29 Facts About Douglas Rushkoff

Douglas Mark Rushkoff was born on February 18,1961 and is an American media theorist, writer, columnist, lecturer, graphic novelist, and documentarian.

Douglas Rushkoff is best known for his association with the early cyberpunk culture and his advocacy of open-source solutions to social problems.

Douglas Rushkoff has written ten books on media, technology and culture.

Douglas Rushkoff wrote the first syndicated column on cyberculture for The New York Times Syndicate, as well as regular columns for The Guardian of London, Arthur, Discover, and the online magazines Daily Beast, and TheFeature.

Douglas Rushkoff is currently Professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics at the City University of New York, Queens College.

Douglas Rushkoff has previously lectured at The New School University in Manhattan and the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where he created the Narrative Lab.

In 2012, Douglas Rushkoff was declared the sixth most influential thinker in the world by MIT Technology Review, following Steven Pinker, David Graeber, Nobel prize-winner Daniel Kahneman, Thilo Sarrazin, and Richard Florida.

Douglas Rushkoff was born in New York City, New York, and is the son of Sheila, a psychiatric social worker, and Marvin Douglas Rushkoff, a hospital administrator.

Douglas Rushkoff moved to Los Angeles and completed a Master of Fine Arts in Directing from the California Institute of the Arts.

Douglas Rushkoff was a PhD candidate at Utrecht University's New Media Program, writing a dissertation on new media literacies, which was approved in June, 2012.

Douglas Rushkoff emerged in the early 1990s as an active member of the cyberpunk movement, 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.

In 2002, Douglas 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.

Simultaneously, Douglas 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.

Douglas Rushkoff taught classes in media theory and in media subversion for New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program, participated in activist pranks with the Yes Men and eToy, contributed to numerous books and documentaries on psychedelics, and spoke or appeared at many events sponsored by counterculture publisher Disinformation.

Douglas Rushkoff worked with both Robert Anton Wilson 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.

Douglas Rushkoff spent several years exploring Judaism as a primer for media literacy, going so far as to publish a book inviting Jews to restore the religion to its "open source" roots.

Douglas Rushkoff founded a movement for progressive Judaism called Reboot, but subsequently left when he felt its funders had become more concerned with marketing and publicity of Judaism than its actual improvement and evolution.

Douglas Rushkoff has dedicated himself most recently to the issues of media literacy, participatory government, and the development of local and complementary currencies.

Douglas Rushkoff wrote a book and film called Life Inc.

In late 2020, Douglas Rushkoff commented on the release of the documentary The Social Dilemma.

Douglas Rushkoff speculated at the possibility that the programmers interviewed in the film have read something from himself, or other writers such as Nicholas Carr, Sherry Turkle, Andrew Keen, Howard Rheingold, Richard Barbrook, Tim Wu, or even the singer Raffi.

Douglas Rushkoff acknowledged that while their work and analogies are being quoted without acknowledgement of their source, that these quotations serves as memes themselves and are indicative of their sustaining value beyond their original authors.

Douglas Rushkoff acknowledged he got a call from the Center for Humane Technology stating that they are starting a new organization called Team Humanity, which is a direct wordplay from Douglas Rushkoff's podcast Team Human.

Douglas Rushkoff asked his fanbase to not act negatively toward this appropriation, and to be inclusive of this new community in order to open up a new dialogue between the groups.

Douglas Rushkoff has served on the board of directors of the Media Ecology Association, The Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics, and is a founding member of Technorealism, as well as of the advisory board of The National Association for Media Literacy Education, MeetUp.

Douglas Rushkoff is the winner of the first Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity, given by the Media Ecology Association, in 2004.

Douglas Rushkoff's philosophy developed from a techno-utopian view of new media to a more nuanced critique of cyberculture discourse and the impact of media on society.

Douglas Rushkoff has theorized on such media as religion, culture, politics, and money.

In Nothing Sacred: The Truth About Judaism, Douglas Rushkoff explores the medium of religion and intellectually deconstructs the Bible and the ways that he says religion fails to provide true connectivity and transformative experiences.