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What do TikTok voice, generic “hipster coffee shop” decor, and Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce Super Bowl kissing photos have in common? According to Kyle Chayka, a staff writer at The New Yorker, they’re all products of something called “filterworld,” his word for a “vast, interlocking, and yet diffuse network of algorithms that influence our lives today.” His new book, Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture, zeroes in on the rise of algorithmic recommendation systems — essentially, the equations that govern the specific pieces of content that social media, streaming, and e-commerce platforms decide to show us, and in what order — and how they’re pushing us toward a kind of cultural homogeneity or sameness.
Kyle joins us to talk about how exactly digital recommender systems produce this sameness, the kinds of culture that rise to the top on the contemporary internet, and the pros and cons of human gatekeeping versus algorithmic curation. Finally, we discuss tactics for escaping algorithmic culture and reclaiming some of our agency as cultural producers and consumers, both individually and collectively.
Order a copy of Filterworld
Follow Kyle on the platform formerly known as Twitter
Read more by Kyle:
“The tyranny of the algorithm: why every coffee shop looks the same”
“Coming of age at the dawn of the social internet”
Also referenced on the pod:
“Everyone’s a sellout now” by Rebecca Jennings
Escaping algorithmic culture with Kyle Chayka