Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
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
... See moreThe 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
Sam Kriss • All the Nerds Are Dead - By Sam Kriss - Numb at the Lodge
Social media algorithms identify our politics and then shepherd us into a hermetically sealed bubble, framing our worldview through a window of rage and extremism.
Scott Galloway • No Mercy / No Malice
newspaper, suddenly
Martin Gurri • Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium
There is less time these days for anything other than economic survival. The internet has moved seamlessly into the interstices of this situation, redistributing our minimum of free time into unsatisfying micro-installments, spread throughout the day. In the absence of time to physically and politically engage with our community the way many of us ... See more
Jia Tolentino • Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion
In the post-hipster era, you listened to what Spotify told you to listen to. If you read a book, it was because the precise pattern of blobby pastel-coloured shapes on its cover contained coded instructions to TikTok’s algorithm that sent it zooming to the top of your feed. Your tastes and preferences were decided for you by vast crystalline machin... See more
Sam Kriss • All the Nerds Are Dead - By Sam Kriss - Numb at the Lodge
The trouble with the internet, Mr. Williams says, is that it rewards extremes. Say you’re driving down the road and see a car crash. Of course you look. Everyone looks. The internet interprets behavior like this to mean everyone is asking for car crashes, so it tries to supply them.
‘The Internet Is Broken’: @ev Is Trying to Salvage It (Published 2017)
In a 2017 interview, Ev Williams (the founder of Twitter), said something that has stuck with me since: “the trouble with algorithms, is that it rewards extremes. Say you’re driving down the road and see a car crash. Of course you look. Everyone looks. The internet interprets behavior like this to mean everyone is asking for car crashes, so it trie... See more