Playing the algorithmic lottery
An outtake with Delia Cai
Hi everyone,
I want to break the fourth wall for a second and acknowledge those affected by Saturday’s car-ramming attack at the Lapu Lapu Day Block Party in Vancouver.
I know many readers live elsewhere and are perhaps not up to speed on the details, but as of writing, 11 people are dead, and dozens more are injured. It’s being called “the darkest day in Vancouver’s history,” and it happened at an event that is meant to highlight and celebrate Filipino heritage.
The contributions of Filipino residents to Vancouver’s culture cannot be overstated. More than 130,000 Filipino Canadians call the city’s metro area home, and several of them are Friends of the Newsletter. To love this place is to love these people.
I am thinking about the community today, and I hope you will too. If you’re among those affected and need help, there are resources available.
Keep your head up.
Welcome to Human Pursuits, the column that features need-to-know names and stories in media and other creative spaces. Today, an outtake from my conversation with – and an afterthought on being cringe.
Read part one of our conversation HERE.
Outtake
ES: It doesn’t surprise me to hear you have marketing experience, because I think you’re brilliant at marketing your work. How important do you think it is to brand yourself right now? Whether you’re a young journalist or just doing something creative.
DC: It’s as important, if not more. You can learn how to be a better writer. You can be taught. I don’t know. To have the muscle and the stomach for talking about stuff you’re working on and putting yourself out there, risking the cringe every time, that’s hard to teach. Most people either like it or they don’t.
I don’t think journalism school really equipped me for this. We were told you need to have a website, you need to network, and you need to be on Twitter. But they didn’t say, “You need to have a brand.” You need to be able to sum up what you do. You need to figure out how to make yourself stick in people's heads so that they think of you when there’s an opening. Like the people we see succeeding, especially outside an institution like The New York Times, say, are often the ones getting the most attention.
As much as I don’t think I have a reporter's constitution, I do think this is part of it. You just gotta put yourself out there and not take things personally. I find that much easier than calling someone up and getting rejected or confronted. The marketing bounces off into space. It’s very impersonal.
ES: Taylor Lorenz spoke a lot about capitalizing on the attention economy when I interviewed her, too. It’s hard to see who is succeeding in the media ecosystem and think you’re above it.
DC: It’s funny you mention Taylor. She also has marketing experience, and I think she knows how messages make their way through the world. It makes sense that she’s been able to build an empire on that.
I feel the way I’m talking about branding is maybe even a bit outdated because I think about promoting your work as tweeting a lot, you know? I remember shortly after I moved to New York, I was grabbing a drink with someone, and they were like, “Here's how Twitter works: you have to post a lot about yourself and your work, and then start interacting with blue checks because they’re the ones looking for attention. They’re using the platform because they want to talk to people, too. Strike up these friendships, and that’s how you start building.” It was such a clear articulation of how the system worked, but I don’t know what it means to promote your work now. Do you give in and go on TikTok?
I think newsletter and Substack culture are really about self-promotion. Sign up and I’ll be in your inbox. It’s a much different game now.
ES: I was going to ask if you thought those rules applied to Substack. I would say they don’t, but I also think you’re more successful than I am on Substack, so maybe you know something I don’t. Laughs.
DC: The thing is, I’ve been using Substack since 2018. It took me nine years to get here and to build the audience I have. But there are still things I don’t know.
I don’t know how I feel about Substack Notes. I get the feeling that the more you put into it, the more it pays off. But at what cost?
ES: We were talking about artifice earlier, and I think Notes is a prime example of that. So much of what is posted there seems to be people playing the game, mining for likes. Like, someone shared a photo of their pear yesterday. The literal fruit. And it got 5,400 likes. What the hell are we doing?
DC: I think we all know it’s embarrassing to be online looking for attention and validation, so it becomes a personal calculation that every user has to make. Can I get over this embarrassment and acknowledge this is how I share my work, or gain an audience? Can you frame your messaging in a way that acknowledges that? But then you run the risk of being too self-deprecating and cynical, because some people have made their peace with it. They’ll play the game, they’ll play the slot machine.
We judge people for posting because it’s cringe or thirsty, but they’ve made a different calculation than us. You have to contend with the fact that it often gets results. Like, if you want to post on Notes, I think it works.
ES: That’s so true. Posting is like penny stocks. It’s a cheap way to chase an audience and, ultimately, freedom. I don’t think I can begrudge someone for doing that.
DC: The whole creator economy is just playing the algorithmic lottery. You’re trying to strike a nerve that rockets you into the realm of attention.
Afterthought
From day one, Human Pursuits has been an exercise in cringe, in pushing the boundaries of my own comfort zone to explore my own capabilities.
If you’ve been reading for a while, maybe you’ve noticed this — how the newsletter went from impersonal link round-ups to deeply personal narratives, to now some combo of the two.
I’m happy with the current balance. Still, I feel a slight pang of embarrassment every time I hit send. My inner critic tells me I’m trying too hard, that I’m chasing something I’ll probably never catch, that I should feel cringe. As I told Delia, “I care very deeply”.
For a long time, caring seemed antithetical to authenticity online, with those who cared less often considered coolest. But I think the tide is turning, in part because our understanding of the attention economy continues to solidify. We know, for example, that most people are not posting for sheer love of online discourse. At the very least, they’re searching for some sort of connection or validation. More often, they're pulling the algorithmic lever, hoping to score a proverbial payout.
In an essay earlier this month, explored her own shifting attitude towards authenticity. She writes:
It’s comforting to embrace the machinations, to be most honest with each other by saying of ourselves: “look at this, here’s something I just made up.”
In other words, the pendulum has swung so far into faux-relatability that it’s now more honest to admit you’re telling people a story. That you care. And so why not embrace something larger than your normal life?
The only way to conquer the cringe is to become cringe. The only way out is through.