Is escaping the algorithm going to be elitist?

I don't want to be a style sheeple. Shperson?

Follow me on a little thinking journey - who makes our style decisions for us in an AI world?

It Started With John Mayer

I’m currently obsessed with SiriusXM, the paid-for radio stations that come with a new car. I pay for Spotify, but it feels like a lot of work to find playlists that delight me. Not so with Sirius. John Mayer’s ability to DJ turns out to be remarkably good as well as eye-opening, Downtown Julie Brown is just as awesome running 90s on 9 now as she was on MTV back in the day. It feels like escaping the algorithm of Spotify, of not listening to what a machine has signaled using all sorts of math, the songs I will like, and, instead, having a human with really good taste decide what they like and take me with them. And if some songs suck, all the better. Only listening to exactly what you want to all the time makes you duller, I’m sure.

BUT… Sirius is, in the context of paying for music, pretty pricey. 

And Led To Vogue Business (A Well Trodden Path)

As I was pondering Sirius’ cost/value, I also saw this headline on Vogue Business: To Escape The Algorithm, Fashion Girls Are Shopping Substack.

This is an idea frequent readers of metaXmoda will be aware of, my interest in the role of newsletters as a content stream that sits outside the infinite scroll of Insta/TikTok. And in this vein of Sirius, many of these are or are going paid. Now, the 5 bucks a month Leandra is charging is hardly Birkin pricing, but there’s a limit to what a middle-class wallet can absorb and certainly some level of paid subscription probably enters into that gray area. Instagram is, at least for now in Europe, free. A democratic exposure to the lifestyles of the rich and famous. 

And As All Things Do Now, It Ended With AI

As I mentioned, the ShopTalk retail conference left me with many things to think about, and, of course, AI was one of them. Our life feels a bit like an algorithm boxing match (forgive The Gentleman influence) with the social networks in one corner, constantly innovating to show us the most enchanting/addictive imagery that comes with a heavy opportunity to shop the ads and affiliate links. And in the other corner, the retail tech looking to optimize onsite search, making it so easy to find the item you are most likely to buy and keep, that is also in supply (meaning the merch team’s algorithm PREDICTED you would want it months ago) and has an appealing margin. 

Do I want to always find the item I am most likely to buy and keep? The one both flooding my Instagram feed and then appearing at the top of Bloomingdale’s search results, that months ago I was predicted to want and that benefits the retailer's bottom line the most? 

An Attempt To Avoid Sheep-ness

I am holding out hope that I am not a sheep.

And thus, I’m deep into substack. Trying to diversify my millennial mommy vibes with Blackbird Spyplane and Dirt. (no shade on the millennial mommy vibe for obvious reasons, but we all know who I am talking about and being inspired by, and let’s just say I’m not alone) 

I’m also reading Wellness by Nathan Hill, and while I’m not wholeheartedly recommending it, it’s a pretty accurate take on our times, of constantly being pandered to by the technology around us and how that nudges our behaviors towards goals that are certainly not our own.

I don’t want my personal style to reflect this constant nudging. I want to be me. I want to buy things unexpectedly, vintage items, colors that I never wear but are surprisingly flattering. I want to maintain an element of surprise and excitement in my closet and my car radio.

Style Is A Luxury?

I’ll have to pay for that privilege, both in time and money. Curation by a talented human costs money and I am not sure AI can/should drive that price down. Style is luxury, non?

And the rest of sheeple out there? Will they care that their outfit choices are decided in the algorithm boxing ring, which is not really a fight but more of a complicated dance between two powerful entities? Perhaps this is a perfectly natural evolution; shopping and personal style will be merely a hobby. It might look a little like the Capital in The Hunger Games, where the wealthy are evoking individuality and social codes with their apparel and the rest of the world is under the illusion that they have free choice of apparel, but one glance would tell you that they most definitely do not.

The apocalypse by way of Bloomingdale’s…..