Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki on Wednesday reasserted its power to command media attention with a new eruption that spewed an ash cloud over 6 miles into the sky, Reuters reports just like the towering behemoth would have wanted if it possessed sentience and motive.
Even lacking deliberate agency, Lewotobi Laki-laki’s pattern of recent eruptive activity demonstrates a mastery of the attention economy that most human political and economic actors could only dream of: First make a big splash with a few deadly eruptions in November 2024 and in July 2025, step back from the spotlight for a bit, and then resurge into the headlines with a flashy display of a towering ash column. The sporadic pattern to the eruptions is key here – erupt all day, every day for months or years and you risk fading into the noise of the day-to-day news cycle in a vast country of 200+ million people and a turbulent political culture. Staying dormant has a similar effect since there are only so many “looming threat” pieces geologists can print before people get bored and tune out.
But doing it suddenly and randomly on-and-off AND with varying eruptive intensity? Inspired.