(N.B: This was first published as a Note a couple of months prior, but I was bullied into publishing it a proper post. Please enjoy.)
There is an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation in which Data, an advanced android, faces against Kolrami, an alien with a legendary strategic mind, in some futuristic game of strategy, some sort of sci-fi chess. Data loses their initial game, to the surprise of everyone, especially himself. He cannot understand how a living being could beat his super-advanced computerized brain in a game of pure logic, to the point of running diagnosis on himself to see if he is malfunctioning.
At the end of the episode, the pair play again, and the game seems to go on and on without an apparent winner. At some point, Kolrami violently throws off the game equipment and leaves the room in disgust. While everyone thinks Data beat Kolrami, he corrects them saying the game ended technically in a stalemate, but explains what happened. Data, this time, didn't play to win. He just matched Kolrami's moves to keep the game balanced, in a sort of perpetual stalemate. At some point Kolrami gave up out of pure frustration.
I've always found the moral of this small Star Trek vignette quite powerful. In so many cases in life I found that choosing to play with a goal of not to win, but to just play, and at best play to keep things even, ends up ironically being the winning strategy.
Which brings me to Twitter. Er, to X. But not just Xwitter, but all these algorithm fueled parts of the web, which unfortunately dominate the Internet landscape.
Many people, good, creative, honest people with interesting voices have either been massively discouraged by this landscape, choosing not to create at all, as they don't find it likely they'd be able to break through the algorithmic noise and the modern web which seems to favor the inane; or they've decided to play the game as presented, try to please the goddess Algorythmia, with sacrifices of their attention, time and worst of all, creativity, in hopes to Build an Audience ā¢, and to become visible in the ocean of crap content that social media has become.
Both of these strategies are logical, but both seem to me as trying to beat Kolrami at his own game. Have we tried to play just to play? To play not to win, but to mess around? To try to slip through the cracks of the algorithms, and use them to connect with the like-minded and friendly people, who would be happy to read (or watch, or listen) our stuff, and maybe even support us, without them turning us into algowraiths?
I think it might be worth a try to use the TwiXers and Instagrams and the like, but not like they want us to. To post whatever makes us laugh or what we find fun, with zero care if it builds an audience or brand or whatever. Not expecting anything, posting exactly opposite of how all the "how to build an audience" dorks tell you to do.
Probably we can't beat Kolrami. But maybe we can get him to give up.
Iām proud to say that I am one of the said bullies
FUCK The ALGORITHM has been mah MANTRA frum Day 1.