Recently I had a friend ask me if I used the AI playlists on Spotify. I’m talking about the “Discover Weekly” playlist specifically, but there’s also “Daylist” and all those crazy mixes with titles like “Yearning Mix” and “Situationship Mix” and “Delulu Mix” and “Spooky Evil Gay Mix” and “Farm Emo Mix” and “Cat Mix.”
She was going on about how she can’t find new music, how the autoplay songs that get recommended to her after her playlist is over are Not Good or repetitive or the same old pop girl shit. And I had to sit there and try not to explain that AI is garbage and the algorithm is bullshit. And why do you even have autoplay on??
I know that everybody else spends their time on their For You page on TikTok, but as someone who does not use TikTok, who actively despises AI, who considers themself better than artificial intelligence in every conceivable way…politely, what the fuck are you guys doing?
(Not you, if you’re reading this I know you are Like Me.)
People constantly complain about how the algorithm sucks or they can’t find new things or that DISCOVERY IS DEAD or whatever, and I feel like we are living dramatically different life experiences. Because frankly, I am my own algorithm and I discover new media every single day. And it’s always good because I am the one filtering my life, not some stupid computer who thinks I want to listen to Sabrina Carpenter and BRAT on repeat.
Maybe this makes me sound pretentious, that I’m just built different and it’s a skill issue that you’re bored of your music library. Sorry I have taste or whatever, etc. But the truth is, discovery is a skill. A lot of us have become dependent on the algorithm, on feeds, on artificial intelligence shoveling shit directly into our mouths so we don’t have to lift a finger and everything good in the world will be delivered to us personally without effort.
I see the appeal. I love the idea. And I think at times, the algorithm is a little too effective. For some reason the algorithm (should I be saying The Algorithm?) loves to work well for emotional manipulation. You’re depressed? The Algorithm will take advantage of your sadness and apathy to make you buy this thing you don’t need. You’re thinking about buying something or traveling somewhere or doing something? The Algorithm will show you everything it can to convince you to follow through, to spend that money, to drag you deeper into the capitalist hellhole. It will convince you to call your ex, to get that BetterHelp therapist, to embrace a tradwife lifestyle. It will not allow you to find that cool Black indie artist who is changing the entire game with their mixtapes. That is, not until some white person with a platform elevates that artist to Camp Status, until they become memable, until they become a quirky little TikTok sound that everyone gets sick of after two weeks.
The Algorithm has ulterior motives. The Algorithm does not care about you. The Algorithm will ruin you if it has the opportunity.
Not to brag, but I listened to 1600+ unique artists this past year (according to Spotify, 1200+ for Last.Fm…I did lose like two weeks of tracking at one point in the summer oops). My music library is 12,000 songs and growing, and even though I don’t know all of those songs intimately, even though a lot of them are saved in passing, a huge portion of them were discovered by me or by someone I know personally. And yeah, I’d say I know the lyrics to at least half of the songs I have saved. Do I use some of the algorithm to help me find music? Absolutely. But do I sit back and wait for the algorithm to come to me? Fuck no.
The key here is using the algorithm to your advantage instead of relying on The Algorithm.
And more than that, it’s about the intentional Act of Discovery.
A lot of times when I feel like I’m in a rut, I put on my explorer hat and go looking for greatness. I use the “Recommended Based on What’s in this Playlist” feature a lot on Spotify. I go to the “Fans Also Like” section. The “Readers Also Enjoyed” section on Goodreads. I judge books by their covers and albums by their artwork and people by their branding. I read synopses and reviews and study media lists and watch recommendation videos. I’ll follow internet rabbit holes based on what the algorithm thinks is similar to the stuff I already like and enjoy. And while that’s pretty effective, at least in that it’ll show me stuff I never knew existed, I still think the best way to discover new stuff is to see what other people you know are enjoying.
Social Media used to be a place where we shared the things we did. The things we liked. And we do still do that to some extent, but a lot of those posts get buried between ads and influencers and ads. And influencers. AND ADS!!!!! It’s less about a genuine recommendation, “Today I started reading this book and it’s really really good!” and more about proving that we’re doing something. That we’re consuming. That we’re cooler than anybody else because we READ or LISTEN TO MUSIC or GO TO CONCERTS. Even those of us that aren’t official influencers are acting like influencers because it’s the only way to get aura points or whatever the fuck. (Idk, I’m not on TikTok.)
Consumption is just a way to prove that we are better than everybody else. We discover things not to seek joy, but to seek status. If we find it first, we become superior. (I’m not immune to this disease. Trust, I know.)
In living like this, we’ve lost some of our earnestness. It feels embarrassing to genuinely recommend something. To share a song to your Instagram story. To try to convince someone why you love a book. We seek out those end of the year favorites lists, but mostly we just look to see which of those books we’ve read or which artists we listened to. Nobody wants to hear you gush about your favorite things, they just want to use you as a gauge: am I cool because my taste is universal or because my taste is so obscure nobody else can relate to me? Spotify Wrapped is all fun and games until you realize you’re just like everybody else. Until your earnest listens of THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT make you basic and cringe because oh my god, everybody listens to Taylor Swift now.
But actually, you can fuck off because you know what song I just “discovered” last week? Because of TTPD? That is so good and under-appreciated even though it’s mentioned on the biggest album of 2024? “The Downtown Lights” and Hats by The Blue Nile, circa 1989. Why isn’t the algorithm pushing that song on everybody? Why aren’t we as a young generation talking about THAT? Who cares if I found it from a Taylor Swift song, or that I should’ve looked it up six months ago, or that maybe one of my parents should’ve shown it to me in my youth. I have it now, and I am NOT letting go. It’s mine now.
Even though I do use the “recommended” tabs a lot, whether that’s on Spotify or Goodreads or Letterboxd, I get most of my recommendations from friends and mutuals and people I intentionally follow. You all got into Gracie Abrams because “That’s So True” was trending on TikTok or because she opened for Taylor on the Eras Tour, but I knew about Gracie when Minor came out because one of my friends was obsessed with her. And even then, I didn’t fall in love with her until Good Riddance came out in 2023. I am influenced most by the people I’m close to. I will give artists second, third, fifth chances just because one of my best friends won’t shut up about them.
No influencer can match the power of my mutuals screaming on my dashboard incoherently about some TV show I’ve never heard of. No algorithm can compare to the carefully crafted GIF set from my favorite Tumblr movie blog that only has 12 notes. No media conglomerate can get me to binge a show like some person I’ve communicated with via email iMessage from Switzerland.
You know Yellowstone? The TV show that the entire world of middle-aged middle-class adult parents have been screaming about for years? I had zero interest in it when my parents told me it was amazing. Who cares. The internet loves it. Irrelevant. But recently one of my Tumblr mutuals has been incessantly reblogging gifs of it (because the series finale just aired????), mostly because one of the main female characters is hot. Her name is Beth. I don’t know what she does or who she is or why she’s relevant to the show. I repeat, I do not know what the show is about. I don’t know why it’s beloved or critically acclaimed. But that girl has gotten it into my brain that I have to check that show out because, well, obviously Beth has great tits.
But that’s just a Tumblr mutual. What about one of my best friends?
I pride myself on getting into things before they’re cool. (I listened to Lady GaGa and Ke$ha when they’re first singles dropped, and I had to wait patiently for them to release their debut albums. I knew “Colors” by Halsey before the studio version released because I saw them open for Imagine Dragons in 2015.) It’s a superiority complex I cannot shake, and I think I’m justified in bragging about it. But sometimes the reason I get into things early is because my friends have good taste.
May 2020. My twenty-fifth birthday. That was the year everybody gave playlists as presents. We spent most of that month just making and sending each other playlists in lockdown. (Summer 2020 will always sound distinct to me because of that.) One of my best friends gave me a mix, and I put it on thinking I’d find a few stand-outs, and mostly it was a wash. Some hits, some misses like any good playlist. But there was this one song that instantly, immediately felt like a classic. I put it on repeat in our kitchen. I forced my roommate to listen to it and fall in love with it. It went on to be in my top five on wrapped. It stayed in my wrapped multiple years in a row. It was by this small indie artist who had recently been dropped by her label, and she became the heart of our friend group with only one song.
It was “Pink Pony Club” by Chappell Roan.
I rest my case.
But this sort of thing happens to me a lot. Not necessarily because I have good taste (I do) or because my friends have good taste (they do), but because I am always looking for the next big thing. I regularly spend time seeking out new media with intention. I make watch lists and tbr lists and to listen mixes and every time someone says, “Oh, I’ve been enjoying this thing!” I immediately pull up the corresponding app and log it to check out later. I save and save and save because what if this recommendation changes my life? What if this GIF set is the key to my future?
Okay, let’s be honest though, it is because I have good taste. The Algorithm wishes it was me.
My point here is not that I’m better than everyone (I am), but that there is hope. The Algorithm might reign supreme, but you can overpower it. You can still find indie artists and support indie authors and discover new indie films. You can find the next big thing before it blows up. You can widen your comfort zone and expand your palette and try new things. But you can’t do that if you expect it to be handed to you by The Algorithm. You have to get your hands dirty. You have to explore things and touch grass and talk to your friends and meet people online. You have to bear witness to bad awful horrible cringey “I never should’ve watched that” waste-of-my-time art. You have to find the nitty gritty places of the internet where art is still sacred, where good things come to those who wait and to those who put in the work. You have to blow up The Algorithm with your mind and quit using ChatGPT (literally who even uses ChatGPT why do we even have it!!!!!) and stop expecting Apple Intelligence to save you. BE YOUR OWN ALGORITHM. And support independent artists.
And since I’m generous and my taste is insanely good, here is a list of underrated media that I think more people need to be talking about (I don’t care if you think any of this is mainstream, THEY DESERVE MORE):
Kate Stephenson’s album King of the Hill (Specifically “Flying to Chicago” and “In Me, Baby”)
the band mercury including their Bandcamp exclusive EP, We Were So Close, But Now We’re So Far
Henry Henry by Allen Bratton, a queer Henriad lit-fic Shakespeare retelling
The Floor (yes, the reality trivia show with Rob Lowe)
Black Sails, a queer pirate TV show that prequels Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
Mythic Quest, a TV show about video-game creators and friendship
Letterkenny & Shoresy, two semi-connected sitcom TV shows about a small town in Canada
The Terror (S1, 2018), the TV adaptation of Dan Simmons’ supernatural historical horror book about the doomed Franklin Expedition that sought the Northwest Passage
The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells, a novella sci-fi series about a (autistic?) cyborg who is trying to escape his (murderous?) programming and protect his human clients (soon to be a AppleTV show with Alexander Skarsgård)
A Chorus of Dragons by Jenn Lyons, a queer adult high-fantasy series with body-swapping and reincarnation
The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir, a sci-fi series about queer necromancers in space
Literally any book by Brandon Taylor, holy shit (start with Real Life)
The Bone Season series by Samantha Shannon (book five drops in February)
A girl I went to church with, Bethany aka googly eyes aka Deza who recently signed with ToveLo and produces her own insanely good music
Doechii, specifically her tiny desk concert (“DENIAL IS A RIVER” and “CATFISH” and “NISSAN ALTIMA”)
Rachel Chinouriri (“Never Need Me” and “My Blood”)
Dolores Forever - specifically “Rothko” and “Kilimanjaro”
Baby Queen (she deserves to be Chappell Roan levels of famous fr)
Ghostlight (2024), a film about a local production of Romeo & Juliet and a family grieving in the wake of a suicide (the family in the film is played by a REAL FAMILY, mom dad and daughter)
Theater Camp (2023), a mocumentary shot on film about a summer camp for child actors
Cha Cha Real Smooth (2022), a coming of age movie about a guy who doesn’t know what to do with his life after college
Driveways (2019), a movie about a woman packing up the house of her recently deceased sister
Beginners (2010) and honestly all of Mike Mills’ directorial work
this song by Little Moon
The Fence comics by C.S. Pacat - a series about a high school boys’ fencing team
The Monstress comics by Marjorie Liu - a series about a fantasy world caught up in a war between species and a “girl” who is possessed by a hungry monster
Angelfall by Susan Ee, a post-apocalyptic YA romance series about a girl who must team up with an angel after his kind conquers Earth