your phone is the reason you have no identity
is your algorithm a reflection of you, or have you become nothing but a mirror of your algorithm?
The other day, I was scrolling through Instagram when I came across this post:
At the beginning, I agreed immediately. I was even about to like the post when I suddenly stopped in my tracks and thought: ‘Wait, no. This is not it. The reason I don’t like the algorithm isn’t because it’s my reflection. It’s because it’s an engine created to manipulate me so it can keep me engaged for as long as possible, stealing both my attention and my precious time.’
Why did I even agree in the first place?
Well, easy. Because, sometimes, you consume so much content in the span of two minutes that you don’t even stop to think about what you are reading. But those words end up imprinted in your subconscious, one way or another, and they can become a bigger problem than you would ever expect.
The algorithm: how we think we shape it, but how it shapes us in the end
After coming across this post, I couldn’t help but ask myself:
How many times have I agreed, mindlessly, to something the Internet tells me about myself?
It’s like the email chains that used to circulate back in 2008, sending our parents into a pit of shared mild psychosis. Right now, we make fun of boomers who believe the AI-generated videos they see on Facebook are real, but are we really that different when we believe everything a stranger tells us about ourselves online?
I’ll give you an example. My Instagram Reels algorithm is, somehow, obsessed with the idea that I have an avoidant attachment style. Even though I want to talk in depth in a future post about how cheap Internet psychology is ruining our relationships, I always end up buying into it without even realizing it.
But am I truly avoidant? When I think about my past dating patterns, I realize it couldn’t be further from the truth. When I like someone, I am caring, communicative, and, to be honest, leaning more toward the anxious side.
Or maybe neither of them, who cares? Why does the Internet need to pathologize every single aspect of human nature?
Sure, past experiences have made me colder and more wary, but that doesn’t mean I’m ‘avoidant.’ It just means I’m human. It means I have let my experiences shape me, and that I’m growing older and changing.
As I see it, the algorithm seems to take your most toxic traits (maybe you have a tendency to ghost people, or maybe you push them away) and keeps showing them back to you through people who normalize them until you end up normalizing them too.
How many times have you seen a video glorifying things like ghosting people, manipulating men, or taking weeks to respond to one of your friends?
Without realizing it, you end up doing the same, and you don’t even feel guilty about it. I mean, why should you, when everything can be summed up in a 30-second video in an ironic, humorous way?
Lately, I get angry every time I am scrolling and my algorithm shows me something like this. I stop, and think: ‘Why are you trying to tell me who I am?’.
This can also be seen in fashion. You can tell how chronically online someone is just by looking at their outfit. And if you’re just as chronically online as they are, you can even identify the exact ‘aesthetic’ or ‘microtrend’ they are trying to emulate.
Y2K, cottagecore with a little hint of coquette, eclectic grandpa with a Jane Birkin–type bag, except she got all her trinkets from Shein instead of letting them build up over time.
Are any of these trends a reflection of the person wearing them, or just a reflection of what their algorithm chooses to feed them?
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What you pay attention to, you become
As a big fan of manifestation since I was fifteen—when my dad’s cousin gifted me The Secret before it was trendy on the Internet—I have decided to re-read the book this month.
And, let me tell you something: you don’t need to believe in the law of attraction to accept one basic truth. Just like you are what you eat and who you hang out with, you are what you pay attention to.
As I was going through the book, I started noticing the algorithm-inflicted thoughts being imprinted in my subconscious mind.
I mean, we all know it. No matter who you are, algorithms will always show you negative things—on a smaller or larger scale. Ragebait, tragedies, or constant reminders of insecurities you might actually relate to, you can never truly escape.
Negativity sells. Negativity makes you pay attention, so that’s what you get.
And even though I truly believe we shouldn’t turn a blind eye to what’s happening in the world, being constantly bombarded with this kind of negativity is genuinely detrimental to our mental health.
I realized that in the periods of my life when I use one social media platform more than others, I become a slightly different person. When I use X a lot, I get angrier. I start thinking negatively about everything: certain celebrities I shouldn’t care about, and trivial things that wouldn’t normally cross my mind suddenly make me feel sick.
When I use TikTok and Instagram a lot, I start caring more about really superficial things: trends, new clothes, celebrity gossip, and other people’s dating lives. I get horrible FOMO, and I feel bad about my life after seeing so many amazing travels, people visiting places I can only afford to dream about.
When I go through Substack Notes, I end up with this feeling, that is very visible in my long-form posts, of ‘Oh, fuck the Internet. Fuck social media. I would much rather go to a retreat in the woods. I am a fucking intellectual.’ I forget that the world is so much more than Sylvia Plath quotes, ‘thought daughters’, and Carrie Bradshaw pictures.
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But then, who am I? Who are we?
I don’t know how much of me has been shaped over the thirteen years I have spent on the Internet.
How many of my favorite movies did I watch because I saw a TikTok about them? How many books did I read because the algorithm kept pushing them at me? How many of the things I wear truly represent who I am and what makes me feel comfortable, and how many did I buy just because the Internet convinced me to? Or how much music did I listen to only because Spotify shoved it in my face?
We have lost our agency to explore the things we truly like, to build our own identity through lived experiences and the people we know. I recently found my MP3 player from my early teens, back when I wasn’t chronically online and didn’t even know what Spotify was. I could still recall who had recommended each song: my stepmother’s car playlist on her burner CD, my dad’s favorite song, different friends’ recommendations…
And even though I can’t deny that the algorithm has helped me find some gems, I miss when things felt more organic. When we were a curation of the things we liked, not a dumpster of daily overstimulation, consuming content we can’t even store inside ourselves.
In this era, you are no longer made up of things you love, situations, people, and little quirks. You are a ‘thought daughter’ who reads Kafka, listens to Lana Del Rey, and watches Jennifer’s Body and The Virgin Suicides. You are a ‘performative male’ who drinks matcha, carries a Trader Joe’s tote bag, and probably has a mullet and a mustache too.
You are a Jane Birkin bag filled with trinkets bought on Shein.
We are all becoming copies of the copy of the copy. And it’s because we are all, on a smaller or larger scale, mindlessly consuming the same things. It’s because we no longer choose what we consume.
And, for this reason, we no longer choose what we become.
So, no. I don’t ‘hate’ the algorithm because it is a reflection of who I am.
I hate it because it has the power to manipulate the kind of person I could become.
Do you want to support my creative career? In honor of the New Year, I want to give you the opportunity to get a yearly subscription for less than $20 by clicking this link:
And you can also buy me a ☕:
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This line is brilliant: “eclectic grandpa with a Jane Birkin–type bag, except she got all her trinkets from Shein instead of letting them build up over time.”
It perfectly captures what’s wrong with our generation. We’re too impatient to wait until we’re actually in Rome to pick up a tiny pasta trinket or to stumble upon a cute little boutique downtown and find a miniature hat charm. And it goes wayyy beyond the Birkin-type bag filled with Shein trinkets, the "TikTok generation" is so used to the instant gratification that social media provides that we’ve become numb and indifferent to the small meaningful moments in life.
oh you ate down with this essay (esp the fashion part because so many outfits i see online are literally copy and paste under the guise of individuality) great work!