The Banality of Online Recommendation Culture

A recent surge of human-curated guidance is both a reaction against and an extension of the tyranny of algorithmic recommendations.

By Kyle Chayka

October 30, 2024

Illustration by Ariel Davis

Save this story

In the 2010s, affiliate marketing became a dominant strain of online business models. The... See more

My latest column at The New Yorker is about the revenge of homepages: Why we're turning toward individual websites as the platform era of the internet continues to disintegrate.

I started working on this piece because I've found myself going to homepages more often. It's a way to get a controlled, curated look at what a publication offers, and a... See more

For this purpose I also recommend Didion and Babitz by Lili Anolik, Heartburn by Nora Ephron (when you find out it’s about the guy who broke Watergate ...!!!!), Argonauts by Maggie Nelson, I Love Dick by Chris Kraus (this one made all the Semiotexte books feel like part of an extended cinematic universe). I’ve heard that Kathy Acker does this sort... See more

By 2021, there was not one white male millennial on the “Notable Fiction” list. There were none again in 2022, and just one apiece in 2023 and 2024 (since 2021, just 2 of 72 millennials featured were white American men).There were no white male millennials featured in Vulture ’s 2024 year-end fiction list, none in Vanity Fair’s , none in The... See more