How to Discover Your Own Taste
Navigating the Sea of Sameness: A Deep Dive into Discovering Our Unique Taste
— By Lauren Trend
In a world dominated by algorithms and curated content, the digital landscape often feels like a well-trodden path, where our online experiences are tailored to fit our preferences. However, amidst the comfort of familiarity, are we losing the thrill of discovering the strange and surprising? This is the central question explored in a thought-provoking podcast episode I listened to over the break, "How to Discover Your Own Taste."
Hosted by Ezra Klein, this episode features a captivating conversation with Kyle Chayka, a distinguished staff writer at The New Yorker, who delves into the core ideas behind his upcoming book, "Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture."
Chayka paints a vivid picture of the contemporary internet, a place where we spend so much of our lives, where algorithms have not only made it easier for us to find content that aligns with our preferences, but have also created a digital landscape that tends to blur the lines of uniqueness.
I couldn’t help but nod along, as Chayka suggests, the internet has become a place where everything looks more or less the same, potentially dulling our ability to recognise and appreciate the peculiarities that shape our individual tastes.
In a world where algorithms dominate our digital lives, this conversation between two incredibly honest and intelligent minds explores how the homogenisation of content may be impacting our cultural experiences and impeding the development of our unique sensibilities.
Through engaging insights and anecdotal experiences that I couldn’t help but empathise with, we as the listeners are invited to reflect on the impact of algorithmic culture and explore ways that we might be able to cultivate a more profound and diverse sense of personal taste.
You can tune in to this thought-provoking podcast episode here, I’d love to know what you think!