How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka

Decoder with Nilay Patel

Today, I’m talking to Kyle Chayka, a staff writer for The New Yorker, a regular contributor to The Verge, and author of the new book Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture. Kyle has been writing for years now about how the culture of big social media platforms bleeds into real life, first affecting how things look, and now shaping how and what culture is created and the mechanisms by which that culture spreads all around the world.

If you’ve been listening to Decoder, this is all going to sound very familiar. The core thesis of Kyle’s book — that algorithmic recommendations make everything feel the same — hits at an idea that we’ve talked about countless times on the show: that how content is distributed shapes what content is made. So I was really excited to sit down with Kyle and dig into Filterworld and his thoughts on how this happened and what we might be able to do about it.

Links:

• Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture — Kyle Chayka
• Welcome to AirSpace — The Verge
• The Stanley water bottle craze, explained — Vox
• TikTok and the vibes revival — The New Yorker
• Why the internet isn’t fun anymore — The New Yorker
• The age of algorithmic anxiety — The New Yorker
• Lo-fi beats to quarantine to are booming on YouTube — The Verge
• Taylor Swift has encouraged her fans' numerology habit yet again — AV Club
• How fandom built the internet as we know it, with Kaitlyn Tiffany — Decoder

Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23858379

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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