“You’re a slut and a whore for the algorithm. I couldn’t do it anymore. You can never feed it enough. You start out making art, and hoping that the door will open. You’re looking for that viral moment so it opens up the door and you can do the thing full time. But you start to compromise just to get the door to open: guessing what it wants, debasing yourself, alienating yourself. Until you’re not even in service to your art anymore. You’re in service to the algorithm. Deep down every artist just wants to be seen. Everyone does. And that’s how it controls you. The algorithm makes you behave in a certain way, create in a certain way, in exchange for being seen. And if something can change what you do, it can change who you are. And I didn’t sign up for that. I didn’t sign up to become a content creator. Art was supposed to be a way for me to be in search of, in service to, in community with. It was my ministry. Art was supposed to be my ministry.”“You’re a slut and a whore for the algorithm. I couldn’t do it anymore. You can never feed it enough. You start out making art, and hoping that the door will open. You’re looking for that viral moment so it opens up the door and you can do the thing full time. But you start to compromise just to get the door to open: guessing what it wants, debasing yourself, alienating yourself. Until you’re not even in service to your art anymore. You’re in service to the algorithm. Deep down every artist just wants to be seen. Everyone does. And that’s how it controls you. The algorithm makes you behave in a certain way, create in a certain way, in exchange for being seen. And if something can change what you do, it can change who you are. And I didn’t sign up for that. I didn’t sign up to become a content creator. Art was supposed to be a way for me to be in search of, in service to, in community with. It was my ministry. Art was supposed to be my ministry.”
A story from HONY: https://www.humansofnewyork.com/post/738642020043718700/youre-a-slut-and-a-whore-for-the-algorithm-i
Since people dilute success down to metrics like follows, likes, and comment volume it is all about chasing the numbers and reaching the most low brow chronically online people to be your core base of attention, and to keep these people entertained your content needs to be pretty vapid
It also means you compete with those who are willing to do anything for attention both on screen and behind the screen, not only clout chasers, but nepo babies, industry plants and people who trend hop and try to be in the waves where VC money and big brand marketing trends are going
Nothing wrong with having a small audience you play to, if you're making art
Thanks for your insights, much appreciated! True is that grabbing folks attention has become an art these days. People do not realize and get distracted really easily... tooo easily in my opinion.
Title got me! 🤣
Ahaha, that's was the goal! +1 in conversion then ;)
For some reason, this popped in my head.
Proof of work is orthogonal to the algorithm.
Not sure it's true or if I just wanted to use the word orthogonal.
Disagree, consistency is the key word
The algorithm gives absolute zero fucks about you or your content
Number 1 priority for the algorithm is ad revenue
Where can we park our ads?
Who is catchy edgy current yes! But who uploads consistently? Who can we rely on to farm out shit after shit after shit
Consistency is necessary but not sufficient because ...
... number 1 priority for companies who want to run ads on platforms is to not get associated with "bad" content.
So certain forms of content is hard to monetize with ads. I think monetization was implied with this since you need money to be able to do something full time:
This is a nice complementary thought!
However, I think most of us struggle on keeping the required focus when staying in front of a screen. There's always plenty of noise, from system alerts to notifications to ads... some tools help to reduce the noise and we still being easily distracted by the amount of content that surround what we are looking for.
Let's see if we can build tech that can help to clean up all this mess!
Agreed, Bitcoin being a prime example, with mainstream platforms covering thumbnails with investor protection warnings
If you are doing the art to do art, then the algorithm doesn't matter. What you really mean to say is you want to be supported financially as an artist. That's a whole other issue.