algorithmic anxiety

Kids will not believe me when I say this, but people didn’t always absorb their “content” by way of mysterious algorithmic black magic on endlessly-scrolling crack feeds. We used to type web addresses into our browsers, and actually visit our favorite sites. This, going to “www dot college shitpost dot com” or whatever, was itself considered a radi

why big YouTubers (e.g. Tom Scott, MatPat, PewDiePie Meek Canyon, Captain Sparklez) are quitting:

While the YouTubers are grateful for their jobs, there is a psychological cost for dealing with a large audience, constantly adapting to the algorithm, chasing metrics, getting ripped off and always thinking about “content”. I’m not remotely on the

An algorithm just gives you what you think you want. I’m looking for what I don’t know I want. Keeping a list of what other humans say they like is better.

-Austin Kleon

“The web promises to make our world bigger. But as it works now, it also narrows our exposure to ideas. We can end up in a bubble in which we hear only the ideas we already know. Or already like.”

― Sherry Turkle, Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age

Chris Nolan said “dystopias make twice as much at the box office as utopias”