Beware the Curators

Curators filter signal from noise in an increasingly noisy world. As the barriers to being a creator decrease, the internet gets even noisier and the need for credible curators increases. Algorithms will continue to play a role in aggregation, indexing, and personalization. But the best curation requires a human touch. You’re more likely to have an... See more

We need leaders in all aspects of our lives, and human curators should be the arbiters of taste. You may already be sick of trending templates, memes, specific types of click-baity content, soulless imagery, vapid videos, engagement farming, annoying trending songs.9 It’s not going to stop. In fact, it’s going to get much worse. The problem is that... See more

“Curating [is] an act of generosity — you’re sharing what you love and what has inspired you. […] Algorithms, by definition, are based on calculations that treat the viewer as a consumer and nothing else.”

While the notional shift from programming to curation can feel academic, it represents a crucial step in the democratization of media. Through thousands of individual curators, each of us will be able to escape the tyranny of averages and the limitations of algorithmic recommendations, as well as benefit from the ability to become tastemakers ourse... See more

4. The increasing power of algorithm-driven curation. Today, curation is also being enabled and accelerated by the use of increasingly powerful personalization algorithms. One of the best current examples is TikTok’s “For You” page which uses a powerful algorithm to show users the content they want to see.

It’s long past time that we realized these systems are not benefitting culture. Creators and consumers alike are pushed into preset formats that we may ultimately have no organic interest in. By giving in to algorithmic feeds, we are letting tech companies determine our tastes.