it's ok to be curated

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

No. But somebody raised a great point to me that the world’s sort of shifted and now Instagram is a museum. Instagram inherently, I put less content on it because it’s like a showcase and it reflects on me forever. And when you go to Snapchat, my response to Snapchat, it’s like a crowded bar. There is content flying everywhere; it’s lose, it’s fun.... 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.”

Curation, when thought of in the context of sharing bite-sized, isolated bits in feed-like architectures, is predominantly about entertainment, not utility. It’s not wrong to say there is a market for this kind of curation. What people miss, though, is that this market is already captured by Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok.

With Instagram there was the idea that my life is constantly available for perception and evaluation by other people. I had these thoughts: I’d upload a photo and then I’d view my Instagram story and try to pretend to be somebody else—a stranger—and imagine how they’d see me. I’d be trying to present myself to be legible in a certain way to complet... See more