Filterworld by Kyle Chayka 📚

The subtitle for this book is How Algorithms Flattened Culture. Readers of my newsletter know me for my prolix, anti-algorithm screeds, which started in 2019 but got red hot in 2020 during the pandemic, when everyone's social life moved online. This is the same period Kyle is writing this book from. I really love Kyle Chayka. I discovered him when I picked up his first book The Longing for Less: Living with Minimalism, which I thought was thought-provoking, nuanced, and playing with new ideas. I've followed Chayka at the New Yorker since he published that book, and was excited for this book to be released.

So excited, in fact, that I published last year's ChatGPT and the End of Online Content when I did because I wanted to get it out the door before Filterworld was released. That essay felt like sort of a capstone on much of the writing and thinking I've been doing about online culture for the past five years, and I was (and continue to be) proud of it. But I wanted to make sure I said what I had to say because I figured Kyle would be saying much of the same thing in this book.

He didn't, really. Sure, there's as much overlap as there will be when two pieces are about digital culture, but... I was honestly a little underwhelmed by this book. It was good, for sure, but did not feel groundbreaking or nuanced like The Longing for Less did. It felt to me like there was much unexplored territory here: how the concept of monoculture has both gone away and grown bigger, how exactly human curation avoids stunting culture in the way that algorithmic curation does, for example.

The main issues that made the book feel a little unserious were the moments where Chayka felt sort of... out of touch. Here's an example: "We cannot wholly opt out while still using the digital platforms that have become necessary parts of modern adult life. Like the post office, the sewer system, or power lines, they are essential." This is either completely overblown, or has a bafflingly subjective use of the word "essential". You can easily make it through your life without social media platforms. Chayka might also be adding Amazon and Spotify to this list... those are a little tougher, but many people absolutely make it through the day without them. At another point, he quotes someone who says "most human behavior is occurring online", and then moves on without investigation. ...What? "Most human behavior is occurring online"?! No. Not even close. As someone who works remotely and spends (at least)eight hours online every day, sure, I get how someone might think most of their own behavior occurs online, but... No. Not even close.

All that said, there is some really good stuff here. There were some ideas that I've had, but never really seen articulated other places, 1. "Stern has observed how TikTok encourages users to slot themselves into particular categories or genres of identity, just as it brackets genres of culture. 'Whatever it is that you're consuming just becomes an expression of your self, it exists only insofar as it can describe you'". I think collapse between identity, personality and character is super damaging to our self-perceptions, and puts undue pressure on people to think of themselves in terms of genre of identity. (I wish this was an area that was explored more - although I think it's explored in The Anxious Generation?, which I have not read.) 2. "We have come to expect algorithmic promotion almost as a right." Is a great way of phrasing the confusion people have over "censorship" online - censorship is when you go to prison for saying something. Anything else is just the company doing what it thinks it needs to do to make the most money.

There were also some new ideas for me here, that I'm excited to continue thinking about. The biggest was the idea of how an object or idea is replaced in Filterworld with the marketing of that object or idea. At different points, Chayka writes "the perception of recommendation [can] skew the perceived value of a given piece of culture, making it seem more likable or significant", "The cultural ecosystem of Filterworld puts the cart before the horse: The needs of promotion and marketing supersede the object that is meant to be promoted", "the emphasis is not on the thing itself but on the aura that surrounds it". This felt like a revelation to me: an explanation of why there are so many popular restaurants where the look of the food is more important than the taste; or houses painted so garishly that look terrible from the street but probably eye-catching from the feed. In Filterworld, things have no taste, no feel, no durability, and no context.

I think most people will get lots of things out of this book. It's a great part of an ongoing conversation; not the watershed I hoped it would be, but: I guess that's sort of on me for setting my expectations where I did. Obviously, I found it thought-provoking.