be your own algorithm

Hold on. Let me get in a costume real quick.

That's more like it. Society. One thing

I want to make immediately clear from the jump. If you take nothing else away

the jump. If you take nothing else away from this video, let it be this. I hate

with every cell in my body the completely unregulated and basically unoptoutable blight that is blackbox big tech algorithmic social feeds. As an

independent creator, I deeply resent that I can pour months of blood, sweat, and tears into a video that the people who have already elected to follow me might not see if a computer opaquely determines the vibes are ever so

slightly off. Or even worse, a computer

slightly off. Or even worse, a computer might just as opaquely decide to pipe my video directly into the feeds of bored, disaffected people who are actively antagonistic to me and my ideas. It's

been known to happen. But more than anything, I hate the reason this is happening. Do you know what Netflix's

happening. Do you know what Netflix's CEO said? The app's biggest competitor

CEO said? The app's biggest competitor is sleep. Tech oligarchs see our

is sleep. Tech oligarchs see our collective attention as their manifest destiny. And I'm making that comparison

destiny. And I'm making that comparison very deliberately. Much like the

very deliberately. Much like the American white nationalists of the 19th century who believe that they were more entitled to the entire west side of the continent and the people who already lived there. That's how tech executives

lived there. That's how tech executives see the space between your ears is techro exceptionalism. They're at the

techro exceptionalism. They're at the top already and the only way they can interpret their own positionality without imploding their worldview is by telling themselves that they are the most deserving. They're so much further

most deserving. They're so much further up the ladder than everybody else. So

that must mean that the rest of us aren't even the same kind of human as them. My day job is actually in tech.

them. My day job is actually in tech.

And it's with over a decade of experience that I tell you the people who run these companies think you're dirt. They would pipe slop into your

dirt. They would pipe slop into your feed if that's what captured your attention most effectively. And indeed

they are. And they formed a symbiotic relationship with the sort of grifters and bad actors who don't mind gaming the system to manufacture slop crowding legitimate creators off the stage.

Working together, there's nothing they won't do to capture your attention because your complete and undivided attention is their final frontier. And

what's worse is that nobody's quite on the hook for it. Because daytoday, hour to hour, minute to minute, it's not a person deciding what will most effectively capture your attention. It's

an algorithm. And not just one algorithm, but a different custom algorithm for every person with an internet connection. An algorithm has no

internet connection. An algorithm has no soul, no conscience, no compassion, no sense of duty, no taste. It cannot be moved by art. It cannot be emboldened to action. It cannot love. An algorithm

action. It cannot love. An algorithm

does not feel. An algorithm cannot be held accountable for its decisions. You

can find the programmer who wrote it, but they're not in charge of it anymore.

It is an entity designed to work independently of its creator, and that's exactly what it's doing. This is called an accountability sync, and it's a feature, not a bug. I think this is all quite bad. I believe we should live in a

quite bad. I believe we should live in a world where human beings are responsible for the things that happen in it. That

way, uh, when something goes wrong, we can walk up to a guy and say, "Hey, what gives?" You know, in theory. Another

gives?" You know, in theory. Another

thing that working in tech has taught me is that the tech industry as it currently exists, uh, must be destroyed.

and I believe it will be perhaps by the weight of its own hubris. I decided over a year ago I wanted to make a video about all of this. Uh I was angry about what the internet had become and the ways it was making me feel. So I picked

up Filter World: How Algorithms Flatten Culture by Kelchica thinking I'd be using it to back up my own points for this project that I'd already laid out in my own mind. But that's not what ended up happening. Reading is funny that way. You go in expecting to have

that way. You go in expecting to have your pre-existing beliefs confirmed and then you're challenged in them, if not always in ways you or the author expected. Here's my good readads review

expected. Here's my good readads review of Filter World by Cal Jagga. Look, no

one hates big tech's relentless appetite for our collective attention more than me. But beyond the first few chapters,

me. But beyond the first few chapters, which are by far the strongest, that's not even what the book's about. Filter

World is a cynical and often contradictory book that occasionally veers into downright misanthropy. The

latter half undergarded by Chica's thinly veiled contempt for creators who work outside of institutions that he personally approves of. Criterion good,

bedroom pop bad. And God help you if he sees you taking a photo of a beautiful waterfall on your once in a-lifetime international vacation. and you clout

international vacation. and you clout chasing rube. The thing I'm going to

chasing rube. The thing I'm going to keep bringing up in this video is that I agree with Kyle Chica about a lot of things. I do think we're being fed slop,

things. I do think we're being fed slop, but at the same time, I I don't think you have to look that hard to find stuff that's not slop everywhere. That

non-slop is actually more plentiful and more accessible than it's ever been if you take the initiative to look for it.

If you take one thing from this video, let it be that I hate what algorithmic social feeds have done to the internet.

But if you take two things from this video, let the second be that the human creative spirit is indomitable. This

video is not really a review of Filter World. Uh, it's an essay structured

World. Uh, it's an essay structured around the existential spiral it triggered in me, even though, and perhaps because I did not like it very much. The ways I intellectually

much. The ways I intellectually disagreed with its conclusions, my emotional reaction to it, uh, to talk about those things responsibly and persuasively and with emotional honesty.

Here, I had to stare into the mirror for a long time. Uh, and this video, this essay is about what I saw staring back, part one, story time. So, if you don't

already know me, hi. Hello. I'm glad

you're here. My name is Mel. In 2020, I started making short form videos about books, mostly doing analysis and reviews and posting them onto Tik Tok. I became

a book talker, if you will. And I had kind of a knack for it and I enjoyed doing it. And so, my ambitions grew into

doing it. And so, my ambitions grew into what you now see before you.

Impressive. No. These days, I make content about other stuff too, obviously. But bookworld remains my

obviously. But bookworld remains my primary social ecosystem online because I love to read and talk about books.

It's kind of my thing. So, that's why I was live tweeting Filter World when I first read it back in March. Not with

any goal or broader point in mind necessarily, but because it's what I do online. I had a Filter World thread

online. I had a Filter World thread going on with three or four posts over on threads, and I capped the thread off with a screenshot of my Goodreads review, which was pretty negative, as you heard, because I didn't like the book very much. It's author Kyle Chica

and I do not follow each other. I did

not tag him or even include his name or the name of the book in my post because I didn't want him to be able to search for it. In no way did I deliberately

for it. In no way did I deliberately invite Kyle Chica into my world or into my thread about his book. And I honestly wasn't even worried about it because not many people follow me on threads. But

maybe you can see where this is going because sure enough that same day Kalcha replied directly to my review of his book with a succinct ouch. I'm not sure what was going through Kalcha's head when he decided to do this. If you're

not in book review world, this is considered to be a breach of etiquette.

Authors directly interacting with critical reviews of their work is generally frowned upon. I want to give Chica the benefit of the doubt and assume that he wasn't trollling his feeds for mentions of his book specifically, that he just happened upon

my review accidentally while he was scrolling, which probably felt bad. And

in that moment, I'm guessing he probably wanted to let me know that I'd made him feel bad. So, the ouch reads to me as a

feel bad. So, the ouch reads to me as a kind of like, "Hey, I'm walking here."

type exclamation. I I think he wanted to make me feel guilty for hurting him, and it worked. I do try very hard to avoid

it worked. I do try very hard to avoid hurting people unless absolutely necessary and it brings me no pleasure to know that I've done it in this case even though it wasn't my intention. I'm

not sorry for my actions. I stand by my review and my right to post it. But I am legitimately sorry that Kyle Chica saw it when he wasn't deliberately seeking it out and I certainly wasn't trying to show it to him. The reason I bring this up at all, the reason it's relevant,

Kyle Chica and I were both manipulated by the algorithm here. Kcho very likely did not want to see my review of his book. I didn't want him to see my review

book. I didn't want him to see my review of his book. But that didn't matter. The

algorithm decided through its myriad deliberately obfuscated calculations that plopping my post into Kalcha's feed was likely to result in engagement regardless of what he or I, the most

invested parties, the creators of the content wanted. And you know what's

content wanted. And you know what's messed up? The algorithm was right. Part

messed up? The algorithm was right. Part

two. What is filter world? There was a video that went viral on fashion talk earlier this year by a creator called Wanders [ __ ] The video begins with a stitch of a room full of women, mostly

in their 20s and 30s, presumably in New York or LA, who are all wearing variations of the same outfit, beige coats, white pants, white shoes. Wanders

leads off her commentary with this. We

are genuinely in the end time. She goes

on to argue that influencer culture perpetuates homogeneity and conformity, and she connects those values in fashion to the resurgence of the fascist far right, both politically and culturally.

I'm sympathetic to this argument to be clear and I think she makes some good points, but what I'm really fixated on is that hook. We are genuinely in the end time. So, this is a sales pitch. Not

end time. So, this is a sales pitch. Not

only is it a sales pitch, it's an anti- tech spin on a classic tech sales pitch.

This is how JAI is being sold right now.

In 2023, CNN ran an article called Sam Alman Warns AI could kill us all. He

still wants us to use it. Sam Alman, if you didn't know, is the CEO of OpenAI, the makers of ChatGBT. The creator

Wonders [ __ ] and and Sam Alman are selling very different things.

Wonderslut, just like me, really just wants to sell you on sticking around till the end of the video. Maybe hit

subscribe if you're feeling generous.

Sam Alman is selling you on confessing your darkest desires to an imaginary friend in the hopes that one day it'll learn enough to take your job. But also

selling you, the person watching this video, it's his secondary aim. A tech

CEO's primary aim is always not to sell it to consumers, but to investors who don't really care if AI takes your job and probably actually see it as a lucrative possibility. But in both

lucrative possibility. But in both cases, the fear-mongering is the marketing. Get on board or get left

marketing. Get on board or get left behind. It's just that the trains are

behind. It's just that the trains are headed in in different directions. I've

been seeing a lot of videos criticizing algorithmically served culture lately, and I'm seeing them ironically after they go viral via my algorithmically generated recommendations. Tik Tok is

generated recommendations. Tik Tok is ruining reading. Why is social media no

ruining reading. Why is social media no fun anymore? Social media is making us

fun anymore? Social media is making us dumb depressed poor antisocial fill in the blank. It's not that I necessarily disagree with all of that.

It's just like again and again, there's this framing that insists on treating a given contemporary cultural phenomenon as a harbinger of humanity's ultimate doom that I think is entertainingly

hyperbolic and perhaps provides the viewer with a bit of delicious shooid. A

comfortable perch from which to sit and judge the unwashed masses.

algorithmically served anti-algorithm content has become its own content niche. That might even be why you

niche. That might even be why you clicked on this video. I think this kind of content is gaining traction, of course, in part because it's reacting to something real. It has concerns that are

something real. It has concerns that are rooted in reality and that are shared by the audience it's finding. But I also think this content is appealing because there's something seductive about relaxing and how terrible everything

feels. There can be relief in

feels. There can be relief in relinquishing control in that way. If

you're unhappy with your digital life, if art isn't resonating with you, if you're not finding joy in anything you're engaging with, I think it can be a relief to conclude that art must just be uniquely bad. Now, I get it. I do. I

also think it's kind of a copout. Filter

World is the crown jewel of algorithm friendly, anti-algorithm content. I

actually first heard about Filter World via algorithmic feed, and it's actually pretty easy for me to reverse engineer why. I'm interested in technology, and I

why. I'm interested in technology, and I also like to read books. And I have a mutual, Nathan, who mostly talks about non-fiction books. And so his video

non-fiction books. And so his video about filter world was predictably piped directly into my feed. The premise of the book Chica's thesis is that culture is uniquely suffering in this moment.

It's becoming flatter, more anodine, less challenging, less interesting as a direct consequence of algorithmic feeds being the primary medium through which most of us are exposed to new culture.

The word filter itself is sha's coinage to describe the quote vast interlocking and yet diffuse network of algorithms that influence our lives today which has had a particularly dramatic impact on culture and the ways it is distributed

and consumed. Chica assumes that the

and consumed. Chica assumes that the goal of every serious content creator is to accumulate as many likes as possible on each consecutive post. And so we're in the midst of a great cultural flattening because creators are

engineering their content and an attempt to appeal to the broadest possible demographic by making their content, their art as deliberately unchallenging and uncontroversial as possible. And

that's a big problem if you value good art, which is necessarily challenging and often controversial. Jacob argues

we're absorbing more culture than ever, but it's not enriching or meaningful or resonant. He repeatedly compares the

resonant. He repeatedly compares the culture served to us on algorithmic feeds to junk food. There are no nutrients in it. we consume it and then immediately forget about it. He begins

the book with a crash course in computer history from Ada Love Lace to Alan Turing uh up through our contemporary hellscape. In my favorite section of the

hellscape. In my favorite section of the book, he pins the beginning of the end of the bright promises of the early internet onto Facebook. Believe it or not, there was a time in the not too distant past where you'd be scrolling

and you'd reach the end of your feed.

But then came Facebook's news feed, which endlessly pulled in more content whenever you reached the bottom of your screen, guessing at what you'd most like to see next based on your previous behavior, which Facebook tracked not only in the app, but across the entire

internet via its notoriously hard to shake spyware. So instead of showing you

shake spyware. So instead of showing you content based on who you've already elected to follow, with the advent of Facebook's newsfeed, you've now got an algorithm analyzing your behavior and making those decisions for you. And

that's a monumental shift, right? From

totally proactive to totally reactive almost overnight. And now years later,

almost overnight. And now years later, Chica argues that the cumulative effect of algorithmic ubiquity is that the dopamine rush has become inadequate and the noise and speed of the feeds overwhelming. Our natural reaction is to

overwhelming. Our natural reaction is to seek out culture that embraces nothingness that blankets and soothes rather than challenges or surprises.

Part three. Dear Kyle, this is as good a time as any to address Kylega directly.

Hi Kyle, may I call you Kyle for the duration of this segment? I hope you're not here. And if you are, I I urge you

not here. And if you are, I I urge you to turn back, but if you're still here, hello. Perhaps I've appeared on your

hello. Perhaps I've appeared on your radar once again because an algorithm with no concern for your mental and emotional well-being shoved my work in front of your face predicting that you were once again likely to engage with it. Relatable and I'm sorry about that.

it. Relatable and I'm sorry about that.

Back when I posted about your book on threads, a buddy of yours, I presume, also replied to me and and said something really interesting. They said,

"I couldn't be more wrong about you."

What I want to make so crystal clear here is I don't know you and I don't claim to. Can we get spiritual for a

claim to. Can we get spiritual for a second? I do not believe that writing,

second? I do not believe that writing, even non-fiction writing or memoir writing, is some like pure distillation of one's soul. I believe that writing is work and the product of that work, a

completed book, is a one-time conversation between you and the universe that you have generously invited the public to witness. I'm glad

you wrote this book. I'm glad I read it.

If you're puzzled by my strongly worded Goodreads review, it boils down to this.

I found your book repeatedly conflates this substance of mine and my peers work with its method of distribution. And

frankly, I don't appreciate being lumped in with a boot that's stomping me into the ground. In that way, I think your

the ground. In that way, I think your book is actually perpetuating the most dangerous aspect of algorithmic culture, which is its tendency to divorce the content from the human being who created it. I don't think of my work as junk

it. I don't think of my work as junk food. I actually take it quite

food. I actually take it quite seriously. I will have spent hundreds of

seriously. I will have spent hundreds of hours researching and scripting and editing this video by the time I release it. And the thing about being a creator

it. And the thing about being a creator in this ecosystem, if I want anyone to see my work, I have to take a huge gamble. When I hit publish, if the first

gamble. When I hit publish, if the first few people who see this video don't engage with it in quite the right way, it's dead on arrival and no one will see it. Not even the people who have already

it. Not even the people who have already elected to follow me who I am most interested in seeing it. So, it's not about me feeling entitled to algorithmic amplification as you argue in your book.

It's about feeling entitled to compensation for my labor. And it

doesn't have to be a lot. I'm already

doing this mostly for free. Even

factoring in my Patreon, I'm not making anywhere close to a living off of this stuff. But the companies that host my

stuff. But the companies that host my content and my peers content are certainly making money off of it. And

yet, nobody would be here if it weren't for us. In your book, you refer to

for us. In your book, you refer to influencing as a viable career path. But

how viable is it really for the 99% of us who aren't Charlie D'Amelio? So, I

started out on TikTok, right? And my

account over there is monetized. So, I'm

technically one of the fortunate few.

But, Bite Dance does not have an HR department. They sure don't offer

department. They sure don't offer benefits. You can't negotiate wages. You

benefits. You can't negotiate wages. You

can't even reliably get in touch with a human being. Believe me, I've tried. You

human being. Believe me, I've tried. You

take what they give you or you take nothing at all. In this way, as an independent creator, I have a lot more in common with Uber drivers and other app-based gig workers than I do with Charlie De'milio. Uber has a strike

Charlie De'milio. Uber has a strike system just like Tik Tok. And just like Tik Tok, your account and by extension your livelihood can and often is terminated with no warning and no recourse. And that switch is not being

recourse. And that switch is not being flipped by a human. And that's part of it, right? Like the lack of human

it, right? Like the lack of human accountability is the point. And I think one of the things you and I agree on is that that is very bad. Part four, the medium is the message. Marshall McLuhan

was a prominent Canadian philosopher and communications theorist working in the 60s and 70s. You probably heard his very famous theory, the medium is the message. Despite the prevalence of that

message. Despite the prevalence of that phrase, what it actually means is deceptively complex. Basically, McLuhan

deceptively complex. Basically, McLuhan argues in the first chapter of his 1964 book, Understanding Media, that the medium that a society uses for its communication will itself, more than the

content of the messages contained within that medium, shape how society functions, how it creates infrastructure, how it progresses, and how it collapses. The ideas that a society is able to even conceive of are

informed more by the medium than the content that that medium relays. Movies,

not any one particular movie, but the medium of moving pictures viewed in a theater changed how people spent their days off of work, how they dated, how they socialized. Radios changed how

they socialized. Radios changed how people structured their evenings and leisure time with their families. TVs

changed how people arranged their furniture in their houses. Think about

it this way. What's had a greater impact on society? The stories in every book

on society? The stories in every book ever written or or the existence of of books themselves? After invoking McLuhan

books themselves? After invoking McLuhan and filter world, Shaker writes, "In our case, the medium is the algorithmic feed. It has scaled and sped up

feed. It has scaled and sped up humanity's interconnection across the world to an unimaginable degree. Its

message is that on some level our collective consumption habits translated into data run together into sameness.

Jacob is invoking the medium is the message to essentially cast a value judgment here saying that the medium in this case algorithmic social feeds is making the message qualitatively worse

than it might otherwise be in I don't know a reality that doesn't exist. And

yeah, I just don't think that arguing that a broad swath of culture is bad is an appropriate or anthropologically useful observation. I also just don't

useful observation. I also just don't think it's true. It is observable reality that people that artists have and will always find remarkable ways to create and innovate within constraints,

including from within an algorithmic distribution system. There's just no

distribution system. There's just no sense denying that. I've been doing this for 5 years and I am like overwhelmed by the talent and creativity of my peers in this space. And yeah, there's a lot of

this space. And yeah, there's a lot of content out there that I think is really bad, too. But let's not throw the baby

bad, too. But let's not throw the baby out with the bath water here. Imagine

making the same argument about movies.

Saying that the advent and proliferation of movies was an indicator of some fundamental worsening of humanity. And

I'm not a historian, but like I'm sure people did argue that. There's a lot of evidence to work with. Some movies are very bad. And when I say bad, I mean

very bad. And when I say bad, I mean across an entire spectrum of badness, with one end containing ultimately harmless movies that are poor examples of their craft and the other end containing movies that have actually mobilized people to violence. And those

are just individual movies. If we zoom out, we can see systematic harm that only exists because movies exist. The

Haze Code, NBAA, a long, long lineage of abused and exploited actors. All of

these real harms only made possible by movies existing in the first place. The

medium is the message. Movies have

killed people literally by nature of the medium of real people needing to simulate actions as opposed to symbolizing actions with words on a page. Nobody's ever died from a

page. Nobody's ever died from a character in a book using a gun. But

many people have died due to malfunctions related to real human actors using guns as a direct consequence of the medium. So there's a lot of bad stuff happening there. But

also, you know, it's movies. this

exponential advancement in human expression and storytelling, one that synthesizes and narrativizes all the art forms we hold most dear. Does anyone

really think we'd be better off without movies? Like, what's even the use of

movies? Like, what's even the use of that question? And part of what's

that question? And part of what's allowing me to say all that so confidently is hindsight. Movies have

been around for a while now, and there's a lot to look back on. Do you think historians and anthropologists will look back on short form video content in 300 years and say, "Well, that all sucked."

You know, probably not, just cuz that's not really how anthropologists talk. But

to paint with such a broad brush seems to willfully ignore not just the boundlessness of human creativity adapted to this new medium but also the democracy of it. When we say the medium is the message applied to filter world,

we can't just look at the algorithm in isolation. In understanding media,

isolation. In understanding media, Marshall McLuhan writes that the content of any medium is always another medium.

The content of writing is speech just as the written word is the content of print. Algorithmic social feeds do not

print. Algorithmic social feeds do not exist in a vacuum. We medium is the messaged our way into this. How do you browse algorithmic social feeds? With

your pocket supercomputer, of course, your pocket supercomputer that's cheap enough to be ubiquitous. Everybody has

one. And what makes everybody's pocket computers different than the pawn pilots that preceded them? Well, they can send and receive data to and from a globally distributed network incredibly fast and reliably. Can you jam with the console

reliably. Can you jam with the console cowboys in cyerspace? And when your pocket computer connects to that network, when you're looking at your phone's web browser, how does your phone know what to display? It interprets

text, human written text, called hypertext markup language. And you might not have thought about it since your MySpace days, but HTML is still the foundation of the web. And HTML uses

human language to create metaphors that that enables efficient communication between other humans because computers can read zeros and ones. HTML uses

semantic tags. They're called things like header and main and footer and section because they're metaphors that humans can read and understand. The

medium is the message and the message of every medium is another medium. To use

the web, you need to be able to read and write. The reason so many people are

write. The reason so many people are creating so much noise online is that more people are reading and writing every day than ever before in human history. Maybe that's the core of my

history. Maybe that's the core of my issue with filter world. Like I I don't feel like art is uniquely bad right now.

I just think there is a lot a lot a lot more of it than there ever has been. And

it's all screaming at us for attention and it's incredibly overwhelming. Kyle

Chica is afraid that art is bad right now and getting worse. You want to know what I'm afraid of? I'm afraid that mass human literacy is a fluke, a blip on the radar, a candle flickering precariously through a stormy night soon to be

snuffed out, plunging us into another dark ages. So, it's not that I think

dark ages. So, it's not that I think Kalcha's fears are invalid. It's just

that the noise is a price that I'm willing to pay. Jaca and I agree about the great media challenge of our age, though, which is to figure out ways to sort through this huge volume of media and create meaning from it. because

right now that's something we've completely outsourced to for-profit tech companies and that is a problem. And

yeah, I do think there might be some overall degradation of mainstream art happening because of or in relation to that. But also, I have to acknowledge

that. But also, I have to acknowledge that there are still more books, more records, more movies, more essays, more interesting YouTube videos, more scripted podcasts, more weird indie websites, more video games, more board

games than I could ever possibly hope to experience in my lifetime. And how cool is that? Do I think we're in a uniquely

is that? Do I think we're in a uniquely bad moment right now? Well, yeah. But I

also think that every moment in history has been a uniquely bad moment. That's

the thing about people. We always think we're living in especially awful times and we're almost always right. But isn't

this a serious danger that you foresee?

This lack of identity, loss of identity.

Danger is of the very element that we live in in the in the 20th century and extinction is the immediate possibility every hour of the day. Part five,

hipster coffee shop. It's getting pretty heavy with all this descent into the new dark ages talk. Let's rein it in a bit.

Let's talk about a loadbearing pillar of Chica's argument that algorithms are flattening culture. The hipster coffee

flattening culture. The hipster coffee shop. Filter world is not limited to

shop. Filter world is not limited to digital experiences on our screens. It

is a pervasive force that shapes the physical world, too. Chica goes on to describe how when visiting a new city for work in the houseion days of Yelp, he would often search for cafes to work in using the phrase hipster coffee shop.

Inevitably, I could quickly identify a cafe among the search results that had the requisite qualities. plentiful

daylight through large storefront windows, industrialsized wood tables for accessible seating, a bright interior with walls painted white or covered in subway tiles. The most committed among

subway tiles. The most committed among the cafes would offer a flat white and avocado toast. These cafes had all

avocado toast. These cafes had all adopted similar aesthetics and offered similar menus, but they hadn't been forced to do so by a corporate parent.

He goes on to argue that hipster coffee shops are a physical manifestation of algorithm culture. To court the large

algorithm culture. To court the large demographic of customers molded by the internet, more cafes needed to adopt the aesthetics that already dominated on the platforms. Adapting to the norm wasn't just following fashion, but making a

business decision, one that consumers rewarded. When a cafe was visually

rewarded. When a cafe was visually pleasing enough, customers felt encouraged to post it on their own Instagram, in turn, as a lifestyle brag, which provided free social media advertising and attracted new customers.

So, I don't think this is wrong. But I

do think Instagram was acting as an accelerant here, not the root cause, because I don't think this phenomenon is unique or new. I think it's just kind of how creation and commodification of

culture works within capitalism. Here,

let's let's break things up with some fiction real quick. The franchise and the virus work on the same principle.

What thrives in one place will thrive in another. You just have to find a

another. You just have to find a sufficiently virilent business plan, condense it into a three- ring binder, its DNA, xerox it, and embed it in the fertile lining of a welltraveled highway, preferably one with a left turn lane. Then the growth will expand until

lane. Then the growth will expand until it runs up against its property lines.

In olden times, you'd wander down to Mom's Cafe for a bite to eat and a cup of Joe, and you'd feel right at home. It

worked just fine if you never left your hometown. But if you went to the next

hometown. But if you went to the next town over, everyone would look and stare at you when you came in the door. And

the blue plate special would be something you didn't recognize. If you

did enough traveling, you'd never feel at home anywhere. But when a businessman from New Jersey goes to Debuke, he knows he can walk into a McDonald's and no one will stare at him. He can order without having to look at the menu, and the food

will always taste the same. McDonald's

is home condensed into a three- ring binder in Xerox. So, this is a spiritually identical sentiment to what Chica is expressing, except it's from Snow Crash, which is a cyberpunk novel by Neil Stevenson, published in 1992, 18

years before Instagram was founded. The

difference is that, you know, McDonald's is a corporation. Its sameness is mandated from the top down. And Chica

doesn't understand why a coffee shop would be so generic if it weren't forced to be by a corporate overlord. And it's

because it doesn't need to be forced.

The sameness is precisely what is generating business. Flat whites good

generating business. Flat whites good lighting and free Wi-Fi is indeed a sufficiently virilent business plan. I'm

also interested in Shaker's use of the word hipster because he uses it both to describe coffee shops of a decade ago when he was doing his Yelp thing and contemporary coffee shops interchangeably. I'm interested in it

interchangeably. I'm interested in it cuz hipsters don't exist anymore. Or if

they do, everyone's a hipster. Hipster

is not some generic word for with it youth. Hipster used to be an alternative

youth. Hipster used to be an alternative subculture starting in the early as going up through the early 2010s referring to a shared set of aesthetics, sensibilities, and ideals. Go analog,

baby. You're so the kids who were too young to live through it are are now retroactively calling it indie sleas, which I actually think is a more intellectually honest name because you can track the sanding down of the sleas

and the grit and the nastiness of early hipster culture with its complete sublimation into the mainstream.

Hipsterism was a thing in New York and LA and then it spread to smaller cities and by 2006 I knew what a hipster was and was trying to be one in the suburbs of nowhere. Then a few years after that,

of nowhere. Then a few years after that, Zoe Desanel took network television by storm. I like the new girl. I think it's

storm. I like the new girl. I think it's a funny show. Jess day is a network TV executive's idea of what a hipster is.

The new hipsters, by which I mean the creatives on the bleeding edge of culture, they weren't looking to just day for their inspiration. Right? by the

time she makes it onto TV that she represents the past. The new hipsters, whatever they're called, they've already moved on to the next thing. Mike Pearl

lays out this cycle in his essay about chintz called the original slop, how capitalism be great at art 400 years before AI. We associate the word chintzy

before AI. We associate the word chintzy with lowquality tac, but chintz was once a highly intricate and detailed handicraft that was not chintzy at all.

The word chintzy has less to do with chintz than what western Europeans did to chints when they started importing it from India in huge quantities. And while

it surprised me at first to learn that I had completely slept on what chintz actually was. The road from there to the

actually was. The road from there to the adjective chintzy followed a very familiar course. Humans make something

familiar course. Humans make something beautiful. It's popular for a reason.

beautiful. It's popular for a reason.

Capital profits from selling it. But

then capital wants to bypass the original creators to make more money.

Such efforts at reproduction are thwarted which makes capitalists resent crafts people. Eventually, capital can

crafts people. Eventually, capital can sort of reproduce this thing well enough to remove human creativity from the picture anyway. But what they really

picture anyway. But what they really succeed in doing is creating crap. The

original is at last mistaken for crap.

This is how culture operates within capitalism. Rentseeking vampires suck it

capitalism. Rentseeking vampires suck it dry until there's no soul left.

Sometimes until we've forgotten the thing was sold in the first place. What

looks like a trend to a white business executive is often actually, you know, culture created within a context that those executives and investors and shareholders are anywhere between

ambivalent about or outright hostile to.

Coffee is old. Really, really old, right? It has roots in Ethiopia and

right? It has roots in Ethiopia and Yemen. But in the scope of history,

Yemen. But in the scope of history, coffee is considerably newer to white westerners, and American coffee culture only became widely associated with urbane youth in the '90s. To some people that might have looked like the

beginning of a trend, but it's really the mass saturation point of a very, very, very, very old cultural practice.

So, like, of course, every coffee shop looks the same. Now, the coffee has been gentrified to hell. This is the end of the road. This is where culture goes to

the road. This is where culture goes to die. There's no direction but down. Part

die. There's no direction but down. Part

six. Loi beats to relax/study to. Okay,

let's talk about the two genders. I'm

referring, of course, to Brian Eno and Loi Hip Hop. On one hand, we have Brian Eno's Music for Airports released in 1978. It's credited as the birth of the

1978. It's credited as the birth of the ambient music genre. Eno intentionally

composed the music to be pleasant, unobtrusive, to be simultaneously easy to ignore and possible to focus deeply on. To me, you know, it sounds like

on. To me, you know, it sounds like elevator music took a Valium. Crucially,

and I listened to the whole album to make sure there are no drums. Then, on the other hand, we have the relatively naent genre of lowfi hip-hop. You might

be familiar via studying and relaxing to it on YouTube. It's mellow downo instrumental hip-hop. The lowfi

instrumental hip-hop. The lowfi descriptor refers both to sonic and production qualities. These tracks are

production qualities. These tracks are often composed on DIY setups and overlaid with additional texture and distortion, usually for added warmth.

Think the gentle chatter of an upscale bar, a needle gently scratching vinyl, rain pattering against a window pane, that sort of thing. And unlike music for airports, it does feature a lot of drum

sounds. They're sort of the most

sounds. They're sort of the most important part. It's right there in the

important part. It's right there in the name.

beats. In a section of filter world called ambient culture, Chica argues that cultural innovation is indeed happening, but only in the direction of the feed. He writes that there is

the feed. He writes that there is nothing to alienate personal taste, but also nothing to deeply compel it. The

successor to Brian Ena's music for airports is the YouTube stream Lofi Hip Hop Radio beats to relax/study to which was created by a DJ named Dmitri going by the username ChilledCow in 2015. The

music is utterly forgettable. The songs

are almost indistinguishable from one another. As Ena suggested, it can be

another. As Ena suggested, it can be ignored or actively listened to, but it mostly gets ignored.

Am I really about to do this? I fear I must. I I don't see an alternative here.

must. I I don't see an alternative here.

So, join me as I explain what hip-hop is.

Brian Eno put out music for airports in 1978. Yes. Okay. While that was

1978. Yes. Okay. While that was happening, there was a lot of other stuff happening in music, too. In the

70s, there was this new and controversial idea that a DJ uh could also be a musician in their own right.

At house parties, DJs began to use turntables to target and rapidly transition between funk and soul songs in order to isolate the breakdowns of those songs because those were the most densable parts. That way, the dancing

densable parts. That way, the dancing never had to stop. DJs continued to build on this idea and began to actually modify the music even more by playing with speed, repetition, dynamics, creating live collages of multiple songs

spliced together, making the breaks last forever. And that's where we get break

forever. And that's where we get break dancing. DJs were getting really busy

dancing. DJs were getting really busy behind their turntables. So, the master of ceremonies, the MC, became the person to work the crowd on the DJ's behalf.

And of course, that also became an art in itself. That's rap. 1989. The number

in itself. That's rap. 1989. The number

another summer sound of the funky drummer. Public enemy is not just

drummer. Public enemy is not just talking about any drummer. They're

talking about Clyde Stubblefield.

They're referencing one of the most famous and ubiquitous breaks in all of hip-hop. Sampled from Funky Drummer by

hip-hop. Sampled from Funky Drummer by James Brown. Funk is not some arbitrary

James Brown. Funk is not some arbitrary adjective there. Just like lowfi hip-hop

adjective there. Just like lowfi hip-hop is not some arbitrary descriptor of ambient music. Funky is referring to

ambient music. Funky is referring to funk music. Music with a strong downbeat

funk music. Music with a strong downbeat that emphasizes rhythmic bass grooves.

When we're talking about hip-hop, the beats are very important. I've been trying to be reasonable. I'm actually getting kind

be reasonable. I'm actually getting kind of mad right now. It's not that Brian Eno has nothing to do with it. Brian

Eno's made a lot of contributions to music and culture generally. Did you

know he composed the Windows Startup Chime? and all signs point to him being

Chime? and all signs point to him being based as hell. It's just that Lofi hip-hop is a much more direct successor to artists like D'Angelo and Common alongside beat makers and producers like Jay Dilla and also instrumental and

alternative hip-hop and neo soul and acid jazz. Hip hop and funk and soul and

acid jazz. Hip hop and funk and soul and R&B and jazz and blues and ragtime are black music. Music descended from

black music. Music descended from African polyw rhythms intentionally bugging and pushing the boundaries of European meter. Music specifically

European meter. Music specifically designed in a community context foregrounding live performance. Then how

dare you pluck fruit from that tree's youngest branch, credit a white guy with it and use it to bolster your argument that mainstream contemporary culture is shallow and lacking in context. The

medium is the message, right? And the

message of every medium is another medium. The medium that fostered hiphop

medium. The medium that fostered hiphop was this culture of house parties where everybody would get together and dance in the same room. So, if hip-hop is changing, if it's becoming quieter, more contemplative, more introverted, more

focused on digital tools and bedroom setups, if artists are deliberately layering in the sorts of sounds that mimic physical reality, like vinyl crackles and people talking, things that recording artists specifically avoided

in the past, I think we can guess at some reasons for that that go beyond beatmakers seeking to appeal to the lowest common denominator by making deliberately unchallenging music.

because Jacob argues.

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[Music] Part seven, who curates the curators?

The idea of lowbrow, low barrier to entry art being a corrosive cultural force is the emotional core of filter world. Frequently, Chega uses the phrase

world. Frequently, Chega uses the phrase lowest common denominator or similar to describe what he feels culture is being flattened into. The according to whom

flattened into. The according to whom goes more or less unexamined. I'm

sensitive to this because I come from book talk and there's been no shortage of breathless speculation in the form of self-righteous video essays on whether book talk is ruining reading. The

argument usually being that the loudest dennisens of book talk demand formulaic trope forward unchallenging material and that the publishing industry is happily capitulating to those demands thereby destroying literature as we know it. I

remain skeptical of these claims. Jaca actually talks about book talk a bit. He

writes about book influencers as a marketing force as opposed to a critical one who who use books as fashion accessories to sell an image. Quote,

"The algorithmic feed alienates the superficial symbol of the book from its actual value as literature." On the platform, books are popularized less as text to read than as purchasable lifestyle accessories, visual symbols of

an identity. Oh, and and incidentally,

an identity. Oh, and and incidentally, on the previous page, he also writes, "The kinds of books that become famous via social media were often romances and fantasy novels, like Casey McQuiston's Red, White, and Royal Blue, a gay love

story about an American and the Prince of Wales, and V. E. Schwab's The

Invisible Life of Addy Laroo about time travel and a curse of immortality." In

the interest of deflattening culture, as Jacob purports to want to do, I I fear I must interject yet again. That is maybe how you'd describe Red, White, and Royal Blue after three drunken rounds of

telephone. So, the American in the book

telephone. So, the American in the book is not just any American. He is the son of the first woman president of the United States. Also, I know this might

United States. Also, I know this might sound pedantic, but bear with me. I

don't really like the way gay is hitting my ear here. When we're talking about romance novels, we typically call a romance between two men mm because calling it gay just like is not always the most accurate descriptor. Like in

Red, White, and Royal Blue for example.

Red, White, and Royal Blue is a romance between two men and one of them is gay, but the main character, the sole point of view character is bisexual. And the

book is in no small part about exactly that. In the broader context of queer

that. In the broader context of queer culture, this is an important distinction. It's a really common

distinction. It's a really common experience for by men to be informed by other people that they're gay the moment they enter into a relationship with a man, throwing the legitimacy of relationships they may have had or will

have with women into question. Kind of

like how how by women are often told they're actually straight when they're in a relationship with a man. And notice

how it always comes back to men being the center of the universe. This is bif phobia. So, if we want to talk about the

phobia. So, if we want to talk about the importance of putting culture into context, there you go. Also, this one's a little easier. There is no time travel in The Invisible Life of Addy Laroo. I'm

not sure what happened there. I mean, a lot of time passes in it when you think about it. Every novel is a time travel

about it. Every novel is a time travel novel. Something that comes up over and

novel. Something that comes up over and over again in Filter World. this idea

that if a cultural work doesn't meet Shica's arbitrary standard of highbrow, then the only reason a creator could possibly be authentically interested in it is to make money off of selling it to you. You want people to see you a

you. You want people to see you a certain way. Okay, here's the book you

certain way. Okay, here's the book you should buy and be seen with. Engagement

with the text is literature. Be damned.

But Chica is doing the same thing he's accusing influencers of here. It could

not possibly be more obvious that he didn't read the books that he chose to site as influencer books. He did not engage with these texts. And yet he's using them to paint a portrait of a certain kind of creator. Hoompst is bad.

Hoompst is making culture worse. The

fear that books are becoming fashion accessories and that that's a new phenomenon stems from a much broader fear of chakas that I sympathize with which is that we're losing context.

We're depprioritizing curators. We're

losing institutional knowledge. And that

is very bad because only at the institutional level can we be thinking about long-term stewardship, about preserving and contextualizing art for future generations. But we've got a big

future generations. But we've got a big problem, and it's not just algorithm culture. The problem with outsourcing

culture. The problem with outsourcing your cultural diet to institutions is that at the current moment, a lot of our most esteemed cultural institutions are rapidly capitulating to and corroborating with fascism. Very early

in the book, Chica quotes cybernetics pioneer Stafford Beer, who in his 1968 book, Management Science, wrote, "We enshrine and steal, glass, and semiconductors those very limitations of hand, eye, and brain that the computer

was invented precisely to transcend."

This isn't just true for computers.

Pierre Bordeaux talks about this too. He

was a French sociologist who was born the son of a farmer and never felt totally comfortable mingling among the bgeoisi. He argued that class is

bgeoisi. He argued that class is unconsciously reproduced by the enforcement of among other things good taste. Cultural institutions are

taste. Cultural institutions are incredibly useful for fostering communities of learning that extend through generations for safeguarding and distributing resources in order to advance human knowledge beyond what any individual could accomplish on their

own. all things that are hugely missing

own. all things that are hugely missing from algorithmic culture. But at the same time, institutions can never be an unquestioned good because they will inevitably replicate the injustices of

the larger societies they were created in. If we fail to interrogate them, if

in. If we fail to interrogate them, if we outsource our cultural consumption to them instead of an algorithm, we still lose. There's a section in filter world

lose. There's a section in filter world I found inadvertently quite chilling. In

an attempt to illustrate the curatorial importance of cultural institutions like museums, Chica shadows the senior curator of the department of architecture at MoMA, Pa Anteneelli.

Here's what he writes. As she swept authoritatively through the galleries, Antelli noticed slight flaws in various displays. In one room, the wall labels

displays. In one room, the wall labels looked too worn and dogeared. In

another, a projector wasn't beaming as it should on an exhibition title to complete its lettering. Then she

observed that a gallery was missing guards who were particularly important given that the pieces were interactive video games.

That to me, you know, guards being so obviously required in a video game exhibit, you know, that's a conclusion you come to if your art gallery is already a miniature police state. After

reading Pierre Bord's work, David Osa Madison, a British black man, decided to undertake an experimental project designed to understand and break down the barriers separating working-class kids of color and their parents from the

cultural institutions that white middle and upper class kids are exposed to, like art galleries. And black people don't go to art galleries. He discusses

taking his own daughter to a Tracy Eman exhibit at the Hayward. And when they were walking over to the museum from the parking lot and his daughter saw the building, she had a freeze reaction. She

told him she wasn't going to go in the museum because, quote, "It's not me, Dad. It's not me." I was speechless. The

Dad. It's not me." I was speechless. The

daughter, who I seen hold her own in a rough schooling area, was visibly affected by a building. I was so upset that I nearly swore at her. I wasn't

upset or disappointed with her. It was

because in that brief moment, I felt my family's vulnerability to the mundane violence of cultural value. As a parent, I felt powerless, unable to protect her.

David Osa Madison is not anti-gallery.

Literally the opposite. He's made a career out of interrogating the boundaries between high and low art precisely because he understands how important access to these institution is for social mobility. How they're

designed literally from the studs up to keep certain people out. Part 8 plus state. One trait that virtually every

state. One trait that virtually every piece of anti-algorithm algorithm friendly content has in common is an extremely liberal use or really misuse of the word addiction. It feels unfair

to pin this on Chica because he's far from the first to do it. But he is a professional journalist. So it does

professional journalist. So it does surprise me when he writes things like, "Or perhaps social media belongs in the category of vice industries with tightly regulated limits meant for the safety of individuals who might otherwise abuse

it. After all, so many users are

it. After all, so many users are addicted without bothering to site a source for that claim." At the time of my writing the script, I couldn't find any scientific evidence that shows that people are addicted to scrolling

algorithmic social feeds or addicted to smartphones generally. In fact, I found

smartphones generally. In fact, I found some evidence that suggests the opposite. And I could be missing

opposite. And I could be missing something. I'm not a journalist. I'm

something. I'm not a journalist. I'm

certainly not a behavioral psychologist.

But then again, neither are most of the people I hear throwing this word around.

I don't want to come off as obtuse. I'm

not saying there's not a problem. And I

understand why people are attached to the word addiction to describe their relationship to scrolling, which is often maladaptive. And there is evidence

often maladaptive. And there is evidence that too much scrolling leads to mental health issues, especially in young people. And I want to be clear that for

people. And I want to be clear that for the purposes of this video, I am focusing on adults who are able to self-regulate. You, an adult, might keep

self-regulate. You, an adult, might keep coming back to scrolling even though you try to stop. But just because something's a bad habit doesn't make it an addiction. One of the reasons I don't

an addiction. One of the reasons I don't think addiction is quite the right word is, and if you've ever been addicted to drugs or alcohol or gambling or shopping, you'd know. It is sort of

infamously hard to admit out loud to other people or or even to yourself. In

part because of the incredible stigma the actual addicts face. And also

because just personally, when you're in the throws of addiction, it's terrifying to admit how out of control you actually feel. It's terrifying to acknowledge

feel. It's terrifying to acknowledge just how much you'd sacrifice, how much of your dearly held values you'd compromise to get your next fix. And so,

yeah, I I think the way we're using the word addiction to describe smartphone usage is pretty cavalier. When I think of addicts I've known in my life and the behaviors they've resorted to, that just

does not describe my relationship with scrolling. I'm not saying no one's truly

scrolling. I'm not saying no one's truly addicted. I'm saying there isn't a lot

addicted. I'm saying there isn't a lot of evidence yet to prove that most people are. And I'll say it again just

people are. And I'll say it again just cuz I think it bears repeating. Just

because something is a maladaptive habit does not make it an addiction. I think

maybe one of the reasons we all describe ourselves as being addicted to our phones is that it lets us off the hook a little bit. Like it's not you in

little bit. Like it's not you in control. It's this third party, your

control. It's this third party, your addiction. This other alien part of you

addiction. This other alien part of you that isn't the real you. I think

admitting that scrolling too much is just a truly bad habit encouraged at every opportunity by corporations with something to sell you. a bad habit that you could break but would have to work hard at and and would have to actively

build alternative habits to. I think

that feels harder for people than just throwing up their hands. It requires

reclaiming and consistently exerting control over your digital life when that control is often so much easier to outsource. So, what's happening to you

outsource. So, what's happening to you when you're scrolling and losing hours of your day without meaning to it's the result of flow state design, which is a dark design philosophy that aims to

maximize your time spent in the app. And

that means frictionlessness, that means passivity, that means instant feedback, minimizing hesitation, suppressing any stimuli that might encourage you to leave the app or make any kind of active

decision at all. If you design software products for the consumer market, and you want your company to survive so that you can continue to have a job, how do you do that? Virtually the only way to make money and free to use B2C software

is advertising. And advertisers only

is advertising. And advertisers only want to buy ad space from you if there's eyeballs in your app to look at them.

More eyeballs equals more time equals more money. That's it. But every design

more money. That's it. But every design decision you make is motivated by that.

To me, scrolling feels a lot like eating Pringles. I am not addicted to Pringles.

Pringles. I am not addicted to Pringles.

I go years without even thinking about them, but I will finish a tube in one sitting if someone hands one to me. When

I eat Pringles, I enter into a near frictionless loop of reaching for a chip, putting it in my mouth, feeling pleasure as the flavor bursts on my tongue, and then I'm already anticipating the next hit of pleasure as

I reach for another chip. And before I know it, the entire tube is gone. With a

normal food, my stomach would be telling me I'm getting full, introducing friction. But Pringles are deliberately

friction. But Pringles are deliberately designed not to be filling, specifically in order to eliminate that friction, so people eat more of them. But eventually,

I do reach the end of the tube. I I run up against the limits of physical reality. Here, a point of friction is

reality. Here, a point of friction is finally introduced. I use this moment to

finally introduced. I use this moment to collect myself. I was reaching for

collect myself. I was reaching for another Pringle, but the tube is empty.

Do I want to drive to the store to buy more Pringles right now? Probably not,

cuz I just ate an entire tube. And so

there's my exit ramp from the feedback loop. For digital products where the

loop. For digital products where the limitations of physical reality need not intervene, the design goal is to eliminate that exit ramp. When you're

scrolling on Tik Tok's for you page, you'll never reach the end of the tube.

Maybe the language of addiction feels so applicable because scrolling, since there's no need for friction at all, can feel a lot like playing a slot machine, which people can and do become truly

addicted to. Natasha Schul's landmark

addicted to. Natasha Schul's landmark study famously found that gamblers are less addicted to the money and more addicted to the translike state that Schul calls the machine zone. The longer

gamblers can stay in the machine zone, the more money the casino makes. And so

everything about the slot machine and the casino housing it is designed to maximize time spent on device. From the

windowless rooms to the cocooning feel of the seats to the cartoonish animations on the screen. The appeal of the machine zone is that it's disassociative. When you're in it,

disassociative. When you're in it, you're not thinking about your job or your bank account or your obligations.

You're in the zone. And that's why seemingly counterintuitively, Shul found that the slot machine players she interviewed were sometimes upset when they won, saying things like, "It's so

weird, but sometimes when I win a big jackpot, I feel angry and frustrated because even though they won, it introduced friction to this frictionless state, which was where they wanted to

be, and it forced them to make an active decision. Should they keep playing or

decision. Should they keep playing or should they walk away? When destiny has a sense of humor, you call it. Part

nine, serendipity. After writing about the importance of curation, how it's missing from algorithmic culture and why that matters, Shaker writes, now that we've seen the flattening effects of the dominance of algorithmic feeds and

culture during the latter half of the 2010s, entrepreneurs and designers are building new digital platforms that put curation first and deemphasize automated recommendations. Well, thank God

recommendations. Well, thank God entrepreneurs are on the case. Jacob

goes on to describe some of these apps that are putting more emphasis on curation that encourage curiosity and discovery by empowering users to explore the broader context surrounding the media they're consuming. This is an

alternative design methodology called serendipitous design. One of the apps

serendipitous design. One of the apps Shica mentions is Criterion, but Criterion works as both an app, but especially as a brand precisely because it's positioned itself as a thoughtful,

intentional, cerebral alternative to mainstream flow state giants like Netflix. Netflix wants you to watch

Netflix. Netflix wants you to watch forever, inoculating you to content that degrades in quality over time, with all roads eventually leading to AI slop. A

lot of what makes Criterion special is not like in the experience design of the app itself, but it's marketing which is extremely effective to a much smaller but more loyal demographic of people because they're people who respect

movies as art and speak about and relate to movies as art objects, which is unfortunately an alternative position.

Criterion works as an app and as a brand precisely because as Sha explains, it does not pursue scale at all costs. I

agree that's a preferable model. The

problem is big tech doesn't work that way because big tech investors are exclusively interested in products that will scale at whatever cost. And so

knowing that that's how big tech works, that that's not likely to change without some serious legislative intervention or outright industry collapse, what happens when the alternative becomes mainstream?

What if everybody decided today to cancel Netflix and move over to Criterion? Or maybe not everybody, but

Criterion? Or maybe not everybody, but enough people to create a network effect, enough people so that other tech companies take notice and start pivoting to the Criterion model, focusing on curation, focusing on quality and on

smaller selection pools. What if big tech abandoned the flow state interaction model and instead pursued serendipitous design? Would our digital

serendipitous design? Would our digital lives improve? In their essay, Against

lives improve? In their essay, Against the Paved Web, UX designer Lou Miller writes about artificial serendipity. So,

picture this scene. It's 2030. You're

exploring a new city. As you go along, your phone pings with a recommendation for a cute local restaurant. You head

along and have a lovely meal, thinking nothing of it. But what you don't know is that the restaurant pays Google to show up more in recommendations. And who

Google recommends the restaurant to is based off data that they buy from Meta, so they can increase how successful their recommendations are, then charge local venues increasingly high prices.

This creates artificial serendipity. It

replicates the emotions that create serendipity to enable the data economy to keep chugging along. The most

dangerous aspect of this is that it's harder to spot. If you're doom scrolling for ages, it's pretty easy to recognize that you're being manipulated. But if

this data collection and advertising can fit into your life without much friction, you won't recognize it when it's happening. Right now, the way for

it's happening. Right now, the way for tech companies to make the most money off of you is to keep you in their apps for as long as possible. And in some ways, that's easy to combat. You just

have to make the first move, close out of the app, and reclaim your attention.

But if that changes, if keeping you in the app for as long as possible is no longer the goal, then these companies will find ways to commodify your navigating the larger web, too. and

it'll be easier to trick yourself into thinking you're in control when you're actually not. SFFF author Kinloo wrote a

actually not. SFFF author Kinloo wrote a short story about this way back in 2012.

It's called The Perfect Match. Instead

of AI cluttering our feeds with useless slop, Lou imagines an artificially serendipitous AI in the form of an assistant persona called Tilly. In the

story, Tilly exists to make your life less overstimulating, not more. And you

get the most out of her by proactively choosing to offload menial and repetitive tasks to her. Things like

making restaurant reservations and running database queries. freeing you up to think about the things you want to be thinking about like art. This is exactly the kind of AI we used to imagine making our lives easier way before Mid Journey

and Chat GBT entered the picture. The

problem is the longer you use Tilly, the harder it becomes to disentangle her ideas from yours. Tilly is not benevolent and she's not unbiased. She's

the product of a for-profit tech company who wants to sell you stuff and wants to sell your stuff, your data. But by the time the main character of this story realizes the extent of the problem, she's become the scaffolding of his

entire life. He's a cyborg. How about

entire life. He's a cyborg. How about

you tell me what happened in the world yesterday? What book did you buy and

yesterday? What book did you buy and enjoy 3 years ago? When did you start dating your last girlfriend? What's your

mother's phone number? The people in this world are not addicted to this technology. The technology, specifically

technology. The technology, specifically the monopolistic company that sells the technology, have convinced people that leading a productive life means eliminating friction at all costs. and

in doing that has taken advantage of the very thing that makes us human. Our

incredible ability to use tools and has exploited that to create an infrastructure so ubiquitous that opting out becomes almost impossible. It's

molding the very thoughts it even occurs to you to think the medium is the message. You will have begun to notice

message. You will have begun to notice that this does not on a technical level sound that different to your current experience of the internet. That's

because simply changing engagement/flow-based design without addressing the underlying structure will only lead to data exploitation in a different form. While it may feel like

different form. While it may feel like you have more control and autonomy over where you go and what you do, this is elucery. The emotions that create

elucery. The emotions that create serendipity have been meticulously studied and artificially recreated. The

core issue is that people cannot control their own digital experiences. These

experiences are controlled for them. A

shift to serendipitous design wouldn't fix this problem, nor would most other prescriptive ideas about what the future of technology should look like. Instead,

it would simply strengthen the ways digital technology already controls our lives. Part 10. Am I

lives. Part 10. Am I

better than everyone? A lot of junk food talk today. I've been doing it and Shay

talk today. I've been doing it and Shay does it a lot throughout Filter World.

He frequently compares junk food to algorithmically distributed content. But

at this point, I want to make clear an important difference between the videos you see on your for you page and junk food. A Pringle is a corporate product.

food. A Pringle is a corporate product.

It exists to be consumed.

Food can be art, but Pringles, I would argue, are not really even food in the traditional sense. They're food second

traditional sense. They're food second and a consumer product first. Proctor

and Gamble did not invent them to nurture humankind or contribute to culture. They invented them to

culture. They invented them to massroduce for a profit. The thing about the hundreds of thousands of short form videos you encounter on your feed that makes them different from Pringles is

that individual humans made them often or usually with no expectation of meaningful compensation. Most of the

meaningful compensation. Most of the videos you see on your feed are expressions of the human experience.

That's what makes them resonant. That's

what keeps you coming back to them. They

are art. And sometimes art is bad.

Sometimes art is created in the hopes of making a quick buck. But more often, it's made for free and for joy of the thing. We make art because we're humans

thing. We make art because we're humans and it feels good to make stuff. As tech

companies who are taking advantage of that foundational human impulse, not the other way around. A lot of times when a video goes viral, it's like what happened to me in my Goodreads review of Filter World, but on a much larger

scale. When a video goes viral, the

scale. When a video goes viral, the creator saying that is irrelevant. Their

video is plucked from the pile for the sole purpose of keeping users engaged in the app to maximize time on device.

Going viral is not the algorithm gods doing the creator some big favor. Some

savvy creators can brute force a career out of virality, but the vast majority of them can't because they haven't built up the infrastructure or support system for it, which leaves them totally unprepared and ripe to be taken advantage of by the sudden and massive

influx in attention. That's how the system is designed because instant celebrities are a lot less likely to be able to advocate for themselves and a lot easier to take advantage of than professionals. Going viral is a bit like

professionals. Going viral is a bit like winning the lottery but without the cool money part. It sounds great until it

money part. It sounds great until it actually happens to you and Bartool sports is reposting your video without credit and you got a bunch of Nazis in your comments talking about your phronology and yeah, if you weren't already in the creator fund, you don't

have a scent to show for your troubles.

I think it's coming from like me having had a smaller version of this experience and from seeing some of my friends who have gone way more viral than me on more mainstream stages have a miserable time

of it because what most of them are trying to do is grow sustainably by cultivating an audience of people who actually like them. And going viral is often at odds with that goal. And coming

from that experience makes me really frustrated with Kcha's tendency to settle on the least generous explanation for why people post the way they do. So

yeah, let's talk about Iceland. Iceland

experienced a huge boom in tourism in the late 2010s and peak Instagram era, partly because, well, Iceland is incredibly beautiful and it photographs beautifully. And Instagram is a platform

beautifully. And Instagram is a platform that made sharing crisp highdefinition landscape photos easier than it's literally ever been in history. And

Filter World Chica talks about how he traveled to Reikuic in 2019 for work.

Then he took a day trip to a heavily advertised mainstream tourist attraction. And of that experience, he

attraction. And of that experience, he writes, "Gulfos, the enormous waterfall, was an all-inspiring sight. A crack in the earth that 110 cubic meters of water flow through per second. The sheer

volume of water and the roar that filled the air like speaker feedback at a concert would have been impressive enough even without the setting. Rock

crags covered in verdant green moss extending into the fields. But much of my group was looking at the view through their phone camera. The vista that they were capturing down to the angle was the same one that appears over and over again on the fall's Instagram page. They

were further replicating the image, ensuring its dominance as a generic symbol of Iceland. Jiga includes this anecdote because he's arguing that these tourists are contributing to the flattening of Iceland. To me, this seems

more like a criticism of the tourism industry than social media use, but okay. There's an underlying assumption

okay. There's an underlying assumption here that the people taking these photos of Gasa are doing so in an influencer capacity in order to share with strangers online to accumulate clout.

There's also this layer of judgment that implies that that's a foolish thing to do because don't these limings know there are a million photos way technically better than theirs could ever be already online. When I called

filter world misanthropic in my Goodreads review, this is the quality I was talking about. Uh, this is frankly a pretty antisocial way to observe the behaviors of people you don't know. Most

tourists are not influencers. Most

people are not influencers. When my

friend comes back from Iceland and shows me a photo of a beautiful waterfall that they took, it does not matter to me in that moment that there are a million photos just like it. It matters to me

that my friend was there, that they took this photo, that they're sharing this token of their experience with me. We

are all living our own lives. And just

because you can look on from the outside and recognize an experience as one a million other people have also had, that doesn't make it any less special or or worthy of documenting to the person

living it. Okay, so this morning I went

living it. Okay, so this morning I went on a walk with my dog through the suburbs where we live. We took the same route we take most days. But today there was a lovely gentle mist carpeting the grass. Robins were out looking for

grass. Robins were out looking for worms. The magnolia were just beginning to bloom. I was overcome by what a

to bloom. I was overcome by what a beautiful morning it was. So I snapped a photo. It is an unremarkable photo and I

photo. It is an unremarkable photo and I am an unremarkable photographer. But

that doesn't matter. I'm not submitting it to any photography contest. It's not

going to be juried. It is a token of a moment, a physical experience I had with a creature that I love. And when I look through my camera roll, maybe years from now, maybe after I've moved out of this neighborhood, maybe after my dog is

gone, I will feel tethered to my past self who experienced it, a person who is both me and can never be me again. That

is, I think, what's going through people's heads when they pull out their phones to photograph popular landmarks.

Even though, yeah, they could just as easily buy a postcard featuring a similar, probably technically superior image. I It's not about the literal

image. I It's not about the literal image, it's about what the image represents, which is that the photographer was there to take it. And

it's kind of insulting to imply that these people gazing upon the majesty of Gulfos were too oblivious to realize that they were taking a photo of the same landmark that was also pictured on the brochure when they signed up for the

tour. They know that what seems cliche

tour. They know that what seems cliche to one worldly journalist is to a different kind of person, a normal reaction to a once-in-a-lifetime international trip to one of the most beautiful places on Earth. It doesn't

matter that other people have experienced and documented the same waterfall before. Why does have to be

waterfall before. Why does have to be the goal? Can't the goal be to further

the goal? Can't the goal be to further enrich your life through a communal experience through precisely the knowledge that you are partaking in an experience that thousands of other people have also had? Can't that be beautiful, too? Hold on. I need to stare

beautiful, too? Hold on. I need to stare into the abyss real quick. There, that's

better. Over and over again in filter world, Sha assumes that people, creators are are sharing their work, their photos, artifacts of their lives online, but with the primary aim of accumulating clout, of impressing people, mostly

strangers. or if that isn't the outright

strangers. or if that isn't the outright goal that people publicly sharing their lives online will inevitably lead to that outcome eventually forcing them to compromise their authentic vision and the mindless artistically bankrupt pursuit of the line going up. For

example, here's what Chica says about this platform. For YouTube, one video is

this platform. For YouTube, one video is the same as the next. All that matters is whether you're likely to click on it so that you're exposed to more advertising. Woof. Actually, you know

advertising. Woof. Actually, you know what? Uh, let's leave me out of it for

what? Uh, let's leave me out of it for now. Let's talk about Ruby Core. Over

now. Let's talk about Ruby Core. Over

the past decade, a generation of insta poets have emerged on Instagram and sold millions of books to their followers by shaping their work to the structure and demands of the platform. Ruby Cor is the most famous, a Canadian woman born in

India in 1992. She has amassed 4.5 million followers by posting brief poems broken into short lines fit into the Instagram image square along with her own simple line drawings. The style

follows the principles that I've been outlining as characteristic of filter work. The poems have to function as

work. The poems have to function as images as much as text and travel seamlessly through various digital platforms. The content of the poems themselves has to be relatable and sharable, speaking less to an individualized experience or perspective

and more to universal recognizable themes. Her poems are expected, obvious,

themes. Her poems are expected, obvious, and vacuous, painting an illusion of depth where there is none. I agree with this assessment. I don't think Rupy

this assessment. I don't think Rupy Coror's poetry is very good. But it's

the argument that it's being used to support that's bothering me because who am I to say that people shouldn't be moved by Rupy Kora's poetry that they're resonating with it as evidence of a declining society or of impending doom?

Who would I be to assume that Rupy Cora can't be a gateway to more sophisticated poetry for people who've never been taught poetry formally or who thought poetry was inscrutable and pretentious until they came across her work? Jacob

himself cites a 25% increase in traffic to poets.org between 2020 and 2021 that correlates with the rise in Kor's popularity. Even if her fans don't go on

popularity. Even if her fans don't go on to seek out more literary poetry, who am I to say that someone can't or shouldn't have a profound experience with Ruby core poem and that not be enough on its

own? Being moved by Insta poetry is not

own? Being moved by Insta poetry is not illegitimate or immoral. Sorry, that's a lot of words about Rupy Core when really I think it's moot. The vast majority of people who write and post their poetry

online are not anywhere near Rupy Cor's level of fame and success. Most poets

share their work completely for free with the wild hope that maybe 3% of their followers will click through to Big Cartel and buy their $8 chatbook. I

bring this up to combat the idea that artists sharing their work online must or inevitably will compromise their vision to be successful posters. Now,

it's true if if you're posting your work to social media, your work itself will probably bend to the structure and demands of the platform. After all, the medium is the message. But at the same time, most mature artists figure out

pretty fast how soul crushing it is to make art that doesn't align with their vision. And most of the time, if they're

vision. And most of the time, if they're not rupy core, it's easy to stop doing that because they're already not making any money. Most artists who post their

any money. Most artists who post their art online are not making enough money to sell out. Kelchica's illustrator

friend, Hi Baitman, realized that the way she was posting was causing her to make compromises in her work that she was uncomfortable with. She felt herself growing resentful of her pieces that performed well, as well as her new

followers expectation that she continued to post the kind of work they initially followed her for. So, she stopped posting. Jaca seems to interpret that

posting. Jaca seems to interpret that choice as evidence of the algorithm flattening her work. But I see an artist realizing they fostered an audience that doesn't align with their vision and taking steps to correct that. And I

really respect that choice. As artists

grow, as their vision matures, they're playing at the edges of what's possible.

Without responsibility necessarily comes this tension. You have to balance the

this tension. You have to balance the expectations of your audience with your expectations of yourself. And that is by no means a new phenomenon. Art requires

precisely these gamles. It's true that artists have to make compromises between what's proven to be successful in the past and what they want to create in the future. But maintaining that balance,

future. But maintaining that balance, working through that tension is precisely what separates mature artists from immature ones. Part 11,

interoperability. I spent a lot of this video going over the ways I think it's not algorithms flattening culture, but capitalism exacerbated by algorithms. But at the same time, I don't want to act like there isn't a huge

computer-shaped problem in the room, because there is. Artists are currently swimming desperately against the current of the exploitative systems they rely on to distribute their work. And I can't solve that problem here today. And until

it is solved, all the spaces we carve out for ourselves that become popular enough to experience a network effect will be colonized by corporations. It's

kind of a huge bummer actually. But

there's a silver lining and I've given it away with the title of this section.

It's something that Kyle Chica mentions and that also forms the backbone of Cory Doto's The Internet Con. Y'all ever

watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer? It's

basically my favorite show of all time.

You know the setup. In every generation, there is a chosen one. She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness. She is the slayer. In an episode from season 5

slayer. In an episode from season 5 called Fool for Love, Buffy gets seriously hurt fighting a totally average vampire. And it really freaks

average vampire. And it really freaks her out because athletically she's at the top of her game. So like, why did she almost die at the hands of this random loser? So, she meets up with

random loser? So, she meets up with Spike, who's a defanged vampire in her social orbit. At this point, he's still

social orbit. At this point, he's still pretty evil, but his motivations are complicated, let's say. But Spike is, you know, well, he's a vampire, so he's very old. He has kind of a thing for

very old. He has kind of a thing for slayers, a psychosexual obsession, let's call it. He's killed two slayers in the

call it. He's killed two slayers in the past, and Buffy wants to understand how he did it, because slayers are very hard to kill. And and one thing Spike tells

to kill. And and one thing Spike tells her is lesson the first.

A slayer must always reach for her weapon.

I've already got mine. So this is actually a really good metaphor for how computers work within a big tech ecosystem. Not to go all conspiracy on

ecosystem. Not to go all conspiracy on you, but tech companies don't want you to know that. They don't want you to understand how powerful a computer is by virtue of it just being a computer.

Computers are vampires, I guess, is what I'm saying. You sure about that? The

I'm saying. You sure about that? The

machine in your pocket, the machine you log into Microsoft Teams on, the machine you put in front of your kid when you need a break, those are all universal Turing machines. Basically, what Alan

Turing machines. Basically, what Alan Turing figured out, among other things, was the concept of a computer that could run any program, a universal computer.

Sounds far-fetched, no. until you learn that just a few years later in 1952, John von Newman and a bunch of smart people at Princeton freaking went and built one. That is what Corey Doctor

built one. That is what Corey Doctor says about it. The rest, as they say, was history. The universality of the

was history. The universality of the general purpose computer was both profound and powerful. Any computer can run any program we can write, but slower computers with less memory might take a very long time to execute it. The

handbuilt computers assembled by Von Newman and his team might take millions of years to boot up a copy of Photoshop.

But given enough time and enough electricity and enough maintenance, boot it up, they will. What this means for you is, you know, Mark Zuckerberg would probably really like it if he could sell

you a computer that could only use meta software, but he can't because that's just not how computers work by nature of them being computers in the first place.

He can do some really shady stuff to encourage you to only use meta software.

He can design it in such a way that the social and practical costs of you leaving are very high. He can buy up all the other popular software that he doesn't already own. He can become his own ISP and throttle internet speeds

when you try to access any website that doesn't belong to him. He can do all that. But ultimately, he's working

that. But ultimately, he's working against the grain. Tech companies really benefit from us being ignorant about how computers work. Because if we all truly

computers work. Because if we all truly understood that any computer can run any computer program and that anybody can write a computer program, you don't need a special license to do it, we wouldn't need big tech companies at all. We have

a culture of tech today where like these details have been deliberately obuscated, designed to make outsiders like you think you're too stupid to build your own internet, but you're not.

It's not that designing and developing software is easy. The web can be as complicated as we want to make it, but it can be as simple, too. Algorithmic

social feeds are complicated to build, but I agree with Kyle Chica. We don't

need them. The internet that Chica is nostalgic for, the personal sites hosted on Geio Cities and Angelfire internet of the 90s and early as like that internet is built with HTML and CSS. You can

learn enough HTML and CSS to be up and running in a weekend. You don't need to be a tech genius. So why isn't everybody doing it? Well, a lot of people are. The

doing it? Well, a lot of people are. The

indie web movement is big and getting bigger, and it's made up of exactly the kinds of personal sites that both Chica and I are yearning for. Neo Cities is currently the main hosting platform for the easily browsable indie web. One of

the benefits of Neo Cities is that in addition to providing free hosting, it also functions as a directory. You can

follow people, you can curate your own chronological update feed, and you can also view an index of hosted sites sortable, among other things, by total visits. That's how I know that the most

visits. That's how I know that the most popular sites on the indie web are getting tens of millions of views, which is nothing to sneeze at, but Neo Cities and Indie Web generally is probably always going to be an alternative

movement. I don't think we're ever going

movement. I don't think we're ever going to be in a place where everybody who had a Facebook profile at its peak will have their own Neo City site, for example.

But I think that's okay. I think maybe not everyone needs to be online in that particular way. One of the reasons that

particular way. One of the reasons that the corporate feeling, heavily templatized, non-customizable social networks were able to take over from the geio cities and angel fire internet of yore is that not everyone is interested

in expressing themselves creatively via personal website. Right? Not everyone is

personal website. Right? Not everyone is passionate about web design. and not

everybody wants to learn to code for fun. But for those who do want those

fun. But for those who do want those things, uh, Kcho Wax is nostalgic about geocities, and I don't blame him. But in

the same breath, he accuses the very websites he's fondly remembering of looking like children made them. And I

get what he means here, but it's like most people, even young people, don't want their creative efforts to be seen as childish. So, it's easier to use

as childish. So, it's easier to use these boring corporate profile templates that can't be customized that flatten you than it is to make something from whole cloth. Because making something

whole cloth. Because making something from whole cloth is vulnerable. When

you're working from whole cloth, each creative choice you make exposes a million little idiosyncrasies that strangers might sneer at. In that way, the flattening effect of the corporate

algorithmic web is also a feature. I

love making weird little websites. I've

been doing it since the Geio Cities days. But for the past few years, my

days. But for the past few years, my website has been like definitely not boring, but a little too closely modeled after Linkree to be any fun at all. I've

been wanting to make something weirder.

And while I was scripting this project, I started to truly build the indie web freak website of my dreams. And yeah, I found that exercise made me feel extremely vulnerable. Even being like

extremely vulnerable. Even being like confident and experienced in this area, even at my big age. With the way culture is right now at this moment, a unique and interesting web made of personal

websites is impossible. Not because

people can't technically do it. They

can, but because they're not willing to.

Because a unique and interesting web requires cringe. Part 12. Cringe. I know

requires cringe. Part 12. Cringe. I know

I've been a little mean about filter world and I'm about to get even meaner frankly, but before I do that, I'd like to read you some passages from it that I agree with. I found that the way to

agree with. I found that the way to fight the generic is to seek the specific whatever you are drawn toward.

You don't need to be a credential to professionalized expert to be a connoisseur. All it takes to form your

connoisseur. All it takes to form your own taste is thought, attention, and care. To resist filter world, we must

care. To resist filter world, we must become our own curators once more and take responsibility for what we're consuming. Regaining control isn't so

consuming. Regaining control isn't so hard. You make a personal choice to

hard. You make a personal choice to begin to intentionally seek out your own cultural rabbit hole, which leads you in new directions to yet more independent decisions. I think these are all

decisions. I think these are all beautiful ideas, but I don't believe Kala actually wants people to do them, or if he thinks he does, I I don't believe he's prepared to deal with the reality of what it would look like. My

most audacious claim of this video is that Filter World and indeed the entire genre of algorithm friendly, anti-algorithm content, is not actually interested in solving the problems it's complaining about. that is not

complaining about. that is not interested in making culture richer or more interesting or more vibrant. I

agree with Chica about a lot of things.

I agree that you should not be outsourcing your attention to algorithms and I agree that the way out lies in following the thread of your own interests but doing that being your own

algorithm requires emotional honesty. I

do not know Kyle Chica but he talks a lot about his personal taste in filter world novels, poetry, music, movies, visual art, Herukqi Murakami, Rachel Kusk, Guan Carw, John Colrain, a general aversion to unphotogenic coffee shops

which he heroically overcomes by the end of the book and good for him. I do not know Kyle Chica, but the version of himself he presents in filter world reminds me of a type of guy, a person who is primarily interested in culture

as a means of acquiring and demonstrating social capital, which is not to accuse him of being a poser. I

believe he authentically likes the things he claims to like. It's just that when he's explaining why he likes the art he likes, he is simultaneously creating a portrait of himself for the reader. And that maybe that matters to

reader. And that maybe that matters to him more. Taste can be a demonstration

him more. Taste can be a demonstration of power. One of the reasons I've

of power. One of the reasons I've arrived at this conclusion is because of Chica's relationship to cringe, which is not a subject he tackles outright, but a preoccupation that emerges as we learn more about his taste throughout the

book. Here's an example. I inherited

book. Here's an example. I inherited

from my mother an appreciation for Dave Matthews Band, the pinnacle of shambolic90s acoustic jam bands that I can't totally excuse but also can't erase. My first real home was a forum

erase. My first real home was a forum for a massive multiplayer online role playinging game that had an ancillary music section. Then I moved on to a

music section. Then I moved on to a devoted day Matthews band forum called antsmaring.org. Again, cringe. He goes

antsmaring.org. Again, cringe. He goes

on to explain how much time he spent on antsmaring.org and what it meant to him, how it led him to other music he ended up loving. And so I have to wonder why

up loving. And so I have to wonder why is it cringe exactly? It feels

disrespectful to himself and his own time and he's also implicating this entire fan community because if it's cringe for him it must be cringe for them too. And I think this kind of small

them too. And I think this kind of small thing is actually maybe the fulcrum of mine and philosophical differences. I

read a lot of romance novels which is a hobby I'm aware is perceived by others even my fellow romance readers as cringe. My very smart friend Sanja who

cringe. My very smart friend Sanja who also loves romance novels wrote about this phenomenon in her Substack recently. Part of my irritation stems

recently. Part of my irritation stems from the fact that shame which I'm choosing to call this particular way of talking about romance forecloses on the possibility of reading with care. She

referring to the romance reader she's responding to in this newsletter and others ask why does this silly frivolous thing hold my attention when I don't approve of XYZ about it? But I don't think they'll arrive at meaningful answers to that question until the

impulse to denigrate one's own interests is challenged. It's one thing to kind of

is challenged. It's one thing to kind of cringe at yourself internally for Loving Day of Matthews Band or like whatever thing you'd prefer to be better than but are nevertheless drawn to. It's one

thing to have that reaction and sit with it privately. It's quite another to

it privately. It's quite another to write it into your book to so publicly distance yourself from this thing that you once loved and interacted with so intimately and so actively and in a

community setting in a book where you're waxing nostalgic for the era of personal websites. I find it hypocritical because

websites. I find it hypocritical because you can't have one without the other.

People cannot follow the threat of their authentically held interests without cringe. Jaca is afraid of cringe and

cringe. Jaca is afraid of cringe and that's not some damning indictment I am too is normal. It can be useful.

Sometimes we cringe when people do things that aren't illegal but are rude or hurtful. But we need to also

or hurtful. But we need to also understand how that fear can be weaponized to enforce homogeneity. We

need to understand how cringe can be fascist. I'm a millennial very obviously

fascist. I'm a millennial very obviously and when I first joined Tik Tok as a decrepit 30-year-old in 2020, it it was my first time really interacting with Gen Z culture. And what I noticed is

that between the memes and the dancing, their worst fear is being seen as cringe. But also at the same time,

cringe. But also at the same time, everything is cringe. Everyone is afraid of cringe. And also, everyone has

of cringe. And also, everyone has self-deputs when they encounter it. Even though

cringe is entirely in the eye of the beholder, we're living in a panopticon.

And the most surefire way to avoid being seen as cringe is to flatten yourself.

to only participate in what other people are already doing. If culture seems particularly flat and ephemeral right now, I think that's why to admit that you've been moved by art is deeply

vulnerable. And if you've been moved by

vulnerable. And if you've been moved by art that someone else thinks is cringe, and for every piece of art, there is someone who thinks it's cringe. They

might also think that you're cringe, but you have to do it anyway. Chica writes,

"As taste requires surprise, it also thrives on challenge and risk. Safety

may avoid embarrassment, but it's also boring." I agree. For as much as Jacob

boring." I agree. For as much as Jacob talks about cultivating his own personal taste, he has erected a wall, splitting himself in half, a clear before and after. Before he liked Dave Matthews in

after. Before he liked Dave Matthews in Dragon Ball Z, are you crying?

But after he's put away such childish things, but all roads don't lead to Rachel Kusk. If people take Chico's

Rachel Kusk. If people take Chico's advice and follow the threat of their own interest, there's no guarantee that they too will adopt the agreed upon taste of the liberal intelligencia because that version of taste can be a

weapon. It can warp itself to keep out

weapon. It can warp itself to keep out the strange, the sexual, the deviant, the uncouthed, the marginalized. To arm

yourself against cultural fascism, you need to honor your own interests, including the ones you've grown out of, precisely because it was those interests that led you to where you are now. You

don't need to like D Matthews band forever, but you do need to gaze upon the version of yourself that did without flinching. You need to keep on nodding

flinching. You need to keep on nodding terms with the people you used to be.

Otherwise, they're going to show up in the middle of the night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who's going to make amends. Joan

Ddian taught me that. There. Is she cool enough for you? Part 13. I quit

scrolling. Here's where I do my big face turn. In this video, I've been pushing

turn. In this video, I've been pushing back against the idea that algorithmic social feeds are corrupting culture past the point of no return and that the people browsing them are hless drooling

addicts. But also, I've more or less

addicts. But also, I've more or less quit scrolling myself. Not cold turkey, but I'm doing it a lot lot less. Jacob

actually quits social media cold turkey for 3 months. He talks about it in the book. He calls that experience a

book. He calls that experience a cleanse. And I don't really believe in

cleanse. And I don't really believe in cleanses to be honest. And most of the evidence that I've seen shows that digital detoxes don't really work when it comes to improving your life satisfaction in the long run. In fact,

there can often be a rebound effect. But

I do believe in spending your precious time on earth honoring your values and designing systems for yourself that facilitate that end. For me, that means I want to spend most of my time creating things or helping future me to create

things. So, when that's not happening,

things. So, when that's not happening, when something's out of whack, when I'm spending too much time passively scrolling, it it's not about punishing myself, it's about becoming curious about what's going wrong. And I knew

when I was reading it that my having such a visceral reaction to Filter World, what was partly something going on with me. I was not just an empty vessel waiting to receive Filter World's message. I'm not a blank slate. I'm a

message. I'm not a blank slate. I'm a

person with opinions and feelings, and they were clashing with the arguments presented in the book. And so to do this project honestly and not defensively, I needed to be able to look at it from the other side. I needed to quit scrolling.

other side. I needed to quit scrolling.

In order for me to interact with social media and especially Tik Tok in a healthier way going forward, I had to stop scrolling until I understood what was going on when I felt the urge to scroll. So in moments when I was tempted

scroll. So in moments when I was tempted to open Tik Tok, I I didn't I resisted.

I did something else instead. I played a lot of mind sweeper during this time.

And I also asked myself why like like what was I doing on the for you page?

What was I looking for? What need was I trying to fill? And as I went longer and longer without scrolling, I realized what it was. And it wasn't boredom. And

it wasn't some depthless need to consume. It was loneliness. And that

consume. It was loneliness. And that

frightened me to admit because I don't consider myself a lonely person. I'm

married. I have real life friends who I see often. I have online friends who

see often. I have online friends who share my interest. The kind of loneliness that Tik Tok was feeling for me is not the kind of loneliness that American society is built to offer me a physical alternative for really unless I

want to join a church or start a commune. I liked scrolling because it

commune. I liked scrolling because it felt nice to just passively feel like people were around. Kind of like when I used to come home from school and turn on the TV just to feel like someone else was in the room with me. And I'm not

sure there's anything wrong with that really. What's wrong is that that pretty

really. What's wrong is that that pretty simple need is being manipulated by these big tech companies using their algorithmic feeds to expose me to stuff that upsets and alarms and frightens me because those are all great ways to keep

me in their apps. Apps that also expose me to incredible art and music and essays and humanity and dogs. So many

wonderful dogs and at the same time the algorithm is showing them to me because that's a great way to keep me in the app too. At the end of filter world, Chica

too. At the end of filter world, Chica quotes David Graber's famous apherism.

The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make and could just as easily make differently. I

love this quote and if you watch my videos before and you're getting deja vu, it's because David Graber happens to be my emotional support dead white man.

And I also mentioned this quote in my video about work which is sort of structured around his book [ __ ] jobs. Anyway, Greyber was an anarchist.

jobs. Anyway, Greyber was an anarchist.

Uh but I think more formatively he was an anthropologist. His political

an anthropologist. His political analysis is rooted in his deep understanding of history and human behavior. That's why I find it so

behavior. That's why I find it so compelling and frankly admire him so much because the more I learned about history, the more I understand that people people do the same things over and over again in different fonts. The

idea of history repeating itself is is often framed as some great failure when it's actually just very human. A lot of contemporary cultural analysis falls into the chicken little trap of proclaiming things to be uniquely and

cataclysmically bad in this present moment. And it's not that they aren't.

moment. And it's not that they aren't.

It's just that when we talk this way, I think we're forgetting that every moment in history and every person throughout it was every bit as complicated and contradictory and idiosyncratic and insold as we are today. There is no

primitive past to return to from which we have irrevocably strayed. And I think the myth that there is has only gotten more powerful with the rise of big tech.

But it is a dumerist fantasy. We haven't

fallen off some pure path towards enlightenment that we can only get back on if we throw our phones in the dumpster. There is no path and there

dumpster. There is no path and there never has been. But what a beautiful thing. We make the world and we can make

thing. We make the world and we can make it differently. Hank Green made a great

it differently. Hank Green made a great video last year in which he describes the current tech landscape as an attention oligarchy. We feel like we

attention oligarchy. We feel like we have a say in what we're seeing in our feeds, but it's a manipulative illusion.

These tech companies are showing us whatever they want to with total impunity. Not only are these apps

impunity. Not only are these apps manipulating us, but using them so constantly is, I believe, atrophying our ability to accurately survey the cultural landscape. These apps are only

cultural landscape. These apps are only showing us the tiniest, barest sliver of all the art that's available to us. And

we're starting to think that's all there is. That everything's flat, that

is. That everything's flat, that everything's the same. You remember

Pandora Radio? It was a really popular way to listen to music in the 2010s before Spotify and on demand music streaming. And it was also powered by an

streaming. And it was also powered by an algorithmic feed, although a much simpler one than we're used to today.

The idea was you choose a radio station, interact with songs by liking or skipping them, further refining your station. pretty cool except that Pandora

station. pretty cool except that Pandora only ever seemed to license approximately 12 songs at a time. So if

you listen to any station for long enough, you'd notice that they all, to borrow Chica's phrasing, run together into sameness. All roads eventually lead

into sameness. All roads eventually lead to Edward Sharp and the Magnetic Zeros.

Imagine if your only experience with music was through Pandora. Every song

you'd ever heard, you heard on the Pandora radio station first. Music to

you was Pandora. And so eventually you become like really unsatisfied with music. Everything sounds the same. And

music. Everything sounds the same. And

you might conclude that there's a problem with music as a whole, but there's not. There's a problem with your

there's not. There's a problem with your ability to locate music. There is so much more art in the world than what's showing up in your feed, but you do have to learn how to find it. The cool thing about being a human is that we're really

good at tools. It's kind of our thing. A

computer is a tool. The internet is a tool. And you can decide how you use

tool. And you can decide how you use them. Tech companies want you to use

them. Tech companies want you to use them the way they tell you to, but you don't have to. If you clicked on this video cuz you're having doom scrolling problems, yeah, I think you should quit.

I think you'll feel better not for detoxing from social media necessarily, but from reclaiming your attention, for climbing back into the driver's seat of your life, because so much of your life is the things you give your attention

to. And you can design systems for

to. And you can design systems for finding different things to pay attention to on your own without algorithms. But to do that, you need to actually do that. You can't just quit scrolling and expect it to stick without

figuring out alternative ways to meet the needs that were being filled by scrolling. You need a plan for how

scrolling. You need a plan for how you're actively going to seek things out. You need to become curious again. I

out. You need to become curious again. I

think we've gotten so used to passively accepting whatever content is put in front of us that our muscles of curiosity have atrophied. People

sometimes talk about curiosity like it's an innate trait. But evidence shows that it it's much more like a skill that you have to actively practice to get good at. When we're curious, the brain's

at. When we're curious, the brain's dopamineergic system, the same one that lights up when we anticipate a reward, kicks into gear. Simply put, curiosity makes us feel good about the prospect of discovering something new. Perhaps most

importantly, curiosity promotes neuroplasticity. the brain's ability to

neuroplasticity. the brain's ability to rewire itself in response to new experiences. This makes curiosity an

experiences. This makes curiosity an ideal cognitive state for those inevitable moments of change when we need to break established neural patterns and form new connections. The

ultimate hidden truth of the internet is that despite what big tech would have you believe, it is every bit as yours as it was in the Geio's days. You just have to make it. You just have to be curious enough to figure out how we made it.

That's the end of the video. A special

thank you to my husband, Seth Thomas, who composed the lowi beats you're listening to right now. He's a

multi-talented musician, but his rock and roll band Zum is working on their first record. You can follow them on

first record. You can follow them on Band Camp. And an extra super special

Band Camp. And an extra super special thank you to my patrons who have been so patient and encouraging as I've transitioned from short form to long form videos. I've been working on this

form videos. I've been working on this project for 6 months. I truly don't believe I would have had the confidence to see it all the way through without their support. Theirs are the names

their support. Theirs are the names you're seeing on the screen right now.

And thank you, yes you, for watching.

The irony in making a video about this topic is that I was always aware in the back of my mind that it being exposed to new people would require it being promoted by the algorithm. But one thing I do really like about YouTube is that

you still have to take the initiative.

You could have easily chosen to watch a video by a creator you're already familiar with or re-watch a video you've seen a 100 times, but you chose to take a chance on me instead. Thank you for

that and I hope to see you next time.

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

[Music] The artist of the Renaissance said that man's main concern should be for man.

And yet there are some other things of interest in the world. appreciate

sunsets and the ocean waves, the march of the stars across the heavens. And

there is some reason then to talk of other things sometimes.