Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture
Ratings23
Average rating3.8
A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK • From New Yorker staff writer and author of The Longing for Less Kyle Chayka comes a timely history and investigation of a world ruled by algorithms, which determine the shape of culture itself. "[Filterworld] is about how algorithms changed culture…[Chayka asks] what is taste? What is a sense of aesthetics? And what happens to it when it collides with the homogenizing digital reality in which we now live."—Ezra Klein From trendy restaurants to city grids, to TikTok and Netflix feeds the world round, algorithmic recommendations dictate our experiences and choices. The algorithm is present in the familiar neon signs and exposed brick of Internet cafes, be it in Nairobi or Portland, and the skeletal, modern furniture of Airbnbs in cities big and small. Over the last decade, this network of mathematically determined decisions has taken over, almost unnoticed—informing the songs we listen to, the friends with whom we stay in touch—as we’ve grown increasingly accustomed to our insipid new normal. This ever-tightening web woven by algorithms is called “Filterworld.” Kyle Chayka shows us how online and offline spaces alike have been engineered for seamless consumption, becoming a source of pervasive anxiety in the process. Users of technology have been forced to contend with data-driven equations that try to anticipate their desires—and often get them wrong. What results is a state of docility that allows tech companies to curtail human experiences—human lives—for profit. But to have our tastes, behaviors, and emotions governed by computers, while convenient, does nothing short of call the very notion of free will into question. In Filterworld, Chayka traces this creeping, machine-guided curation as it infiltrates the furthest reaches of our digital, physical, and psychological spaces. With algorithms increasingly influencing not just what culture we consume, but what culture is produced, urgent questions arise: What happens when shareability supersedes messiness, innovation, and creativity—the qualities that make us human? What does it mean to make a choice when the options have been so carefully arranged for us? Is personal freedom possible on the Internet? To the last question, Filterworld argues yes—but to escape Filterworld, and even transcend it, we must first understand it.
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Not quite what I was looking for. Goes way to deep on the history of algorithms and hasnt even really touch on its effects in our current world yet. The narration is hard to pay attention too as well since it is super heavy history.
Kyle's writing, in all its venues, has meant a great deal to me for a very long time. He gives words to the thoughts I didn't think could be put to paper, and he does so with care, reflectiveness and a deep perceptiveness. This book feels like the beautiful byproduct of so much of his writing over the past few years, weaving together observations and experiences about the internet, culture, art, design and human beings. Sometimes, the conclusions he arrives at feel somewhat obvious: for instance, we should be more intentional about how we curate our own taste. But this “obviousness” betrays a radical, humanistic reminder: we are what we consume and if we do so a little bit less online and with some love, maybe we too can be the better for it.
Someone has finally articulated this nagging feeling I've been having for some time. The algorithmic anxiety that comes from living in the teeth of technology. How identity has been replaced by consumerism driven by algorithms that influence the music I listen to, the movies I watch, the vacations I take, and the next must have item I need to buy whether it's Allbirds, a Stanley Mug, or Taylor Swift tickets.
There is a flattening of taste, a statistical averaging of desires that is elevating mid content to stratospheric heights. It's keeping us glued to the apps by staying away from anything that might challenge or confound us. It's dispensing with anything that would require nuanced consideration in favour of the pre-packaged and instantly understood.
We have such a herd mentality. Nothing draws a crowd like a crowd, and so it's not just the consumers but the creators chasing virality that influences and flattens content. Songs are necessarily shorter to monetize within Spotify, movies become focused on meme opportunities over thoughtful writing, everyone is seeking the same shot from the rooftops of Santorini Greece or the shores of the Amafi Coast which drives even more tourism to the same spots. And around the globe, coffeeshops have adopted the same aesthetic of subway tiles, reclaimed wood furniture, rusty plumbing, and hanging lamps with exposed Edison bulbs in a High Brooklyn lumberjack vibe that is instantly recognizable whether you're in Seoul, Copenhagen, or Reykjavik.
Sure this can be a bit of a baggy read at times but it's a necessary reminder to cultivate your own individual taste, to be aware of how the algorithms are subtly influencing what we consume and how, even in the act of consuming it, we are considering how we will present it to others. Of course you are unique, just like everybody else.
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