Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture
Kyle Chayka
A history and investigation of a world ruled by algorithms, which determine the shape of culture itself. 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 unnoticedâinforming the songs we listen to, the friends with whom we stay in touchâas weâve grown increasingly accustomed to our insipid new normal. This ever-tightening web woven by algorithms is called âFilterworld.â 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 desiresâand often get them wrong. What results is a state of docility that allows tech companies to curtail human experiencesâhuman livesâfor 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 What happens when shareability supersedes messiness, innovation, and creativityâthe 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 yesâbut to escape Filterworld, and even transcend it, we must first understand it.
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0Look, I get that the current internet and social media landscape is shaping our perceptions of the world, our attention spans, our trends, and sometimes our opinions. This is obvious to anyone who has existed on the internet for any meaningful period of time. But what Chayka is arguing as a flattening of culture feels like its really just a trend. White subway tiles and open-space in coffee shops are desgin trends, just like the tuscan kitchen was a trend in the early thousands pre-social media. Social media algorithms certainly perpetuate and accelerate trend cycles, but they aren't the cause of every trend. Pop music has always existed, and it's all over tiktok because its POPular. Correlation does not equal causality. It really feels like Chayka's issue is with capitalism over the technologies themselves. The reasons platforms push popular things in this manner is all to get more engagement to get more ad revenue to make more money.
Now that I've complained, I do think that there are some interesting discussions in here. The initial few sections discussing the rise of the algorithm and his examination of regulatory intervention in the EU and US and their impacts had some tidbits that made me reflect on how I have been impacted by these 'blackbox' algorithms and whether they are helping or hindering me. And I did appreciate him proposing recommended steps forward to detach ourselves from these platforms and their algorithms, even though he comes across as so pretentious in his discussion of it.
My biggest disappointment is that I expected some discussion of how algorithms push content from white, attractive, generally wealthy female content creators more than people of color, or a more in depth look at hate content, conspiracies, and misinformation spread through these platforms, but instead it felt like a solid third was just lamenting that kids these days don't listen to full 3 hour jazz albums anymore. His idea of 'culture' really felt limited to his idea of what makes good art or music, and ignores that culture also encompasses societal institutions and norms, ideologies, food, mannerisms, and customs. His more myopic view makes him come across as a bit pretentious, and had he incorporated these ideas, I think his book wouldve been much stronger.
0Started some interesting trains of thought, though it was mostly shallower and more surface-level than I wanted on all topics, and I disagreed heartily with a number of points. Too much nostalgia, too much "things were better in my day," and one wry note of such doesn't really excuse the fact that a lot of his 'proof' is just earnest, unironic, unexamined nostalgia for how things were in his own youth (which is my youth too - we're close to the same age, and I had similar experiences. But that doesn't mean I think downloading music on LimeWire was inherently deeper, more significant, or some kind of purer relation to music than the way Youths of Today discover music!). and tbh he lost extra points with me when he complained that Taylor Swift's music all sounds the same *and* that musicians today aren't writing lyrics made for paying attention to in the same paragraph.
In short - there's an important and insightful discussion to be had on this topic, but it isn't made in this book.
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