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3.79 AVERAGE
3.79 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
the perfect book to read after deleting my twitter and instagram accounts
edit: revisiting this review a day later as i’m watching mina le’s youtube essay on why social media isn’t fun anymore… so let me say something with sincerity: i have loved the internet and social media for my whole life. it’s been a personal hobby and my profession for over ten years. this book put so many things into perspective of how different things feel without falling into the obvious nostalgia trap. it gave me many things to think about (and quotes to send my gf). it can be a tough read, but it was an important one to me.
edit: revisiting this review a day later as i’m watching mina le’s youtube essay on why social media isn’t fun anymore… so let me say something with sincerity: i have loved the internet and social media for my whole life. it’s been a personal hobby and my profession for over ten years. this book put so many things into perspective of how different things feel without falling into the obvious nostalgia trap. it gave me many things to think about (and quotes to send my gf). it can be a tough read, but it was an important one to me.
informative
I picked this up after hearing Ezra Klein's interview with Chayka, which is a good substitute if you don't want to read this whole book (though I think the book is worth reading.) There are some brilliant ideas in this book and a lot to ponder. (Though there is way too much contemplation of industrial design in coffee shops around the world, which honestly seems like the least solid argument for the flaws of Filterworld... but don't worry, the more serious problems are discussed as well.) I found it inspiring rather than depressing, Chayka's love of culture really comes through, as well as his love of the Internet as a way to find culture. I'm so glad that he discussed how fun the internet used to be, like the blog era and early social media. This is not an anti-technology book. Interestingly he does not delve into the recruitment of white supremacists via YouTube, which is one of the more obvious flaws of the algorithm, and the overall predilection for serving right-wing content overall-- he does discuss some of the problems of the "if you like this, you'll love this!" nature of the algorithms, e.g. depression/suicide content and lawsuits against tech giants for promoting ISIS videos, and general political divisions.
I thought the section on Netflix was so interesting, the fact that Netflix has about 2/3 of the content of the average Blockbuster store yet feels so vast... and how it's promoting the same content to different users using different thumbnails based on race and genre (eg. the Fast and Furious as romance or action) based on what it wants people to watch. I need to re-read that in print, it was eye-opening in terms of how a service manipulates unsuspecting users.
Worth a read. Here are some of my notes, though I typed them up from the audiobook so they are probably not punctuated accurately. :)
"In terms of how culture reaches us, algorithmic recommendations have supplanted the human news editor, the retail boutique buyer, the gallery curator, the radio DJ. People whose individual taste we relied on to highlight the unusual and the innovative. Instead, we have tech companies dictating the priorities of the recommendations, which are subjugated to generating profit through advertising. In Filterworld, the most popular culture is also the most desiccated. It is streamlined and averaged, until like a vitamin pill, it may contain the necessary ingredients but lacks any sense of brilliance or vitality. This process happens not by force... but by compliance, as creators voluntarily shape their work to pursue the motivation of algorithmic exposure and access to audiences. This is not to say the creators are cynical.... We are left with the widely acceptable and yet bootless, and meaningless symbols of a digitally globalized civilization...."
"The changes the feeds induce are not just aesthetic, but insidiously psychic, mediating the choice to consume as much as the content being consumed."
Chayka quotes Mark Fisher's 2014 [b:Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures|20863042|Ghosts of My Life Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures|Mark Fisher|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1561075047l/20863042._SY75_.jpg|40201556]: "the 21st century is oppressed by a crushing sense of finitude and exhaustion. It doesn’t feel like the future."
In non-places, "people are always, and never, at home"- Marc Auge [b:Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity|328450|Non-Places Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity|Marc Augé|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347357434l/328450._SY75_.jpg|319077]
"All culture is now content, and the platforms we use to access it encourage us to treat it as interchangeable."
Past ideas that the internet would lead to numerous small niches, like Chris Anderson's [b:The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More|2467566|The Long Tail Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More|Chris Anderson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1442430307l/2467566._SY75_.jpg|989032], were wrong. Anderson predicted that diverse but unpopular things would sustain itself because people would be able to find it online. Even Amazon in the early 2000s promoted little niche things. And there is some niche content, but ubiquitous algorithmic recommendations make even uninterested users follow all the same content. "Mass culture will not fall, it will simply get less mass," Anderson predicted.
"The net effect is homogenization, as creators all chase the same incentives to attract more attention." -discussing [b:Content|57850511|Content (The MIT Press Essential Knowledge series)|Kate Eichhorn|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1634034945l/57850511._SX50_.jpg|90628683] by Kate Eichhorn.
I thought the section on Netflix was so interesting, the fact that Netflix has about 2/3 of the content of the average Blockbuster store yet feels so vast... and how it's promoting the same content to different users using different thumbnails based on race and genre (eg. the Fast and Furious as romance or action) based on what it wants people to watch. I need to re-read that in print, it was eye-opening in terms of how a service manipulates unsuspecting users.
Worth a read. Here are some of my notes, though I typed them up from the audiobook so they are probably not punctuated accurately. :)
"In terms of how culture reaches us, algorithmic recommendations have supplanted the human news editor, the retail boutique buyer, the gallery curator, the radio DJ. People whose individual taste we relied on to highlight the unusual and the innovative. Instead, we have tech companies dictating the priorities of the recommendations, which are subjugated to generating profit through advertising. In Filterworld, the most popular culture is also the most desiccated. It is streamlined and averaged, until like a vitamin pill, it may contain the necessary ingredients but lacks any sense of brilliance or vitality. This process happens not by force... but by compliance, as creators voluntarily shape their work to pursue the motivation of algorithmic exposure and access to audiences. This is not to say the creators are cynical.... We are left with the widely acceptable and yet bootless, and meaningless symbols of a digitally globalized civilization...."
"The changes the feeds induce are not just aesthetic, but insidiously psychic, mediating the choice to consume as much as the content being consumed."
Chayka quotes Mark Fisher's 2014 [b:Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures|20863042|Ghosts of My Life Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures|Mark Fisher|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1561075047l/20863042._SY75_.jpg|40201556]: "the 21st century is oppressed by a crushing sense of finitude and exhaustion. It doesn’t feel like the future."
In non-places, "people are always, and never, at home"- Marc Auge [b:Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity|328450|Non-Places Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity|Marc Augé|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347357434l/328450._SY75_.jpg|319077]
"All culture is now content, and the platforms we use to access it encourage us to treat it as interchangeable."
Past ideas that the internet would lead to numerous small niches, like Chris Anderson's [b:The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More|2467566|The Long Tail Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More|Chris Anderson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1442430307l/2467566._SY75_.jpg|989032], were wrong. Anderson predicted that diverse but unpopular things would sustain itself because people would be able to find it online. Even Amazon in the early 2000s promoted little niche things. And there is some niche content, but ubiquitous algorithmic recommendations make even uninterested users follow all the same content. "Mass culture will not fall, it will simply get less mass," Anderson predicted.
"The net effect is homogenization, as creators all chase the same incentives to attract more attention." -discussing [b:Content|57850511|Content (The MIT Press Essential Knowledge series)|Kate Eichhorn|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1634034945l/57850511._SX50_.jpg|90628683] by Kate Eichhorn.
informative
medium-paced
informative
reflective
slow-paced
challenging
slow-paced
Slow and tedious, could have been half the length.
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
I was consumed and invested in this book and pretty much ready to make it my entire personality and adopt a superiority complex for reading ~several~ chapters’ worth of computer science jargon.
However, the author lost me in the last half-ish of the book with the gratuitous rambling about his very specific and niche interests. Is this something I fantasize about in my disgusting gemini monkey brain? Writing something for the world to see and finding a way to work in all of my very specific and very niche interests and you pay me for it? YES. But, considering the top level research and spot-on observations about the internet and being a person that interacts with the internet on any level in present day during the first half of the book, I didn’t expect or want what went down in the last half.
3.5/5 ⭐️
However, the author lost me in the last half-ish of the book with the gratuitous rambling about his very specific and niche interests. Is this something I fantasize about in my disgusting gemini monkey brain? Writing something for the world to see and finding a way to work in all of my very specific and very niche interests and you pay me for it? YES. But, considering the top level research and spot-on observations about the internet and being a person that interacts with the internet on any level in present day during the first half of the book, I didn’t expect or want what went down in the last half.
3.5/5 ⭐️