IN AS much as I would not like to write anything relating to social media (simply because it is such a complex yet boring topic), I just had to, and here I am trying not to regret it as soon as I conclude this writing.
As I was scrolling on my Twitter feed yesterday, I cannot help but stare in awe of the dumbest recommendation the platform has—Kim Kardashian marveling at her husband's “brilliant idea” of having an album photo snapped using his iPhone en route to a launch party. Rolling my eyes, I shifted to Instagram to check out my inbox only find more inane celebrity videos and stupid pranks. Considering that it took me months to “curate” my feed, it still feels like I cannot escape from the worst material the Internet could offer, or from what it shoves into my face.
Sadly, it is the general state of the Internet today. As I may borrow words of wisdom from Om Malik, "The algorithms lack a depth of understanding and context, despite knowing so much." Facebook and Twitter mainly, can confirm this notion—two of the biggest social media networks out there who think they know everything, but do not. Algorithms are supposed to determine and predict what results would be shown to you whenever you type in "how to cook Filipino food" on Google. It gives you a list of what recipes you can check out but instead of giving you the best, it shows you a Filipino celebrity presenting his version of Sinigang while modeling for a broth cube company.
Fake news, click-bait articles, and radically dumb propaganda are proliferating online more than ever. They suck in a significant number of people and in the end, more and more are uninformed, unaware, and ignorant.
Hello, “16M.”
Then there is Twitter. All the likes and re-tweets are nothing but noise on steroids. The system is programmed to follow a certain algorithm called, “popularity.” And no matter how good your content is, how factual it is, and how informative it is, if you do not get the number of likes and re-tweets, your next tweet is most likely to be ignored by your small number of followers. This leads me to a conclusion that this causes people to be more insatiable than ever – and Twitter becomes more powerful in returning the favor.
Blame it to advertising, "the currency of the World Wide Web," according to Malik. The more attention a content gets, the more valuable it is seen by the many. I have never seen a number of friends who are so drawn to bikinis and the “beach life” (even when they are broke) until now, all for the sake of likes that are somehow interpreted as “approval” from the masses. Why pick on these people when there is a YouTube video promoting almost ten ads on bikinis and how to achieve a better beach life in a three-minute instant gratifying video.
Can we escape from this? It is best to hope yet that companies in the future whose business is not monetizing customers by selling their data and advertising will soon rise. Until then, we will feel less valued when our content does not have enough likes as we expected.
I hope you like my article, though.
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Alyssa Clenuar is a Filipina writer and editor who lives out of a suitcase and writes better in her sweatpants. She has five cats at home and her brooding nest is on the Internet. Her Gods are Elon Musk and Maria Popova. Her Twitter and IG are @alyssaclenuar.