We live in a world of optimizers, not auteurs

Cultural makers and technologists have all succumbed to the banality of the crowd

With a few rare exceptions, the more popular someone is in this culture, the less intelligent they are. Same with music, movies, books, and the trudge of endless "content." This isn’t me being pretentious. It’s just math. McDonald’s is the most popular restaurant by a wide margin and it’s not like people’s aesthetic magically improves elsewhere. People consume the culture equivalents just the same.

Have you ever opened TikTok or Instagram? I’m sorry if you have. We’ve built a society where attention is currency, and algorithms are the central banks. And algorithms don’t optimize for brilliance. They optimize for engagement which inevitably means averages. For whatever glues the highest number of eyeballs to a screen for the longest period of time. Intelligence, nuance, originality? Statistically, they’re risky. They confuse, people don’t know how to process it. It might even inspire you to leave your screen and actually do something. So instead, we get endless cultural slop.

Media execs and platform overlords understand this intuitively. They manage out anything interesting until the edge is sanded off. They don’t allow links to anything external, because they don’t control it. That bold idea from a screenwriter? “Too risky.” That complex lyric in a pop song? “Dial it down.” The character that makes you uncomfortable in a good way? “Make her more likable.” Everything goes through the same smoothing filter. What survives is what's safest for the greatest number. Not best, not brightest. Just most broadly consumable.

Ted Giogia laments the state of culture in a great recent post. Everything is made worse as it becomes optimized for dopamine (addiction and short termism).

This is why our most popular figures resemble barely sentient branding exercises. They’ve been A/B tested until they’re little more than smiley-faced amalgams of public opinion, appealing in the most literal and predictable way. They don’t challenge you, they flatter you. You’re smart, you’re good, you’re enough, they say, as they sell you another new pop star designed for a Disney adult.

And because we are social primates hardwired to mimic the crowd, people confuse frequency with truth or quality. If everyone’s listening to it, it must be good. If everyone’s following him, he must be worth following. The algorithm feeds this illusion, reinforcing the same faces, songs, movies and shows over and over until they become cultural wallpaper: everywhere, therefore important. Omnipresent, therefore good.

But reality has no such bias toward the middle. Real intelligence and creativity is often unpopular, contemplative, slow-burning. It doesn’t flatten itself for mass consumption. It demands effort. It challenges a people who have had all challenge removed from their life. Maybe everything is this way because we’re infantilizing the world. As Kyla Scanlon notes in a recent post:

The irony is that this convenience was supposed to free us for deeper pursuits. With food delivery, we wouldn't waste time cooking; with algorithmic entertainment, we wouldn't waste time browsing; with frictionless finance, we wouldn't waste time budgeting.

But free us for what, exactly? The promise was more time for meaningful connection, creative pursuits, deep thinking - exactly the things that require effort, patience, and resilience, the very muscles that convenience has allowed to atrophy.

I don’t know though, I think that intelligent people do actually follow more meaningful pursuits given more free time. They know when things are over-optimized. They push back against infantilization in their life. I just don’t think most people are very bright. Many refuse to acknowledge this at the same time everything around us caters to it.

So if you want to find intelligent or creative work, look to the margins. The novel with just a few passionate positive reviews, the Substacks few people are quoting, the indie musician no one has heard of making 9 minute instrumental tracks that rival the classical greats. That’s where the edges still exist. That’s where people are making things for meaning instead of metrics.

Good post from Lindyman, and in my observation knowing many indie musicians personally who make amazing works, it’s correct.

Popularity is not wisdom or even quality. It’s just what happens when the curve gets flattened, and everything bright and spiky is filed down until it fits. You’re free to reject any of this in your own life, by the way. It’s a good step to no longer living demoralized.