Hardly a news cycle goes by these days without us hearing “words matter.”

(Meanwhile, those of us who have dedicated our lives to reading and writing would like to have a word with the rest of you. Ahem.)

That aside, it is interesting to consider the ways words can literally shape realities. To illustrate: The president’s retweets of debunked conspiracy theories enabled the circulation of words that, this past week, were weaponized. 

What I’d like to add to the above declaration that “words matter,” is that the very matter with which words are made also matter.

For example, one of the reasons conspiracy theories spread so easily is because of the material conditions that enabled such writing in the first place: digital writing on microblogging sites like Twitter and other online communities like 4chan, Reddit, and (the now-defunct) Parler. These digital modalities enable spread.

Network analysis of the spread of conspiracy theories: https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/how-conspiracy-theories-emerge-and-fall-apart

Some might think the “spreadability” of digital writing is something we have never had to contend with before. But Denise Schmandt-Besserat discovered that writing’s very origins were rooted in how pliable (literally) the writing material was. She states,

It is not surprising that clay was the material chosen the world over to manufacture counters because, thanks to its remarkable quality of plasticity, it can easily be modeled, with the bare hand, in an infinite number of discreet shapes that are easy to recognize, identify, remember, and replicate. [read more here]

It seems, therefore, that we might want not just to revise the “words matter” statement to include “matter matters.” We might also add that words don’t just shape realities; words’ pliability and spreadability is what can make certain realities believable and, well, liveable.