Algorithmic Beef

[leahreich@www.leahreich.com]

Depending on the various internets you inhabit, you may not yet be aware that another virulent Twitter (please don't make me call it X) fight erupted last night between rap superstars Nicki Minaj and Cardi B. To be honest, depending on the various internets you inhabit, you may not be aware that any feuds have ever erupted between these two, online or off. Thankfully, as I have no business writing about beef between two rappers, I can direct you to detailed timelines such as this one, should you like to catch up.

Truthfully, you don't need to catch up, nor do you need to know the very (very) ugly details of this latest public argument, which is still raging. In fact, maybe don't click on those links (yet). Don't worry, if you already clicked, or if you opened in a new tab, or if you are already up to speed, I'm not judging you. Obviously I did a little reading myself, or I wouldn't have opened with this story. Read all you want later. But first, I want us to talk about what that click means.

A couple of months ago, I sent out a newsletter that talked a bit about how tech products are made. In it, I mentioned a question that someone asked me about Instagram, where I worked for a time. This person, a lawyer, wanted to know whether Instagram's algorithms were intentionally designed to deliver harmful content to people, and whether the product could be made safer by tweaking those algorithms to not deliver that content. Most of you know that looking at the problem this way is wrong. That's now how algorithms or tech products work.

Algorithms are, in a really basic way (please don't come for me, software engineers), instructions that computers use to solve problems. There are many problems they can solve, but these days we most regularly encounter them on social media and content platforms, and the problems they solve there are related to the sorting, organizing, and delivering of different kinds of content. Algorithms are, therefore, incredibly useful. Whenever you say "I hate the algorithm," what you're really saying is "I hate selfish algorithms that only benefit the company that created and controls them" or "I hate bad algorithms that deliver me a lot of stuff I have no interest in reading or listening to or watching." You actually probably like algorithms, you just don't notice when you do.

You also know, of course, that algorithms use your inputs and signals to get better at delivering content you are more likely to enjoy or engage with. Every signal you have ever sent on a platform, when you view, click, share, comment, like, upvote, downvote, react, whatever: You name it, every signal matters. Not so much in an individual sense, but in the aggregate. Platforms have many different algorithms to keep feeding you content based on different instructions, data types, and signals. Sometimes these seem obvious. Sometimes they don't. So in a sense, the signals you send matter a little like your votes do. Your vote may not be the deciding factor in an election. It may get swallowed up by a very opaque system, or overridden by forces and mechanisms well-hidden from your comprehension. But it's in there, dinking around, rippling out, shaping and being reshaped in return. It's not wholly meaningless, even when it sometimes feels that way.

Maybe this description sounds familiar to you. What else operates like this? Maybe, I dunno... culture?

What we engage with and normalize, what we reinforce, celebrate, and reward, all of that becomes part of our culture. In turn, our culture is a part of who we are. Before I moved to Sweden, I didn't think I was particularly American, but a single month living in Stockholm immediately disabused me of that notion. That's what culture shock is, right? It isn't just being confronted with a culture that's unfamiliar or different from your own, it's being confronted with it because your culture is more ingrained in you than you ever realized when you were marinating in it. And let me tell you, it is a fucking shock! It is shocking to realize how much you have been shaped by your context without even realizing it. The most surprising things will feel alien, and when you go home, the most surprising things there will feel comforting or suddenly alienating because of a long separation. A lot of people come back to the US and hate how noisy and hectic it is. Me? After a few years in hush-hush Stockholm, I missed that vibrancy and energy, the serendipity that only comes with chaos. I craved it.

When it comes to our culture, and I mean this very specific moment in which we find ourselves, addictive technologies and harmful algorithms are only part of the problem. Sure, tech companies design products to make us crave that elusive dopamine hit more and more. Sure, algorithms have instructions to push destructive content and hide beneficial content. Sure, we're caught in a bad cycle within a larger framework that is orders of magnitude more powerful than any one of us. As someone who mindlessly picks her phone up hundreds of times a day and who doom scrolls through stuff that makes me feel bad, I fully admit all of this is real.

But there's another real part: We willingly, even gleefully, engage with content that has extremely harmful downstream effects. We have some agency as individuals, and we often use it to show broadcasters, tech companies, and creators what kinds of content we will actively and eagerly consume, even celebrate and reward. Streaming companies executives are a lot like your average product manager: When something is successful, they'll say, let's just copy the shit out of the formula and milk it for as long as we can, rather than build something new based on similar principles or user needs. This is why Instagram is still copy-pasting Add Yours features, even though my team came up with it four years ago. This is why there are more real housewife franchises than you can shake a stick at. Algorithms could be useful. Content could be good. But the minute we all go, ooh yes, I'll do this, we send a signal, and once we send it, we no longer control it.

What's funny is that I had no intention of writing about Nicki and Cardi B. I know better than to wade into those waters, or to provoke the Barbz (Nicki Minaj's extremely engaged fanbase). But this beef happened to blow up last night, and I happened to be on Reddit, scrolling through the comments and thinking about a spicy theory I've been sitting on for a long time but haven't shared. The more I read the comments, the more I saw evidence unfold in real time that supports this theory. So I thought, you know, maybe it's time.

Let me illustrate my theory before I explain it. We're going to play everyone's favorite game of Spot the Difference. Look at these two images, and tell me what's different about them.

Two of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, one screaming across the table at another housewife

Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene heckling Biden at the State of the Union

Trick question: They're the same image.

My spicy theory is that we can essentially draw a direct line from this Real Housewives meme to MTG and LB openly heckling a sitting president. We all talk about how no one has any shame anymore, how people act in whatever way they choose, how people no longer understand how to behave in public and how selfish, how little regard humans seem to have for one another. Where do we think all this came from? This is the culture we have normalized by watching it on TV and sharing it on the internet, for years now. We expect people in positions of power somehow behave differently, to be better, but why would they? As a culture, we have rewarded this behavior. We gave those shows ratings. We gave our attention to celebrity fights on Twitter. We sent signal after signal after signal.

One of the biggest lies we ever told ourselves was that online wasn't "real." People still seem to believe this. Your online friends aren't real, what people say online doesn't have real meaning, what they show you isn't their real lives. That is categorically false. Online and offline are both constructs (maybe that's a conversation for another time), and they are intimately connected. If they weren't, how could GenAI chatbots drive people to suicide and how could our entire government be subsumed by Extremely Online meme-producing edgelords?

There's a reason I described the Nicki Minaj and Cardi B beef as virulent. Not only is it bitterly hostile, it is toxic and poisonous. I won't share the comments I read on Reddit, because I don't have user permission, but you can read some of the threads. What sparked my interest was the way opinion about the beef shifted in real time. As the fight got nastier, as they each started going after the other's children, as sexual assault and childhood traumas were dragged out in public, there were suddenly a lot of "This stopped being cute three insults ago" and "Children should be off limits" and "This isn't fun anymore."

I truly don't mean to be a prig or a scold because I am as complicit as anyone else but man, maybe it wasn't ever fun. Maybe we've been watching modern versions of duels and public executions, only now these modern versions also make the worst people we know richer and richer.

The technology is addictive, yes, but quite often that technology feeds back the content and culture we've shown it we want to consume and participate in. In fact, the technology is addictive in part because it's a perfect vehicle for certain kinds of content, which is successful in turn because of the addictive, destructive technology. It's a fucked up cycle that traps us. What if I stopped clicking out of curiosity? What if I tried to send fewer signals? What if I disengaged?

Millions of people have been following this latest fight, so every digital publication and YouTube channel is going to cover it, which is going to reinforce all of it, and then deliver it back to us. That's going to lure us into doomscrolling more, which sends the signal back, which... I just want off the fucking ride, you guys. I have agency. Maybe not as much as I'd like to think or wish, but I have some. I could also stop rewarding and reinforcing the kinds of culture I am tired of seeing spill over into all aspects of our lives.

I'm sure you've noted that all of the examples in here are women. I'm thinking about that too. Why are we normalizing this? Why are we sending these signals? Doing that might look like an exercise of power, but in the end, who really benefits?

Until next Wednesday.

Lx