To serve or smash the algorithm – Is it our choice?

The other day, I received an email – which is something I wanted, because I signed up for it. The subject line was the hook in my proverbial mouth: “Six hot trends to go viral on socials right now.”

A lot of the tips were fairly innocuous, though one was quite disturbing: hold your phone as if it were a gun and mockingly “shoot” people to the beat of a recent pop song I can’t remember. This was my “Old man yells at cloud” moment if I ever was to have one.

Either way, I was taken aback – have we really come to a place where we’ll literally do anything for fame and virality? And when I upload my virtual killing spree to this sick beat (pun intended), then what?

Profit? Riches? Immortality?

It also led me to another thought; as we’ve surrendered our media autonomy to the almighty algorithm, at what point have we started serving it instead of it serving us?

Neil Postman, the late great media ecologist and academic, said that technology is at best a “frenemy” to use a recent term – a friend and enemy at the same time.

“Most people believe that technology is a staunch friend,” he wrote. “There are two reasons for this. First, technology is a friend. It makes life easier, cleaner, and longer. Can anyone ask more of a friend? Second, because of its lengthy, intimate, and inevitable relationship with culture, technology does not invite a close examination of its own consequences. It is the kind of friend that asks for trust and obedience, which most people are inclined to give because its gifts are truly bountiful. But, of course, there is a dark side to this friend. Its gifts are not without a heavy cost. Stated in the most dramatic terms, the accusation can be made that the uncontrolled growth of technology destroys the vital sources of our humanity. It creates a culture without a moral foundation. It undermines certain mental processes and social relations that make human life worth living. Technology, in sum, is both friend and enemy.”

There is a reason so much of our social feeds look the same and feel the same: the algorithm is pushing us to more of what it thinks we want. Deviation from the norm is punished by obscurity. I make the joke a lot, but the “LinkedIn talking head spouting quasi-insights from their car” video is popular for a reason. An algorithmic reason, that is.

The surrender of culture to technology in that regard is complete. Advertising and marketing no longer look for ways to cut through the noise with creativity; it’s looking for the slickest and easiest way to hop on an artificially intelligent bandwagon, all marching to the same beat and dressed in the same colours.

Owing much to Generative AI, we can pump out more of the same than ever before. Even as the algorithm demands sameness, does it mean we should run our marketing and communication the same way?

Therein lies a real problem.

The unshakable ideal: uniqueness

Humans have an internal struggle with being the outsider. Being outcast from a tribe meant certain death; no individual could hope to wrestle with prehistoric nature and survive. There is little wonder why that cultural memory survives into the present day as “Tall Poppy Syndrome” and a longing to be accepted or gain approval from others. The algorithm exploits this human weakness on purpose.

Even so, some of the greatest businesses came into being because they were novel or did things in a new and exciting way.

As soloists, we are businesspeople because we believe in our uniqueness, and that it provides value for an ever-expanding group of people.

My good friend Dave Zahlan of Alexanders Fruit Market couldn’t have cared less about the algorithm – and I encouraged him to hold on to what makes his greengrocer the quirky and frenetic place that it is. Constant barneys with his brother Danny, talking to colourful customers that pop in and out, as well as showcasing a genuine love of their produce and customer service. If you look at the list of Australia’s Top Voices on LinkedIn in 2020, his cheesy grin sticks out like a sore thumb among a cultivated lawn of button-down suits and ties. It all runs on “Fruit, Family, and Fun” – and that’s their guide to making content that’s different from what the algorithm seems to demand.

Another friend, Dan Ahchow from Eaco Systems, set up an AI-powered cartoon character as his virtual operations manager, showing how Eaco can automate everyday admin work. He’s created “Oscar’s” own LinkedIn profile and personality to match. It’s fun and a bit out there; but it’s creative and it doesn’t care what the algorithm “thinks.”

We don’t need to serve the algorithm because the algorithm doesn’t serve us. It isn’t designed to uplift us as unique individuals doing new and exciting things.

If you’re ever tempted to tend toward the generic or stifle your voice to match the cadence of others; don’t.

Embrace who you are. There’s always an audience in there.

That old world logic still stands true. Fortune favours the bold, even if the algorithm doesn’t want it to. You win friends and influence people by being authentic and flawed; not programmed and perfect.

The question is this: What guides you? Your own values or what the algorithm values?

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