Sublime

Writing is technology and pens are gadgets.

We wanted to explore what it would look like if we created a social-media platform that moves against hierarchy and making people into brands. What care and safety mean when creating online connections that feel more tender and meaningful and not so transactional and extractive. And we’re thinking about citation, ensuring that creators and people o... See more

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

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

But whether Substack is good for writers is one question; another is whether a world in which subscription newsletters rival magazines and newspapers is a world that people want.

The hipster was an information-sorting algorithm: its job was to always have good taste . The hipster listened to bands you’d never heard of. The hipster drank beers brewed by Paraguayan Jesuits in the 1750s. The hipster thought Tarkovsky was for posers, and the only truly great late-Soviet filmmaker was Ali Khamraev. The hipster bought all his toi... See more