Fear & Loathing in the Algorithm
How we lost ourselves & how we find a way out
Something’s off. Not just with social media. Not just with culture. But with the way everything is starting to feel… the same.
Same songs. Same dances. Same punchlines. Same feeds, just repackaged in different skins. Scroll TikTok. Flip to Instagram. Tap through YouTube Shorts. You’ll start to notice it too, the cultural déjà vu. Like someone’s copied and pasted your internet experience a hundred times over.
And it’s not because you’re old or out of touch. It’s because everything is being optimised to death.
Let me explain.
The flattening of culture
When the algorithm first arrived, it was a bit of a marvel.
Spotify’s Discover Weekly felt like a mate who knew your taste better than you. TikTok threw up scenes and songs you’d never find on your own. YouTube sent you down rabbit holes you didn’t know existed.
And for a while, it worked. The algorithm felt like discovery on steroids.
But now? It feels like being force-fed a slightly warmer, more palatable version of your own reflection. Over and over again. It’s not discovery. It’s feedback loops in disguise.
Kyle Chayka calls it Filterworld, a world that’s flatter, more homogenous, and more passively consumed. That phrase should make your skin crawl. Because when you really think about it, what used to be taste has become training data.
We’re not choosing culture. We’re being told what culture is. And we’re playing along, whether we realise it or not.
When sameness wins, originality dies
The algorithm isn’t designed to show you something great. It’s designed to show you something you won’t scroll past. And that distinction is everything.
Because what keeps you scrolling isn’t surprise, it’s sameness. Aesthetic sameness. Structural sameness. Emotional sameness. And when sameness performs, creators chase it. Because the stakes are too high not to.
Which is why your feed looks like Groundhog Day with better lighting.
You want to know what the algorithm really optimises for? Whatever already worked.
And so creators adapt. Over and over again. Musicians frontload the hook. Filmmakers trim the fat. Comedians cut to the punchline. Because if you don’t grab people in 3 seconds, you’re gone.
What you’re left with is a digital monoculture dressed up as infinite choice.
TikTok: Where trends go to die
TikTok is the epicentre of this. It’s where trends are born, and where they get murdered 48 hours later.
One week it’s indie sleaze. The next it’s clean girl. Then it’s normcore, goblincore, fairycore, whatever-core. The churn is dizzying.
Vogue Business calls it algorithmic whiplash. That’s putting it politely.
What it really is? Cultural fast food. Made to hit, not to last. Designed to spike your dopamine, not your memory.
And Gen Z , supposedly the masters of this system, are starting to check out. Because even they can see it: when everything is a trend, nothing matters.
We’re living in an attention economy where the currency has been completely debased. And no one wants to admit it’s all starting to feel a bit…boring.
The influencer isn’t your friend
It’s not just the algorithm we’re losing trust in. It’s the people playing the game.
Influencers were once the darlings of digital culture, the cool kids who beat the system, monetised their taste, and made creativity look easy.
Now? They’re just human billboards. Sponsored by oat milk brands. Reading ad scripts with fake authenticity. Pushing hauls, hacks, and “must-haves” they’ll never use again.
The public’s caught on. Trust in influencers is falling. Deinfluencing briefly tried to be the answer. But even that got co-opted, just another content strategy in disguise.
The problem isn’t the people. It’s the incentives.
When attention is currency, everything becomes performance. Even your taste. Even your identity. That’s why people are asking: do I like this, or did the algorithm tell me I should?
That’s not paranoia. That’s survival.
Global culture, local extinction
And here’s the kicker. This isn’t just happening in your feed. It’s happening everywhere.
TikTok’s not just flattening your taste, it’s flattening the planet.
From London to Lagos, the same viral tracks dominate. The same dances. The same content styles. It’s a cultural blender set to “purée.”
What used to be regional flavour now feels like global branding guidelines.
Designers in Seoul and Milan are rebelling. Critics are calling out the sameness. But the algorithm doesn’t care about rebellion. It cares about retention.
And as long as we keep watching, it’ll keep feeding us the same safe sludge.
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So what the hell do we do?
Well, here’s the good news. The cracks are showing. People are pulling back.
Newsletters are booming. Podcasts are thriving. Human curation is making a comeback.
Some creators are choosing not to play the algorithm’s game — making weird, slow, complicated stuff again. Some are even embracing inaccessibility — turning away from scale and towards community.
Even platforms are hedging. TikTok is trying to reward longer watch times. Because deep down, even they know: if everyone’s bored, the model breaks.
And brands should take note of this.
Because while every brand scrambles to fit in — chasing trends, appeasing the algorithm, sanding down their own distinctiveness — the ones who win are doing the opposite.
Liquid Death doesn’t follow. It doesn’t beg for likes or play nice with the feed. It has a uniquely bold aesthetic that slices through the cultural malaise.
And ironically? They’re now the ones being copied. We’re seeing the Liquification of advertising -knock-off brands mimicking the madness.
Duolingo. Nutter Butter. Both brands threw out the rulebook and embraced the weird. From surreal TikToks to unhinged bird puppets, they didn’t follow trends- they made their own. And yes, there have been way too many strategy breakdowns trying to dissect why they work. But the real answer is simple:
They copy no one.
So, while most of us are more lost in the algorithm than ever, there is a way out.
One paved with absurdity. With boldness. With a refusal to play the same game.
It means turning away from fake influencers, fake engagement, and anxiety-inducing scroll traps.
I’m here for it.
Are you?
Would love to hear your thoughts — drop them in the comments below.
Great article Will, spot on.
Have you seen the latest attention report from VCCP / Dr Karen Nelson-Field on the attention economy? I might argue the algorithm is now designed for you to scroll past to the next thing, it's just not designed for you to leave. It provides enough novelty to feed our addictive doomscrolling, allowing the platforms to deliver more ad impressions. But those imps are predominantly to people who are not paying attention to them.
https://pages.vccp.com/hubfs/Hacking%20the%20Attention%20Economy%20Report.PDF.pdf
Doesn't change the outcome you have here. We are chasing the same superficial metrics leading to the same insights and ultimately expressions of best practices - the bain of creativity that leads you to making work that looks exactly like the competitions.