Cover of The Festival by H.P. Lovecraft (Open Road Media, e-book edition)
If it seems to you that TikTok's algorithm has gotten worse, you're not alone. I sense this too.
It seems as though the algorithm — one which previously was so laser-focused on your specific interests, and seemed to understand content you'd want to see before you even knew it, has gotten worse. The algorithm that once appeared from the outside to be something close to magic now serves up the worst kind of slop — things that are inherently repellant, usually from the dumbest hogs you've ever encountered online.
It reminds me of this line from The Festival by HP Lovecraft — a line which I was first exposed to in the game Signalis — a line that feels as though it was cut from the Book of Revelations for being Capital T, Capital W Too Weird:
"Great holes secretly are digged where earth's pores ought to suffice, and things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl."
That's a loaded thing, right? The body of work produced by Lovecraft introduced the world to the concept of Cosmic Horror, a horror that sows dread simply by being incomprehensible in its scale — dwarfing the limited understanding of the human mind.
We all know where Lovecraft's inspiration lies — his reclusive fear and hatred of people who fell into his category of Other. His racism — the incomprehensibility of finding kinship among people he fundamentally did not believe to be as human as he was. He was so touched by the fear of The Other that he translated the act of touching grass into a brain-shattering experience that would pulverize the minds of rational people into jelly — irreparably warped by the incomprehensible.
There are things which we all find incomprehensible, things that scare us, but hopefully for different reasons.
For me, something incomprehensible is how these hogs are seemingly given the biggest platforms to spew the dumbest shit I've ever heard. Things they likely wouldn't have the courage to say if they had any level of social interaction with others.
Could you imagine if the person sitting next to you at a bar said, "nobody gives a fuck about Emmett Till," or that they just learned that day — from ChatGPT, of course — that Harriet Tubman wasn't a real person? That Anne Frank was a fictional character? What is the first visceral response you felt? Would you move away from them, making them feel the internal shame of being shunned by others in a social context? Would you punch them in the throat so they stop yapping? Would you laugh in their face?
All of those three options are valid because there is inherent importance in shaming others.
Not all thoughts are valid, not all people deserve respect or our time and attention.
Some people may view their "opinions" as equally valid as any other. The truth is they are not.
However, in the attention economy, these gibbering fools have found algorithmic ascension. Millions now get to hear their insane stillborn thoughts — ideas better left on the cutting room floor of rumination.
Things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl.