YouSaid · the spoken record

Kyle Chayka

lines on the record: 102
first: 2024-03-11
most recent: 2024-03-11
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Some people have lost track of articles. And I mean, I think, and media companies, I think started to be not very good at delivering texts that people actually wanted to read.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What someone said in a Articles are still out there. You can read the Verge.com, and it's a great summary of many stories going on in tech. People have gotten confused, I think. I think there is this generational shift and consumer shift away from text, unfortunately. Reading might be over, but so a lot of audio and video consumption is going on like this podcast we're doing right now. And people have kind of clicked.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Like, if you could just deliver an article to this person from the beginning, it might actually be better than this convoluted process where you have to light up GPUs in a data center to tell you what someone said on a podcast. Like, that's crazy to me. Right.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Which is like, it's like a perfect summation of media, like the whole thing is like I'm using AI to steal podcast content so I can make articles and then I want you to buy my newsletter so you can and he's like yep that's a PhD thesis in media but I'm looking at it from another perspective and I'm like oh this person just wants articles”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Employee in a bookstore. But I do think kind of the whole cultural ecosystem has been reshaped around feeds and around what succeeds on feeds. And that's kind of the deadening consequence that I wanted to highlight.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, I do think the deconstruction of institutions is a consequence of us giving over a lot of power and authority to algorithmic distribution. Like, I mean, even super early on when Google search and ad targeting took away revenue from media companies, like that was a movement away from the human gatekeepers and tastemakers who were magazine editors to a kind of technological ecosystem. So I do think, I mean, the way that we've given over so much attention to the algorithmic feeds and the way that we've let them make decisions for us, that totally destabilizes the institutions that we once relied on. But that's not to say they don't exist. Like you can still listen to a great indie radio station. You can still go to an art gallery. You can pick up a book that's recommended by a human bookstore.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There are two ideas in the book that I think connect deeply to this one is the concept of algorithmic anxiety. And I think you've summed it up in various articles you've written as the internet isn't fun anymore, right? Like you open the internet and you're like, what is being shown to me? Who is on top of this? Like, is someone responsible for this or is this algorithm just trying to reprogram my brain? And then there's the concept of taste makers, right? That there are some institutions and some people who are exercising judgment in some way that you trust or you don't trust or at least you can have a human disagreement with and they might surprise you and those are being reduced, right? So you have anxiety over what you're being shown. The creators have anxiety over what they're making.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This balance that we need to not just consume things that are algorithmically recommended, and we need to maybe bring back a little bit of the human curation and taste making that we've lost in this total dominance of algorithmic feeds.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Like, it's, I grew up on that internet where I could publish anything. Like, I can post an Instagram. And that's how I've made my career too. But I think we have to figure out what that balance is between human gatekeepers and human curators and this completely algorithmic mathematically defined distribution mechanism that we have. Like there are advantages to both. The human gatekeeper on one hand can highlight a new voice, can bring up something that's totally unusual out of left field and just say more people need to see or hear this. Whereas the algorithmic feed is never going to take a thing like you have to get engagement to succeed in the algorithmic feed. You need to please 100 people, then 1,000 people, then 100,000 people. And that iterative process doesn't work for all forms of culture. So I want to argue for”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, I never want to say that the algorithmic feed is like a fundamentally horrible technology. I think it helps us a lot. And I think the internet has been really good for getting rid of a lot of gatekeeping.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Isn't that an old tension? I feel like artists in the 70s had to make big decisions about whether they wanted FM radio airplay. And when all of the radio stations were owned by big companies or had powerful local DJs, you had to go please the powerful local DJ. Like there were tastemakers. There was commercial pressure. There were gatekeepers in a way that maybe there aren't gatekeepers now. They were just people. And those people were perhaps more capricious, less offering of feedback. Like there's a real balance there, right?”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, Nigel sees this as a success. Like, he has cracked the code, he has gotten millions of followers. He's now making tons of money from sponsorship deals. And he doesn't feel curtailed by the algorithmic feed. Like he likes this data. He likes optimizing for distribution. And so for him, he succeeded. It works for him. What I worry about and what comes up when I talk to other creators is that they feel more anxiety about that process. They don't want the pressure to optimize their content, the constant feedback from an invisible audience makes them feel like they can't just be creative and put out what they want to, that they have to kind of follow the vicissitudes of the algorithm. They have to pay too much attention to the feed. So I think that is the tension. Do you embrace the distribution and figure out what works and just go for it? Or do you want to make”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Away from his videos. So rather than seeing people not liking it or scrolling away as a flaw on their part, like as bad taste on the viewer's part, he saw it as a flaw in his own creative process. And so he would change and adapt to whatever held people's engagement. And all of these tricks together just made him completely blow up to the point that he's like one of the bigger food creators on TikTok, I think. And it was because he thrived in this algorithmic ecosystem.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So he had this kind of facility with making drinks and cutting small garnishes and stuff. And in the pandemic, he just started making really elaborate cooking videos. And they would all start the same way. It would be his body head cut off, apron on, and he would say, good morning, let's begin. And he would make an incredibly elaborate, weird, tricky brunch thing. Like in one video, he freezes a bowl made of ice and then pours milk and cereal into it. So it's these kind of visually elaborate, crazy trick cooking, essentially. This would get him more and more and more followers. He had decided not to show his face because it was too specific. He didn't say words because that would also alienate some of the international audience on TikTok. And he ruthlessly scanned all of his engagement data to figure out exactly when people were flipping.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Nigel was this fascinating guy. I first came across his TikTok videos. He didn't have very many followers at all. He was posting kind of vibey videos of him swimming in his condo pool set to Frank Ocean. And I was just like, these are very cool. It was 2020. People were going insane online. I thought it was interesting. I wrote this essay about vibes and TikTok that was kind of inspired by him. I was like, cool, this guy is making interesting videos. And then I just watched over the next three years as he got more and more and more followers. Like first it was 100,000, then it was a million, then it was two million, then it was three million. And he had somehow cracked this code, I think, that just made him succeed wildly on TikTok. And Nigel was a kind of flair bartender in the UK living in Manchester.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We're back with Filter World Kyle Cheka discussing who's actually benefited from a world of algorithmic recommendation. Let me push you on the flip side of that. That's us on the outside, right? Like the Verge came up on the outside. We exist as a publication to document this process. Your book is a document of this process. You talk in the book to creators who are the fish in the water, who started with zero followers on TikTok and are now very popular. And I think from their perspective, it's a success, right? They don't think the world has been poisoned by their success. One of them is called Nigel Kavina. You literally met this person when they had zero followers. Tell me about Nigel and where he is now.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then, kind of the zenith, which is semi ongoing, but toward the late 2010s, we're all kind of thinking that this is worse and worse, like we're less satisfied. The platforms are working in ways that are more exploitative. And then up to now, you know, with the destruction of Twitter and just the general dissatisfaction, I feel like we're coming to a new phase of things. So I feel like the culture has changed. And I think there's this dawning sense that these are not doing good things for us. Like generally being immersed in algorithmic feeds and copying what everyone else is doing and letting TikTok show you what it wants to show you is actually bad for you and is not leading you to a constructed place. So I think in writing the book and with people's reactions to it, I think it's, I'm trying to catalyze a little bit that dissatisfaction and be like, no, let's think about.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, as I wrote the book, particularly as I was finishing it up, I almost kind of felt like it was a history of the 2010s, like very recent history. And it came to feel for me like it was a particular era that had a beginning and an end. There was a kind of mainstreaming of social networks, the rise of...”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I did say. Well, so there's a deeper idea there, which is, I think, generally people are desperate for connection. I think that's a core piece of the human experience. There is a weird crisis of loneliness in the world, but then people have these full bodied interactions online. And I do think that does something different to people. Like you are outside airspace. You watched it happen. and you have literally documented it. You've watched it turn into filter world. But the people who have just swim in the water don't see it. And that does feel like the normal way culture is made and produced. Do you see a difference in, I don't know, the culture of the 2010s when this started happening and the culture that's being produced now?”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, oh my God. I'm thinking of the cartoon guy with all the swords coming at him. And it's like name one opinion you have that would make everyone do this. And it's like this form of content only exists in these feeds. It is not real life. It is not a conversation you would ever want to have. I actually don't care. Does anyone, okay, these things like fulfill no function except allowing you to express something. It's like the person posting it is called cultivating engagement and you are yelling about your opinions. No one else cares.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Do often wonder if you could survive a day in real life running around asking real people in person some of those prompts. You just walked up to someone was like, what's a secret you'll take to your grave, but you'll share with me like.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You rehash someone else's content in order to participate. It's like making a new version of the same meme as you were saying is how you fill the vacuum of TikTok and it is how you interact with someone else and have that conversation. So rather than coming up with something new or trying to make a trend of your own, it's like the core behavior is replicating a trend that already exists. And that's incentivized by the algorithmic feed, by the kinds of aesthetic tools that you have, like the recommendations of sounds to use or video editing tricks to use. And I mean, I think you can see that replication happen all over the place, like as Twitter became or X became more algorithmic. You saw a rash of prompt tweets, just like people asking for you to list your five favorite breakfast foods or something. And suddenly, because that worked for some people.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“On TikTok and in the current iteration of the internet, we're all just like middle schoolers running through the hallways. Yeah. And so it's like when you see some other kid wearing his hat backwards or something, you're like, oh man, I'm going to wear my hat backwards right now. Like it all filters out very quickly. The model of culture we have right now is more bottom up, like trends filter from a grassroots level upward and then get noticed. And I think TikTok rewards that repetition because”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm sorry, I'm saying Pat Theory all the time, but another framework. That's a great Dakota vocabulary, a framework that I have is that”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Curious if you see it particularly in a different way with TikTok because there's something about the culture of TikTok that not only rewards that repetition, but like directly incentivizes it and makes repetition the actual content.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Like broadcast programming directors who are professionals were like, well, we can't just copy that thing. We have to do something different. There's that element of like, well, I'm paid to have better ideas than the next person that a bunch of people working for free are like, I'm just going to do the easiest thing. You can sort of see the tension there, but I'm.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm always curious on the effects that participating in the platforms have on people and creators. The Stanley Cup to me is actually a really fascinating example. When you are a big distribution network and you say, anyone can participate here, people will sort of naturally gravitate towards exactly what worked for someone else. It's the first easiest, most instinctive thing to do. And so you can see why things spread memetically. A bunch of kids are like, well, that worked for them. I will do the same dance and participate in a culture, and that is a conversation in a way that I think.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's also just more and more of culture has moved onto the internet, I think. Digital platforms have absorbed different areas of culture that used to be more offline, whether it's a television equivalent like TikTok or podcasts that used to be radio. Over the past decade, more things have gotten more online. And I think that's been a major shift.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“People get bored. I think partly it's like, I mean, just as fashion trends change, technological trends change. And I think we discount that too often. Like when we use the same platform for five or six years, we tend to start getting itchy and wanting something else. And I think it's also been this kind of gradual evolution of the internet from text to more professionalized images to audio and video to TikTok, which is this kind of full-featured television, essentially like when we watch it, it's as if we're watching television. So I think the multimedia race has gone on and on, and that's changed things.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Your earliest approach at writing about Filter World was Instagram and Airbnb, what you were calling airspaces, as you expanded the concept into Filter World, that's everything, different social networks take on different levels of prominence in the culture. So Instagram is still huge, but I would say it is not a driver of culture in the way that it once was. That role is now TikTok. How do you see that waxing waning? Why do you think that change happened? Is it just young people who use TikTok and that's it, or is there something else going on?”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it's like that works for YouTube in a way because you just leave YouTube on as this streaming background. And that's not how you use TikTok. Like TikTok, that wouldn't work because you're constantly flipping through the feed, you're going to new videos. A TikTok video to be successful has to grab you and throttle your attention immediately. Whereas this YouTube content can be ambient and chill and like homogenous in a soothing way. So I think there are these quirks or forms that emerge from the structures of the platforms themselves.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think they all have different flavors. My pet theory, I think, is that each algorithmic feed, each platform generates its own kind of signature culture that fits into it. So we're familiar with Instagram face, the kind of influencer plastic surgery aesthetic. We're familiar with TikTok influencer voice, which is the kind of monotone syncopated packing as many words into a sentence as possible. So I think there's like forms of content that work for each different platform. And on YouTube, my favorite example of like YouTube culture is lo-fi chill hip-hop beats to study slash relaxu, which”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One of the tropes of decoder is that distribution has an outsized impact on the actual content that people make, which is a very obvious idea, but we just come back to it over and over and over again because we spend so much time talking about platforms. You're thinking about Filter World as a broad concept, right? Algorithms on the internet shape the culture in some big way. But YouTube has a different kind of algorithm, right? Like Stanley Cops are not happening on YouTube. God forbid Stanley Cops happen on X, formerly known as Twitter. That's a particular kind of TikTok trend that bleeds into everything else. Do you think about the different platforms and their different aesthetics and what they prioritize and what kinds of culture they make?”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Then I also have to make Stanley Cup content. I think it's almost like on Twitter we could see this happen with Discourse subjects. Like there was one subject of conversation each day and either you were jumping into that conversation or no one cared what you were talking about. Except now we're doing that with visual trends and physical objects, it's like you have to be holding up that Stanley Cup or no one's going to want to watch your content. So you're kind of forced to participate in the meme, in the trend, or otherwise you get ignored.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think so. I mean, the Stanley Cup was interesting in the chief marketing officer of Crocs moved to Stanley. And Crocs had gone through this viral trend of being adopted by a lot of influencers and TikTok creators and stuff. And so this guy has kind of turned the same process or strategy with Stanley. And I think it's partly that they like seeded the ecosystem giving Stanley Cups to influencers and stuff. And it's just the fixation that the internet has on one thing at a time. So Stanley Cup starts to become this go-to lifestyle accessory first for Mormon bloggers, actually. That was an early adoption group. And then it becomes almost a kind of currency on TikTok and on Instagram where memetically like if all my friends have this thing, I also have to have this thing. If all the other influencers are making Stanley Cupcom.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Where I've read a lot of pieces just about what a Stanley Cup is and whether they have lead in them and like why all these people are buying them. But it feels like it is like a filter world product that the algorithm lit upon a cup, like literally just a cup. And then everyone was like, I am the cup. Like the cup is my lifestyle. As you think about filter world, like, can you put the Stanley Cup in the context of suddenly everything is the same?”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Have in the book a meditation on the concept of taste, in that literally throughout history, you dive into the history of people thinking about taste and what it is and where it comes from. And that dynamic you're describing is someone has a little bit different taste or they make something a little bit different. And then suddenly everyone else has the same taste. The example that I actually really want you to talk about and help me understand is the Stanley Cups right now.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Kind of speed core or whatever YouTube bands. So some artists or stylist or curate or whatever figures out some quirk or innovation that works. And then everyone just piles on. Faster than has ever happened before. Like everyone can just copy that thing. And I think that's how the flattening happens. It's like someone figures out a thing that works for everyone's tastes and then that thing becomes universal really fast.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Whether it's like a TikTok sound or a dance or whatever. And so I think there are these artistic innovations that happen. A stylist chooses to like bring back low-hipped genes or whatever or musician packs so much sound into the first 10 seconds that no one's ever thought of it like a hundred geks or something.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And the metaphor that I've come to or that I believe in now is like Darwinian evolution. It's like the first fish that was like, I'm going to try to crawl out of the water onto the sand. Like that fish does that thing. And then all the other fish start doing that thing. So I think it's almost what I find is that in Filter World, in this world of digital platforms and algorithmic feeds, one quirk goes viral instantly. Like a new adaptation, a new aesthetic flourish can go from one person doing it to 100,000 people doing it in like a day.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Like being a lumberjack. The emergence. As I was reading the book, the process of we're all going to pick this thing seems to be the key determining factor, something big about the culture. You describe it as an averaging. Like there's a band in your book called Galaxy 500. And their song that sounds the most like all the other popular songs is the one that becomes popular, even though that song is a parody of those songs. And that flattening to me is really fascinating. But you have to come to some first consensus about what will be popular. And that's the part that I've been trying to figure out for a long time. I think your book hits on it, that there's some sort of statistical averaging of taste that occurs. And then everything becomes that thing. And it's that first turn that I'm curious if you have perspective on how that you're like written this book and you've talked about it so much.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was tremendously easier to be. That era was kind of post financial crisis. People newly moving into Williamsburg and Bushwick, which were these like industrial warehouses. And it was making a virtue of necessity where we were adopting hobbies that were super lo-fi. Like being a lumberjack or making your own surfboard or making drinks and masonries. I mean, why that particular style became so popular. I think was two factors. Like Brooklyn at that point was seen as the center of culture. Like it was the cool place to be for a lot of the world. And that has kind of moved on by now. But also it was when social media was becoming more of a thing. Like there was this intersection of like financial crisis, austerity aesthetics and the emergence of a digital platform internet. And I think that was what did it.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And there's no better description of it. Like, there is a moment in Williamsburg where I lived, and he lived in Bushwick, which is right next door, where it was easier to meet a blacksmith than to go to a bank. Like it was tremendously easier to be like, I've met several blacksmiths today, but there's no banking available to me. Like I have to cross a bridge in Manhattan to go to the bank. That got really commercialized really fast, right? That's the thing you're describing there is there is this weird little art community of people who are like, we will make our own furniture out of pallets. And that turned into something else that got commercialized and commodified really fast. Is that the process of things becoming Filter World or Airspace? How did the internet light upon, okay, this is what it's going to look like?”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, I think there's like different flavors of this generic aesthetic. And circa 2015-2016, it was very much the white subway tile. Reclaimed wood furniture that was sometimes made from rusty plumbing. Reasons that I cannot sermon. It was the emergence of avocado toast and cappuccinos with latte art. It was kind of like vintage posters on the walls. It was a very specific look.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The conclusion I came to was that it was Instagram at that time, which was growing and growing in popularity. It was what made visual culture a kind of content that flowed through the internet. And I think it was just the new emergence of these digital platforms that were collecting billions of users around the world. I had the newfound ability to follow a random barista in China or a coffee shop founder in Copenhagen, and we're all connecting on this very granular level, and I'm just trading back and forth these visual tastes and aesthetics and trends. And that just has a way of letting the trends flow through that entire population around the world.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That first essay was about how places looked right, it was very much I'm going to all these places and Airbnbs and coffee shops and all the physical space I'm in starts to look the same As you chase that idea down, did you come to a reason why that was? Was it just familiarity? Was it Instagram, which plays a huge role in your book, or was it something else?”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Even like 2015, because I remember pitching it to our pal Michael Zelenko and then having a characteristically arduous editing process with him, which was great and resulted in the essay that we all know and love. But yeah, I was really observing this kind of flattening effect around then. I was working as a freelance journalist. I was traveling around the world quite a bit. And landing and all these different cities. And I would notice that every Airbnb I stayed in had the same kind of aesthetic signature. Every coffee shop I went to in Reykjavik or Kyoto or LA or Berlin all had the same stuff in it. And I just started like wondering or I was being anxious about why all this sameness was happening. And that's kind of how I pitched that essay.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You have been in and around the verge for a long time, and this book actually grew out of an article you wrote at the Verge called Airspace in 2016. So I applaud your commitment to... The concept that algorithms are shaping culture, I'm very interested in it as well. But tell me just about that recognition, that first part of the story that you could see it happening.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To what it means to develop your taste and truly explore new art and ideas. Kyle is one of the most thoughtful writers thinking about technology today, and his closing thoughts on how we might be able to reconnect with the culture around us and find more organic ways to engage with it really hits if you're one of those people out there who feels worn down by the apps on their phone. Okay, Kyle Chaika, author of Filterworld, how algorithms flatten culture. Here we go. Check out you are a staff writer at The New Yorker, you're a longtime friend and contributor to the Verge, and you are the author of the new book, Filter World, how algorithms flatten culture. Welcome to Decoder.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And dig into Filter World and his thoughts on how this happened and what we might be able to do about it. You'll hear us trace the origins of Filter World back to the rise of modern social media in the 2010s and how this development has been accelerated by the deterioration of the open web and erosion of trust in our institutions and the frankly frightening scale and speed of virality on platforms like TikTok. That said, it is not all bad news. Kyle and I talked about some of the upsides. You'll hear us get into the challenges, the analog world had. Big magazines, celebrities, and other gatekeepers controlled culture in a major way. And access now feels more bottom-up and democratized than ever before. More people are now able to make art and culture and find big audiences for that stuff. And that seems like a pretty good thing. I also made Kyle walk me through what he calls an algorithm cleanse when he was writing the book he tried to use the internet without algorithmic recommendations. And he found that it helped really open his eyes.”
2024-03-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT