<story><title>YouTube Face is clickbait, attaining human form</title><url>https://openspace.sfmoma.org/2018/04/your-pretty-face-is-going-to-sell/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mattbierner</author><text>This post made me want to re-read &amp;quot;You Are Not a Gadget.&amp;quot; One of Lanier&amp;#x27;s points in that book is that technology can both augment expression and bound it. The Like Button is a classic example of bounding because it reduces your thoughts and feelings about a piece of content to a thumbs up, whereas a simple textbox would let you note whatever you want about the content (text is also harder to monetize and analyze and control).&lt;p&gt;I personally have been noticing more and more how technology and algorithms seem to bounding expression online and off, particularly around content creation, but also with influencers and personal branding and so on. It feels like 90% of the shit being pumped out is super amplified to draw notice or for signaling, and while this is not a new phenomenon of course, it still feels weird to see ordinary people at restaurants taking pictures of their food, or sucking up to some corporation online for the chance to win a prize&lt;p&gt;I feel this pressure too. The pressure to get noticed. To tailor content to what will rack of the most views. To post that tweet that will make me look like a smart, funny guy who has something valuable to say and oh by the way you should totally follow me. And I hate it. And I try not to care about numbers. But it still feels really shitty when something you spent a month working on and genuinely find really cool gets a total of ten views while a picture of a goat in a sweater just when viral. And what if the audience is right?&lt;p&gt;There has to be something better. I hope that we can grow beyond changing ourselves to fit the algorithm, and re-focus on using technology to create new ways of sharing and expressing and relating to each other. One fun example of this that Lanier gave: creating technology that would let people communicate like cuttlefish (specifically the shifting skin colors and textures). That optimistic vision still feels as radical and fresh today as it did when I first read the book in 2010. I just hope it&amp;#x27;s not too late</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ILikeConemowk</author><text>&amp;gt;I hope that we can grow beyond changing ourselves to fit the algorithm&lt;p&gt;I personally think you are in for a very rude awakening. This is exactly what people are trying &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; to do with Machine Learning. It is always, almost, about profiling you, about finding out who you are in order to offer you what you already know, to limit your horizon, to &amp;quot;tailor&amp;quot; your &amp;quot;experience&amp;quot; and the span of possibilities.&lt;p&gt;As a very technical fellow told me: &amp;quot;when you read three political news in a row we set a badge, you are now politically minded.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;This, sadly, doesn&amp;#x27;t fit your yearning for us growing &amp;quot;beyond changing ourselves to fit the algorithm.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;My prediction is that it will get worst before it gets any better at all.</text></comment>
<story><title>YouTube Face is clickbait, attaining human form</title><url>https://openspace.sfmoma.org/2018/04/your-pretty-face-is-going-to-sell/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mattbierner</author><text>This post made me want to re-read &amp;quot;You Are Not a Gadget.&amp;quot; One of Lanier&amp;#x27;s points in that book is that technology can both augment expression and bound it. The Like Button is a classic example of bounding because it reduces your thoughts and feelings about a piece of content to a thumbs up, whereas a simple textbox would let you note whatever you want about the content (text is also harder to monetize and analyze and control).&lt;p&gt;I personally have been noticing more and more how technology and algorithms seem to bounding expression online and off, particularly around content creation, but also with influencers and personal branding and so on. It feels like 90% of the shit being pumped out is super amplified to draw notice or for signaling, and while this is not a new phenomenon of course, it still feels weird to see ordinary people at restaurants taking pictures of their food, or sucking up to some corporation online for the chance to win a prize&lt;p&gt;I feel this pressure too. The pressure to get noticed. To tailor content to what will rack of the most views. To post that tweet that will make me look like a smart, funny guy who has something valuable to say and oh by the way you should totally follow me. And I hate it. And I try not to care about numbers. But it still feels really shitty when something you spent a month working on and genuinely find really cool gets a total of ten views while a picture of a goat in a sweater just when viral. And what if the audience is right?&lt;p&gt;There has to be something better. I hope that we can grow beyond changing ourselves to fit the algorithm, and re-focus on using technology to create new ways of sharing and expressing and relating to each other. One fun example of this that Lanier gave: creating technology that would let people communicate like cuttlefish (specifically the shifting skin colors and textures). That optimistic vision still feels as radical and fresh today as it did when I first read the book in 2010. I just hope it&amp;#x27;s not too late</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>fiatpandas</author><text>&amp;gt;it still feels weird to see ordinary people&lt;p&gt;For me this is where these YT tropes get interesting. When you get past the thumbnails of the mega channels with multiple full time employees who are obviously doing something very baity and strategic, you’re left with the ordinary channels who mimic these tropes likely without deep consideration or even consciousness.&lt;p&gt;It’s just more of a will to survive kind of thing, and thus an entire ecosystem shapes its own desires by way of unknowingly optimizing for an algorithm which itself is based on honing in on community trends.</text></comment>