The Banality of Online Recommendation Culture

ABC 206: On taste and its relevance in the age of abundance

When I was 24, I spent a year backpacking around the world. One of the best lessons I learned was the difference between asking the person at the hostel's front desk, “Where do you think I should go for dinner?” and asking, “Where do you like to go to dinner?”

The first question often led to an inoffensive touristy spot with a menu in English, while the second often led to a hole-in-the-wall gem that made the trip feel special.

In the past few years, the algorithms that serve us movies, songs, and videos to consume have gone from magical to incredibly dull. The recommendations in my feeds feel like bags of chips engineered for my taste buds that never make me full.

I didn’t quite have the words to explain this until I read this week’s essay by the cultural critic Kyle Chayka. “In a world of scarcity, we treasure tools. In a world of abundance, we treasure taste.” And the taste of algorithms has become incredibly blah.

I consider this newsletter a pushback against the tyranny of algorithms. Thanks for supporting my little experiment in human curation.

Here’s the piece: The Banality of Online Recommendation Culture

Warmly from Guatemala,
Simo 

P.S. The song of the week is my favorite track off the new Kendrick album. The full songs of the week playlist is here.