Someone said that algos “make their business serving up stuff you like, which prevents you from finding stuff you love.” The hyper-personalized algos we are subject to are built to amplify incuriousness. They simultaneously isolate and encourage a herd mentality. There is a possible future where this era’s manipulative, unregulated, attention-stealing algos come to be regarded like arsenic wallpaper for the way they are built to sand off the unique parts of our brains.
“Chill Lo-Fi Cozy Cafe Mix” vs. “Lo-Fi Made For You.” One has context and perspective of the channel’s selector, putting tracks together and picking a location to establish a coherent emotional throughline aka curate the vibe. The subscribers have a shared experience and shared references tied to the world she has made in the Cozy Cafe.
A Made For You Playlist “Powered by AI” has no context or reference, no capacity for taste (good or bad), little capacity to surprise, and abyssmal xF (expected frisson). For You locks off shared experience. For You doesn’t curate a vibe, it congeals into a personalized wax museum.
Searching is a vital part of finding. You can’t develop a personal perspective if everything is pushed at you. If there is no journey to find the stuff you love. If there is no deciding and choosing.
Priyanka’s combination of South Asian Pop music and Amapiano feels natural, the cavernous Amapiano drums echoing South Indian percussion, providing a new structure for the Bollywood inflected vocals. A friend said, “it’s an obvious leap when you think about it + the video is weirdly endearing. DJing to no one off a battery powered setup by a waterfall.”
Increasingly portable tech and social media influencing have expanded DJing while quarantine and work from home have been soil for this growth. Travel is increasingly aspirational and borders more closed off. The answer to when I’m going to India is probably never. But it’s also not until the second video that she gets to the waterfall. In the first, a flatscreen is playing footage of a rushing stream. Aspirational ambiance in her parents’ back yard. After a year of working and building, she gets to the waterfall with the help of the digital community she built.
There are some that take this to an influencermaxxing extreme, like the couple who cook a meal (complete with that additional camera/production set-up) while DJing. They end this video dancing in bathrobes before going in a hot tub. A perfectly cromulent mix, but less charming. The vibe is cheesy, a little cringe, a little OnlyFans coded, but also a light dusting of damn I wish that were me, which is the point.
Others like CERCLE crank the production value to Red Bull levels: A-list guests, live instrumentation, drone fleets. Ratcheting up the spectacle but losing the xF in the process.
I found this video by ELISE while looking for the ELOISA video below. Instead of the shared physical space of a nightclub, rave, warehouse, beach, festival, cornfield, etc. (or recordings of those sets), this live performance is only to their support team. Instead of going to the shared physical space, the work is interfaced in a solitary manner. There is an audience, but no crowd. Separateness, but not isolation.
The locations add texture that I find pleasing.
In this moment of tasteless For You metadata matching, these sets have become one of my primary music discovery paths. Sometimes the set is the endpoint. In the first India-Mapiano set there is an earworm that Priyanka made that isn’t available anywhere else. If I want to hear it I need to tap into that mix again. But there are always branching paths to continue the journey; whether it’s diving into the artist’s work, the channel/venue, or a standout track.
The Morgan Seatree remix of Say My Name that ELOISA mixes into at 52 mins pops me every time. It’s the final move of her set and a perfect match for the expression of joy and relief when she takes off her headphones.
For You can never be colored by joy.
For You can never feel itself the way Morgan Seatree is feeling himself during the back half of this set.