Review: Kyle Chayka's Filterworld
“It’s extractive.” Yet such is the deal that so many creators have to make to fit in to Filterworld.
Kyle Chayka • Filterworld
Rather, I was overwhelmed, which might be the default state of consumers in Filterworld: surrounded by superabundant content, but inspired by none of it.
Kyle Chayka • Filterworld
The vast interconnection enabled by digital platforms has ended up creating more of a sense of sameness than diversity. Users are subtly guided toward the same subsets of topics, urged on by recommendations that are designed not to serve their interests but to create profitable attention fodder to sell to advertisers. Instagram doesn’t care that yo... See more
Welcome to Filterworld｜Dirt
That bracketing includes forms of culture as well as identities. It might also be accurate to describe Filterworld as dictatorial or feudal: we all reside online within spaces we have no power over, following capricious rules that we don’t approve.
Kyle Chayka • Filterworld
It reminded me of Don DeLillo’s 1985 novel White Noise, in which the college-professor protagonist travels into the countryside with his colleague Murray to see “The Most Photographed Barn in America.” Nothing makes the barn particularly remarkable except its notoriety—a fictional pre-Internet meme. Observing the crowd of photographers around the b
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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 Wirecutte... See more
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 Wirecutte... See more