Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is Still Screwing the Message

Before memes, before iPhones, before your mom started texting in all caps—there was Marshall McLuhan. The Canadian media theorist, cultural provocateur, and surprise cameo star in Annie Hall makes his ghostly return to decode the 21st-century media swamp he predicted decades ago.In this episode, Ray sits down with the OG of media studies, a man who once said, “We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us”, then smiled smugly while the rest of us scrambled to keep up. McLuhan takes a long look at the digital age, tries to make sense of TikTok, and assesses whether we’ve finally become the “discarnate beings” he once foretold.Together, they explore:Why McLuhan thinks Twitter is the logical extension of tribal drummingWhat the “global village” actually feels like when everyone’s shoutingHow electric media rewired us into reactive, fragmented mindsWhether he regrets coining phrases people use but never understandThe real meaning behind “the medium is the message”—and why your Kindle isn’t fooling anyoneWhy he might take MarshallGPT personallyAnd yes, how it felt to be more famous for one line in a Woody Allen movie than for reshaping the way we think about mediaIf you’ve ever wondered why Instagram makes you feel overstimulated and underinformed, or why you read McLuhan quotes on Twitter without knowing who he was, this one’s for you.More information:They Tried to Warn Us, the book: More info on each podcast interview subject, along with 15 more interviews.They Tried to Warn Us, the newsletter: Follow the action on Ray's Substack.