Algorithmic Identity
On being shaped by the feed — and the slow erosion of decency it's costing all of us.
A harder one to write because the diagnosis applies to me too. We’re all in the same machine. The poem is for the part of all of us that knows.
I see people less friendly
Their rhetoric more deadly
We’re slaves to an algorithmic identity
That slowly kills our own humanity
The origin story of an atrocity
Comes from where your bias begins
No one wins from a lack of decency
Clickbait, news fake, educational sins
Chaos runs rampant
When outrage is attachment
And what we know as truth
Is simply beliefs fitting into narratives
The algorithm rewards outrage because outrage is engagement. We’re not the customers; we’re the product, and outrage is the most profitable version of us. The first move out is just naming the loop. The second is choosing not to perform inside it.
— JTC