Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture

by Kyle Chayka

While we have the advantage of freedom of choice, the endless array of options presented by algorithmic feeds often instills a sense of meaninglessness: I could be listening to anything, so why should any one thing be important to me? The constructive relationship between collecting and culture goes in both directions. When we find something meaningful enough to save, to add to our collection, the action both etches it a little deeper into our hearts and creates a context around the artifact itself, whether text, song, image, or video. The context is not just for ourselves but for other people, the knit-together, shared context of culture at large. That’s what Benjamin described when he wrote, “The phenomenon of collecting loses its meaning as it loses its personal owner.” Collections need individual caretakers, whose voices and tastes they express.