The Phantom of the Algorithm ft. Kyle Chayka
Added 2022-08-09 11:07:55 +0000 UTCThis week we are joined by Kyle Chaka, contributor to the New York Times and co-founder of Dirt, a newsletter about digital culture, to discuss how the algorithm on social media sites invisibly shapes the language, content, and even posting styles most prevalent. We use the example of Instagram's current insane attempt to become Tiktok 2 by pushing hard for a more video-based content economy, and how this is affecting the average user.
We also discuss Kyle's excellent article about 'Algorithmic Anxiety', the constant looming terror that one day the algorithm could just simply change, destroying an up-and-coming influencer's career unless they make drastic changes to their content to optimise it to an ever-shifting and never-explained standard. It's a great chat that actually ends on a hopeful note!
Kyle can be found at https://twitter.com/chaykak
Dirt can be found at https://twitter.com/dirtxyz
and the article discussed in this episode can be found at https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/the-age-of-algorithmic-anxiety
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Ten Thousand Posts is a show about how everything is posting. It's hosted by Hussein (@HKesvani), Phoebe (@PRHRoy) and produced by Devon (@Devon_onEarth).
Comments
I, too, find listening to albums on shuffle to be violence. Somebody thought really hard about that shit.
Jordan Clementi
2022-08-11 04:50:26 +0000 UTCIt always astonishes me that people a) don't follow up on artists they enjoy and b) apparently listen to albums on shuffle mode?? To me you might as well watch a movie in random scene order. As someone who doesn't have a lot of musically knowledgeable friends and doesn't know much about music, Spotify was really useful in finding me new stuff (and for the past year I've tried to buy the albums that I like as directly as possible from the artist). Its discovery functions have become much less reliable lately, perhaps because it's already found me the obvious recommendations.
Nemo
2022-08-10 12:29:53 +0000 UTCThe one thing you really gotta hand to Paul Joseph Watson… is a really disgusting-looking Italian sandwich… just to see him decide whether or not the sandwich is a “crisis actor” paid by the CIA (something something strategy of tension).
Elsie Hupp
2022-08-09 15:47:03 +0000 UTCAccording to Wikipedia, Joe Rogan is of three-quarters Italian and one-quarter Irish descent, and his father, who he has not seen since he was seven, is a former police officer in Newark. So the takeaway here is that Joe Rogan is Italian American, but his deadbeat dad was Irish American, hence the name. But most importantly Joe Rogan is from New Jersey (land of Snooki, Chris Christie, and Hasan Piker).
Elsie Hupp
2022-08-09 15:34:20 +0000 UTCPhoebe you're mixing up the fact that Joe Rogan is a meatball with him being Italian, classic mistake. #notallitalians
Jordan Clementi
2022-08-09 14:16:56 +0000 UTC
