my enemy, the algorithm
the greatest evil of the modern internet
the algorithm is stupid. it does a lot of work but it’s ultimately quite dumb. no artificial intelligence is capable of true creativity because no artificial intelligence can create anything new. the people who defend AI in instagram comments will dismiss human beings themselves as amalgamations of their influences, but we simply know for a fact this isn’t true. didn’t we agree that it’s nature and nurture? the algorithm cannot replicate human nature.
because the algorithm is stupid, carving a niche is more important than ever. how else will the algorithm know where to find you? how else will it scoop you out of the swarm, show you off to all the users who enjoy content similar to yours and follow accounts similar to yours? it needs to compare you to everything that already exists. if you do too much, if you have more than 1-2 interests or say more than 2-3 things, if you’re not easy palatable searchable and in other words uncomplicated, you fail.
if you’re familiar with marketing in any way, you might be wondering what the big deal is. finding a niche and keeping it simple are vital to effective advertising. so what’s the problem?
the problem is that the line between advertising and existing has blurred. to reach people online, you need to be perceived as an authentic personality, sharing information about your life and history and philosophy and identity, but you can’t succeed as a personality without following the rules laid out by the algorithm. it’s all deeply private, it’s all horribly public, and it all depends on you stuffing your multifaceted existence into the mold of modern advertising.
the circumstances would be slightly more bearable if the algorithm actually did anything it says it does. for instance, if it really showed us what’s new. but unlike human beings, who seek out novelty and make impulsive choices and delight in the unfamiliar, the algorithm only knows what it already knows. it seeks out what’s worked in the past, what’s actively working. it collects what’s popular and tosses it desperately at our feet, all of it, everything, churns it out until we’re all sick. we’re actually the only ones who can push the algorithm in a new direction. it changes when we change, and not a moment before.
the algorithm doesn’t enable connection or community. the only way to reach out to the people who truly want to know you is to reach out in all your complexity, but the algorithm doesn’t allow room for complexity: artists on instagram box themselves into the same style and color palette post after post, authors on booktok flatten their work into fanfiction tropes, budding musicians’ only hope of getting traction is to pretend they believe they’re the next chappell roan. content creators are relegated to a singular identity as a mother, or a lesbian, or a person with adhd, or a white woman married to a person of color, or a white american married to an italian. the best way to build a following is to make the same kind of video over and over and over, discuss the same thing over and over and over, and leave the rest of this complicated world to someone else.
the algorithm impacts not only the way we disseminate art and entertainment but the way we talk to each other, the conversations we have and how we have them. we’re censored and segregated and swept apart. trying to reach out to someone on the wrong side of the algorithm, as we put it, is almost impossible, even if that person might be more alike to you than different.
on substack, there’s some room for multiplicity, but even then, the writers with the most subscribers are those who’ve found their niche. because duh. substack wants you to make money so that they make money. the better you are at advertising, at simplifying yourself and your art for the widest audience, the more likely you are to succeed. this is the case for all modern social media.
the algorithm is not for us. we find each other not through but in spite of it. it’s not even that great at its not-so-secret real job: getting us to buy stuff. so why do we care? why are there millions and millions of articles talking about how to work the algorithm, when to post and what to say and how to farm your life for content, the best way to create shiny, fast-paced, digestible content that tricks sticky sedentary scrolling brains into staying around?
today’s social media is so pervasive that we’ve forgotten how it used to be: an internet that was big and slow and expansive and personal, where people built community through forums and blogs and galleries and newsletters that weren’t subject to the whims of big domains. most of us knew at least some code because we didn’t just exist in the online world, we shaped it. today’s internet, stagnant and inhospitable and completely at the mercy of tech bros and their investors, was unthinkable.
it’s a cultural tragedy, but for me, more than anything, it’s a personal one. i was a kid who always loved their computer and the friends they made through it, and i’ve been a firsthand witness to every stage of the internet’s swift crumbling. it was never perfect, but once upon a time it was real. once upon a time i posted shitty poems on deviantart and made shitty petpages on neopets and published shitty fanfiction on fanfiction.net and showed off my shitty art on tumblr. i received critiques and started conversations and made friends i still hold dear to this day. these days this sort of thing isn’t impossible, but it requires a lot more work, and it’s very difficult to stumble upon a stranger who isn’t simply a member of the niche in which you’ve inevitably found yourself. (i think people these days are also much more tentative with their socializing, online or otherwise, but that’s a topic for another day.)
i don’t have a solution to offer because frankly i don’t think there is one. others have suggested subsidizing websites, but that just puts it directly in the hands of our good and loving imperial government. within the machinations of capitalism, social media is doomed like everything is doomed.
the number one piece of advice i have is to do more offline, and do it small. share your art and your thoughts with the people around you: i know it’s scarier to do this than to broadcast your work to total strangers, but do it anyway. print stuff. make zines. make friends. go to poetry readings and craft fairs and coffee shops. make things that you keep to yourself. make things that you can put on your wall. make things that wind up on someone else’s bookshelf.
don’t limit your creativity to your content; extend it to the medium. a few years ago after i looked into substack and decided it was too dry and bland and corporate, i created my own newsletter, designed it with an unheard of, bare bones, very customizable email designer, and mass sent it out from my own email address. it was impossible to spread except by word of mouth, and it still required me to rent space from two different websites, but it was as close as i’ve come to feeling like i did a decade ago, when social media was something that served me instead of the other way around.
and if, like me, you still can’t help but be online in the usual ways, if you are forever moved by the urge to share your opinion and your art with everyone in the hopes that you will find someone, then all i have to say is: be complicated. stop thinking of the invisible audience, the invisible algorithm, the void that makes no promises to you. be inconsistent. be unserious. in other words, be human. make the art you want to make; talk about the things you want to talk about. personally, i want to talk about poetry and cooking and comics and russian literature, packaging design and lesbian history and off-broadway musicals and children’s books and cowboy culture. i want to talk about friendship and siblinghood and the evangelical church, butchness and fashion and the surrealism of the modern corporate world. i want to talk more about the internet. i want to tell you everything.
tell me everything. tell me without wondering if it’s relevant or riveting or on brand. change your style, change your medium, change the topic, change your mind. if you’re always molding your persona to the algorithm, who will ever really see you? how long before the persona becomes you? what if you’re letting the algorithm shape not just what and how and when you post, but who you are?
the algorithm is stupid—you are not. the algorithm is finite—you are not. so stop demanding curation from yourself or from anyone else.
i pray i never find my niche.