sry to be part of the recommendation industrial complex

Since most of us only get one free Harper’s article a month (fam they’re keepin that paywall TIGHT), we recommend making your allotted piece the April cover story, Like This or Die, which critiques the state of criticism (lol) “in the age of the algorithm.”

Interesting questions posed include: What does it mean for ~the culture~ when everything is optimized for likes and people-pleasing bots? Does the booming business of book reviews — and to that end, coverage of prestige TV shows — mean that criticism is getting less elitist, or have we just lost our taste for “real” AKA old-white-dudes-sitting-around-smoking-pipes-approved literary analysis? When so much of the media industry’s (and publishing, and tech!) purpose is telling people exactly what to “like,” does it just lead to deadening feedback loops, or a greater degree of fulfillment for everyone involved?

It’s a long, windy piece whose middle parts start to sound like yr fave English professor going on a real fusty tangent, but it’ll give you plenty to chew on in terms of how the functions of evaluation & recommendation have changed in modern culture. All of which, yes, is some extremely meta shit to say as a newsletter whose entire premise is to recommend you one media-adjacent link a day. Sorry to be part of the machine, y’all!!!