Reading
I remember scribbling angsty journals in my notebook while hiding behind my cupboard, and being awestruck by the Lais Fita hawkers who would walk through the neighborhood lanes selling colorful accessories. I would genuinely save money to buy them because I loved looking at all those colours and little things and not because they matched a mood board.
Looking back, I realise there was no reason for my fondness for things like these. I did not even feel the need to know what to call it. And I certainly did not need to turn it into a part of my identity.
Lately, though, I feel like we have outsourced a little too much of that process. I mean, now, if we take a look around, we are not just picking up habits anymore, we are stepping into this neatly pre-packaged aesthetic and there is a name for almost everything now. The way we dress, the things we eat, the music we listen to, even the way we organise our rooms. Sometimes, it feels as though we are less interested in finding out who we are than in finding the right template to represent us.
And social media algorithms just add to it. It is so well curated that sometimes, when I search for something online, I seem to find it everywhere. I look at a product once, and suddenly my feed is full of it. I share something, and before I know it, I am watching videos of people who have built entire lifestyles around it. Within moments the internet convinces me that this is exactly something I should be investing in, learning about, buying into, or making part of myself.
My friends and I joke about it amongst ourselves that our phone is reading our minds. Of course, I know they are not. But the feeling is strange because it makes me wonder how much of what I see is a response to my interests and how much of it is shaping those interests in me. The more I see something, the more familiar it becomes. The more familiar it becomes, the more I start to like it and feel the need to have it. And eventually, I am convinced that is me. But is it actually?
When algorithms start shaping taste
I am not saying that every interest we have is manufactured, or that we cannot genuinely like something we discover online. What bothers me is how difficult it can be to tell the difference between finding something I love and becoming attached to something because I keep seeing it.
Lately, I see the word “personalisation” very often, in a way that, almost though it means being understood. The platform learns what we watch, what we search for, what we pause on, and what we return to. Then it gives us more of it. In many ways, that is convenient perhaps. But more than being understood, to me it feels, now, like my social media is training my mind like- here is something you might like. Here are twenty more versions of it. Here is the lifestyle that goes with it. Here is how other people have made it look desirable. And somewhere along the way, from just liking something, I am imposing myself into a pre-planned template that I am given as an option to choose from.
There is nothing inherently wrong with those algorithms or aesthetics. I genuinely like some of them. But I wonder what happens when one version of a good life becomes so visible that other versions become harder to imagine. What happens when I start wanting something not because I had thought about it before, but because I have seen enough people make it look like the obvious thing to want?
My concern with this curated algorithm is that platforms we use every day decide what we see through algorithms. These systems curate content for us based on what they think will keep us engaged. There may also be a capitalist side to this, because apparently platforms benefit when people spend more time watching, clicking and sharing.
The pressure to stay visible
According to researcher Ebru Erbudak, platform capitalism creates pressure to stay visible online. Algorithms shape what content gets attention, while users begin to feel they must constantly keep posting, follow trends and build an online identity. This leads people to exploit themselves for views and engagement. Over time, it may even make culture more similar, push people from one short-lived trend to another and weaken their sense of identity outside the algorithm.
I love Sociologist Émile Durkheim’s idea of people in one part of a city influencing each other, making strange things together, disagreeing, putting on a show that some people hate and others cannot stop talking about. I love the possibility of encountering something I would never have searched for myself like a song that sounds nothing like my usual playlist, a film that challenges what I think good storytelling looks like, or an artist whose work I do not understand immediately but cannot stop thinking about. I feel like discoveries like these require a little discomfort. It requires being around things that do not immediately make sense perhaps.
Making room for unexpected discoveries
I do not want to reject everything I see online. That would be impossible. What I want is to become a little more aware of the difference between what draws me in and what I have simply grown accustomed to seeing. Maybe that means sitting with an interest before buying into it, watching a film someone recommended even though it has nothing to do with my usual taste. Maybe it means writing down an idea before looking up what other people have said about it.
I want to be surprised by my own taste. I keep thinking about those colourful accessories I used to buy from the Lais Fita hawkers. I did not collect them because they belonged to a particular aesthetic. I did not need them to communicate anything about me. I liked them, so I saved my money and bought them. I want the freedom to be messy, unfinished, to change my mind, to like something for no particular reason, and to discover parts of myself that do not already have a name or a template.