Algorithms are like an online culture colander

Algorithms are often described as recommendation engines or digital gatekeepers. For us, the consumer or others- the produser- it filters some content out and keeps what it calculates we would continue to consume. I've literally watched my TikTok feed change within a day because of a specific set of videos. This can be helpful in some instances and in others... deterring and distracting. After reading the Flinterud & Bucher articles, I found myself imagining algorithms as something else entirely: a culture colander. They do not create culture, but they help determine which parts of culture pass through to us, which parts are retained, and ultimately, which stories are most likely to survive.

Flinterud's article posits that algorithms don't create folklore. Humans still create stories, jokes, traditions, rumors, and memes. But algorithms influence which of those stories become visible and continue circulating. Below are memes that were and still are, in some spaces, viral. Your respective algorithms are probably why you've seen one over the other, or neither. I quickly surveyed my wife on this, and she'd never seen the first meme, which I presumed was the more popular one. But she said she saw the Kermit meme last week on her Instagram feed from the dark side, instructing her to forget about cooking and to DoorDash. She did DoorDash, indeed.

Aforementioned Meme 1

Aforementioned Meme 2

Bucher's article introduces the idea of the algorithmic imaginary: users assume rewards for posting content at certain times of the day (I'm looking accusatively at my wife again as I type this), using certain words and tags, and using trending filters or formats. For example, in Bucher's article, the musician learns that posts with certain wording, timing, and engagement patterns receive more visibility. He's trying to create content that the algorithm "holds onto" rather than letting it slip away unnoticed. The thing is, the entire online culture (everyone) is the folks that define what the shapes of the holes are and what gets caught in the colander. I can't imagine everyone knows what beliefs are objectively true with an online culture that alters the algorithm of what content we see moment-to-moment... it helps to be chronically online, I'm sure. Those people try to learn what the colander catches and then reshape themselves so they won't be discarded. I just wish everyone would collectively shift the colander to let '67' fall into the sink.

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