by Teddy Urban
The algorithm was meant to be the equalizer. You post your videos, your photos, your mission statement, and they enter a cyber-mill of similarly slick content, all with the same hope of plucking your indie rock band from Bushwick-based obscurity into the mainstream. The existence of the algorithm—and the myth that it may be understood, then harnessed—creates the notion of a template to follow with the promise of success. In the pursuit of “pop” stardom, there have always been trends–a “sound” de jour–to play into as a way of meeting the moment and, hopefully, being discovered and welcomed into major label royalty. But what’s different now is that both the creator and the surveyor of these pearly gates have changed.
In the mid-2000’s boom of blogs and mp3s, the music world rejoiced at the defeat of the major label oligarchs and the rise of internet populism. The power, suddenly, was in the hands of the Blogspot soliloquists, the non-print publications, and the fervent forum-ers. The days of dark money and nepotism creating the culture had gone, and the new tech kids of Silicon Valley were here to ensure that the power stayed on this side of the aisle.
The pseudo-anarchist accelerationism of this tech boom birthed the algorithm as we know it today–an obscure, digital machine that contains the rules for how “content” is valued on social media and streaming platforms. But, despite the many “tips-and-tricks”-content creators who will slip you notes of how to hack your way into these algorithms, the idea that anyone of the public would have such knowledge is a fallacy. The algorithms are not open-source; in fact, their machinations are heavily guarded. Any understanding we think we may have of them is theoretical at best, as well as being temporary. As outlined by Flavortone podcast hosts Nick Scavo and Alec Sturgis on their episode, “On the Sixth Day, God Made Algorithm Music”: “whatever mystery [the algorithm] contains…is in the decision making of designers, technologists, capitalists, and malevolent sociologists.” These non-musical minds are behind a machine that has a distinct set of controls over what gets pushed and what's left behind; a machine that is designed “not to reflect a holistic humanity as much as it is to hack your dopamine center, and it does that really well.” And if we are to believe that these algorithms now hold the key to fame and success, doesn’t that leave us back where we started: in the hands of an opaque, ill-motivated elite?
Now, inevitably, great music does make it through these algorithms. But the success of those artists, songs, and albums are anomalous to what the system’s main goal seems to be, which is engagement: clicks, views, and impressions. These statistics–which have been stripped of all subjective experience, simply judging whether something reached your phone screen (and in the case of ‘watch time’, how long it was there)–give us the illusion of tangibility, of measurement, of success. Spotify greets you with an estimate down to the single digit of “monthly listeners”, each song title is punctuated with a precise number of engagements, or “plays”; Instagram insists on all videos being posted as “Reels”, with un-hideable view counts displayed on their thumbnails.
As a result, the space for analytics based on critical or subjective engagement has been all but erased in favor of simple viewership. Comments sections do still exist, but seem increasingly driven towards volatility–”top” comments have gone from being the most-liked (or the most-agreeable) to the most-argued. It is no longer valuable to know whether or not something was enjoyed or despised; it is only valuable to know if it was seen.
Creating and sharing in spaces which devalue subjectivity in favor of pure engagement and obscure the rules for how that engagement is obtained inevitably leads the creator to confusion, frustration, and loss of the self. We’ve been sold an idea that doing things “correctly”—fitting within perceived algorithmic standards—will be rewarded, and that doing anything against the current is contrarian, or a waste. These platforms present themselves as populist social conduits but act as faceless, capitalist machines, abusing their in-house LLMs to scrub and exploit any and all data for advertising revenue. The users—on which these platforms rely—become the used.
We are likely not all going to leave Spotify, Instagram, or Tik Tok (at least not all at once), and as of now they are integral to the machine at large. But when you’re making music and thinking about what may do best in the algorithm, think instead about what will do best for you. When you’re ailing over ideas for short-form content or carousel photos, post what you would want to see instead. And if you feel yourself wanting to abandon the algorithm and secede from the technocracy, go ahead and make a world of your own. What does it mean to reach someone if who they see isn’t who you are?