his work on occult and esoteric history and ideas. In 2023, the two did a live talk on stage at an event titled "Can Magick Save Us? – Team Human Live in NYC,"[35] and Horowitz has been a recurring guest on Rushkoff's podcast, where they have explored questions and challenges of technology, media, and psychology.[36]
Influences
References to media ecologist and Toronto School of Communication founder Marshall McLuhan appear throughout Rushkoff's work as a focus on media over content, the effects of media on popular culture and the level at which people participate when consuming media.[37]
Rushkoff worked with both Robert Anton Wilson[38] and Timothy Leary on developing philosophical systems to explain consciousness, its interaction with technology, and social evolution of the human species, and references both consistently in his work. Leary, along with John Barlow and Terence McKenna characterized the mid-1990s as techno-utopian, and saw the rapid acceleration of culture, emerging media and the unchecked advancement of technology as completely positive.[39] Rushkoff's own unbridled enthusiasm for cyberculture was tempered by the dotcom boom, when the non-profit character of the Internet was rapidly overtaken by corporations and venture capital. Rushkoff often cites two events in particular – the day Netscape became a public company in 1995,[40]
