We’re Living in ‘Filterworld,’ a Cookie Cutter Culture Created by Algorithms

Millennial writer Kyle Chayka longs for the good old days of the Internet, when online forums and MP3 piracy helped him define his own personal sense of style and taste. You had to work at it: Wake up early to catch that anime you wanted to watch and record on a VHS tape, find the MySpace page devoted to your favorite show, search out the music magazine featuring cool bands. But today, he observes, the algorithm has flattened culture by constantly feeding us media that it thinks we will like because a lot of other people like it too. According to Chayka, we’re now living in “Filterworld,” which is the title of his new book. We talk to Chayka about how we can reclaim our technological and cultural autonomy and find ourselves.