You could read this and succinctly understand everything Kyle Chayka and Cal Newport have been writing about for years, but with a sense of clarity that the internet is the ocean we swim in and not just another behemoth villain to be avoided. I applaud this level of humility in the face of such an enormous mission: keep people thinking.
Great to see something on the virality of Mr. Beast and virality in general. I often think about the whole "chick or egg"ness of virality where, on the one hand, it feels like the algorithm is feeding us the same synaptic feed of the collective human brain. The algorithm is some reflection of what we are all thinking so if you don't think that then you are left out.
On the other hand, new ideas are introduced and selected against because the algorithm is not some mindless entity purely reflecting the will of the people, but rather a thumb on the scale of what we "should" be thinking about. The lack of certain thoughts does not mean others don't share them but that the algorithm has had reason to select against them.
Feels kind of like each seemingly unpopular thought worth thinking needs to have some kind of viral sugar to help the medicine go down, "Taylor Swift is engaged...and people are connecting in communal economic environments outside the standard economy!" "Cracker barrel's new logo is garbage...and so is the fall of modern capitalism!" Haha.
I'm one of the rare birds who has never watched one of his videos. (I give autographs, smile.) I have a set of particular interests, and I'm pleased to find the YouTube algorithm curates them well for me.
I fear that critical thinking is seriously endangered now. I pray it survives somehow. Cheers.
I have to confess to watching part of his show, but the reason for “part” is because I fast-forwarded through most of it to see who won. That’s the only part I was even mildly curious about - the rest was just TV’s version of clickbait.
Sorry “real housewives of…” has been a thing for several decades and only now you’re complaining about slop? All of the cultural industries have been flat out making slop as fast as they can for at least 20 years. The only difference is that ai hasn’t really got any flair at all, and humans can normally muster a bit of flair to make the same old regurgitated crap connect in some way, even if it’s irony. But from the minute we started training kids to write pop songs by analysing what songs are currently top of the charts and replicating them, all commercial art has become profit-driven slop.
Maybe AI will blow things to such an extreme that we all take a step back towards authenticity.
I grew up in Detroit around a lot of UAW workers. They had great outdoor picnics, played horseshoes, while the kids were swinging in old tires from a big tree branch. The adults had a range of opinions about politics,etc. No matter.
There was a solidarity that did not require the same sameness. That had us pretending. Not appreciating.
Sadly, the simple answer is not just algos - it's most people just aren't very bright and want stupid/silly things. We just have to make the choice to avoid it (smart people do)
A great article, thank you. We do put these creators on a pedestal but for the most part their content is mindless, aimless crap which has been ruthlessly retention edited to maximise monetisation. I particularly dislike prank style content, which is worse than slop, it’s destructive and pushed relentlessly by algos to young minds.
You can turn auto play off as one way to avoid the algorithm. Reading The Chaos Machine by Max Fisher really got me thinking about the evilness of social media and ultimately that it's the algorithm that sews the worst of it.
Youtube is especially bad in the way it stifles conversation on anything against its corporate interests, I know of no other platform that instantly deletes posts that are critical of capital or go against the grain in any way. The shadow-banning and censorship in the comments is out of control there.
As someone who never knows what the current trend is, it's easy to forget that I'm still controlled by the algorithm - but I'm kept in my little bubble (which is why I rarely know what's trending, and if a meme does make it in, I have to look it up to understand where it came from) which can be just as harmful as following the tides of the majority.
Having elementary school kids during the rise of Mr. Beast has been weird. He now also sells “food” kids insist they want - chips and chocolate bars, etc. we’ve had to have a lot of conversations about performative morality/goodness (often dressed up in absurd and unkind “challenges”) as marketing.
You could read this and succinctly understand everything Kyle Chayka and Cal Newport have been writing about for years, but with a sense of clarity that the internet is the ocean we swim in and not just another behemoth villain to be avoided. I applaud this level of humility in the face of such an enormous mission: keep people thinking.
Great to see something on the virality of Mr. Beast and virality in general. I often think about the whole "chick or egg"ness of virality where, on the one hand, it feels like the algorithm is feeding us the same synaptic feed of the collective human brain. The algorithm is some reflection of what we are all thinking so if you don't think that then you are left out.
On the other hand, new ideas are introduced and selected against because the algorithm is not some mindless entity purely reflecting the will of the people, but rather a thumb on the scale of what we "should" be thinking about. The lack of certain thoughts does not mean others don't share them but that the algorithm has had reason to select against them.
Feels kind of like each seemingly unpopular thought worth thinking needs to have some kind of viral sugar to help the medicine go down, "Taylor Swift is engaged...and people are connecting in communal economic environments outside the standard economy!" "Cracker barrel's new logo is garbage...and so is the fall of modern capitalism!" Haha.
I'm one of the rare birds who has never watched one of his videos. (I give autographs, smile.) I have a set of particular interests, and I'm pleased to find the YouTube algorithm curates them well for me.
I fear that critical thinking is seriously endangered now. I pray it survives somehow. Cheers.
I have to confess to watching part of his show, but the reason for “part” is because I fast-forwarded through most of it to see who won. That’s the only part I was even mildly curious about - the rest was just TV’s version of clickbait.
Kyle Chayka’s Filterworld is a good book on the subject of algorithms and choice or lack thereof.
Sorry “real housewives of…” has been a thing for several decades and only now you’re complaining about slop? All of the cultural industries have been flat out making slop as fast as they can for at least 20 years. The only difference is that ai hasn’t really got any flair at all, and humans can normally muster a bit of flair to make the same old regurgitated crap connect in some way, even if it’s irony. But from the minute we started training kids to write pop songs by analysing what songs are currently top of the charts and replicating them, all commercial art has become profit-driven slop.
Maybe AI will blow things to such an extreme that we all take a step back towards authenticity.
I grew up in Detroit around a lot of UAW workers. They had great outdoor picnics, played horseshoes, while the kids were swinging in old tires from a big tree branch. The adults had a range of opinions about politics,etc. No matter.
There was a solidarity that did not require the same sameness. That had us pretending. Not appreciating.
Sadly, the simple answer is not just algos - it's most people just aren't very bright and want stupid/silly things. We just have to make the choice to avoid it (smart people do)
The internet as ocean we swim in, is there a way to be living on earth without it?
But what if we thought of the ocean as an option. The ocean as a thing.
A great article, thank you. We do put these creators on a pedestal but for the most part their content is mindless, aimless crap which has been ruthlessly retention edited to maximise monetisation. I particularly dislike prank style content, which is worse than slop, it’s destructive and pushed relentlessly by algos to young minds.
Imagine if we regulated against anything resembling a like button 🤯🤯🤯
IMPOSSIBLE, right?
You can turn auto play off as one way to avoid the algorithm. Reading The Chaos Machine by Max Fisher really got me thinking about the evilness of social media and ultimately that it's the algorithm that sews the worst of it.
Youtube is especially bad in the way it stifles conversation on anything against its corporate interests, I know of no other platform that instantly deletes posts that are critical of capital or go against the grain in any way. The shadow-banning and censorship in the comments is out of control there.
As someone who never knows what the current trend is, it's easy to forget that I'm still controlled by the algorithm - but I'm kept in my little bubble (which is why I rarely know what's trending, and if a meme does make it in, I have to look it up to understand where it came from) which can be just as harmful as following the tides of the majority.
Having elementary school kids during the rise of Mr. Beast has been weird. He now also sells “food” kids insist they want - chips and chocolate bars, etc. we’ve had to have a lot of conversations about performative morality/goodness (often dressed up in absurd and unkind “challenges”) as marketing.
People Shame you when you are not living your lige through the internet.