#I really dislike algorithms

[icedbatik]

Flower and Ovi greet each other at center ice March 27, 2025, after their last meeting ahead of Flower's approaching retirement. The Wild beat the Capitals 4-2 and Flower held Ovi without a goal.

(Ovi made sure it happened.)

[canisalbus]

Which is your favorite platform? (of the ones you have accounts to post things I mean. I can't imagine it being Instagram since you don't really post there which honestly fair)

Tumblr, Twitter (X?) bluesky? Something else?

I think I'm going to have to go with tumblr, and it's not just because we're here. Twitter and Bluesky are nice and my experiences on both are overwhelmingly positive. But tumblr has an atmosphere that encourages originality, sharing your creations and talking about things in depth.

[bromcommie]

talked to a friend about this yesterday and was surprised she doesn't always thumbs up the videos she actually liked on YouTube but might dislike something simply because it's not of interest to her, so now I need a wider sample:

[sunbunnyyy]

i know i just got here, but seeing all of the laughably bad takes from both sides of the spectrum is convincing me that no, i don’t actually need to be on social media again.

[leafyscientist07]

Important updates on my fics

In light of AI slop becoming an unavoidable issue - I've decided to lock all my fics on AO3. I'm sure most of you understand what I'm talking about and why I'm locking my works. What I write is my property, and I don't consent to it being used for the training of AI models or for commercial usage with AI.

I am currently studying for finals. So I unfortunately won't write for a while, though I really want to continue the story of "The Newest Star", because it barely took off.

So yeah, that's all for now. I'm crashing internally from all the stress of preparing for finals, but I'll try to write more in summer.

[birt-art]

There are few people on the internet I have less respect for than those booktokers who "read" hundreds of interchangeable YA books a year so they can upload a "review" (summarising the tropes and whether they like those tropes or not) every day

[metalcorebarbie]

i have realised my selfies on ig get half the amount of likes they used to get so either my friends aren’t that active there anymore or my selfies have gotten so bad that people really don’t like them khjesfes

[noones-untruly]

I’m no animator, but I was really not feeling last half an hour of algorithms’ tutorial yesterday. In my defence, it was a fifth lecture of the day and I don’t really vibe with my degree sometimes. So a wonky dancing bee is the way I make myself feel better :)

I remember that I started off by drawing stupid bee comics on insta… I may not be the artist but at least I’m still drawing, so I’m happy about it.

[medusas-daughter]

"how dare Sabrina do this album cover in the current political climate" do you not see how getting this outraged at a sexually charged photo is in fact very conservative and a symptom of the current political climate? I've read dirtier things on ao3. Hell I've written dirtier things on ao3. It's really not that scandalous.

"it's the same thing as those ads in the 50s that degraded women she's setting us back decades" she doesn't actually owe us a perfect critical gender theory essay on every album cover but it's also not the same?? The man is faceless she's center stage it's her sexuality on display not his desire. Also, and this is so fucking important, Sabrina is not just consenting she's the author of this. This is has nothing to do with women being forced on all fours to sell a car, this is a woman staging a fantasy with some anonymous body that happens to look male. I don't actually know if she means it a satire or just as a healthy expression of her sexuality and I'm not gonna project my own shit to pretend to know her intentions, but either way if you see it as degrading you're the one degrading her.

"if men enjoy it then she's pandering to them men are gonna enjoy men are gonna use it to degrade us" girl men have been known to "enjoy" anything from animals to babies, are you gonna accuse little girls of pandering to the male gaze? Men have been sexualising and degrading women whether they're covered head to toe or buck ass naked. But what you're saying sounds suspiciously like rape culture, so maybe check your own damn self on that.

"she's been using the lolita aesthetic she was never a feminist" she's been performing in full on lingerie what do you mean lolita? Just because she's short and hot doesn't make her a lolita have any of you actually read lolita??? Lolita is a twelve year old described by Humbert as being skinny boyish looking and her youth and innocence and lack of sexuality is what entices him the most about her. I beg you to stop associating lolita with sensuality and lingerie and bows and pink and to start actually reading books and if you have in fact read the book and fallen for the "nymphet" épitaphe Humbert gave her and ignored literally everything else then you're dumb and you need to stay out of every discourse ever until the end of time.

"if an incel would hang it in his bedroom then you've failed" let me tel you a story from the time a guy I went to school with watched a hijabi woman walk by and told me "I find hijab so sexy cause it's like she's teasing me and wants me to imagine what's underneath it" there's nothing you can do to make men or incels not desire you but you're choosing to attack women for it thinking you're better than that incel when you're literally just repackaging slut shaming.

Following the Sabrina tag and listening o her music means the algorithm is bombarding me with such rancid takes about her now that the general public has decided it's time to knock her down a peg and they're assigning morality to them just disliking her like just say you don't like her and stop listening to her it is that easy but don't use it to perpetuate even more misogyny. It doesn't make you sound smarter it makes you sound like a radfem and I mean that with all disrespect.

[girlspecimen]

i absolutely understand why the tumblr algorithm thinks i’m autistic but i need it to get my diagnosis RIGHT what are you even gathering my data for 🙄

[were--ralph]

why exactly do you dislike generative art so much? i know its been misused by some folks, but like, why blame a tool because it gets used by shitty people? Why not just... blame the people who are shitty? I mean this in genuinely good faith, you seem like a pretty nice guy normally, but i guess it just makes me confused how... severe? your reactions are sometimes to it. There's a lot of nuance to conversation about it, and by folks a lot smarter than I (I suggest checking out the Are We Art Yet or "AWAY" group! They've got a lot on their page about the ethical use of Image generation software by individuals, and it really helped explain some things I was confused about). I know on my end, it made me think about why I personally was so reactive about Who was allowed to make art and How/Why. Again, all this in good faith, and I'm not asking you to like, Explain yourself or anything- If you just read this and decide to delete it instead of answering, all good! I just hope maybe you'll look into *why* some people advocate for generative software as strongly as they do, and listen to what they have to say about things -🦜

if Ai genuinely generated its own content I wouldn't have as much of a problem with it, however what Ai currently does is scrape other people's art, collect it, and then build something based off of others stolen works without crediting them. It's like. stealing other peoples art, mashing it together, then saying "this is mine i can not only profit of it but i can use it to cut costs in other industries.

this is more evident by people not "making" art but instead using prompts. Its like going to McDonalds and saying "Burger. Big, Juicy, etc, etc" then instead of a worker making the burger it uses an algorithm to build a burger based off of several restaurant's recepies.

example

the left is AI art, the right is one of the artists (Lindong) who it pulled the art style from. it's literally mass producing someone's artstyle by taking their art then using an algorithm to rebuild it in any context. this is even more apparent when you see ai art also tries to recreate artists watermarks and generally blends them together making it unintelligible.

Aside from that theres a lot of other ethical problems with it including generating pretty awful content, including but not limited to cp. It also uses a lot of processing power and apparently water? I haven't caught up on the newer developements i've been depressed about it tbh

Then aside from those, studios are leaning towards Ai generation to replace having to pay people. I've seen professional voice actors complain on twitter that they haven't gotten as much work since ai voice generation started, artists are being cut down and replaced by ai art then having the remaining artists fix any errors in the ai art.

Even beyond those things are the potential for misinformation. Here's an experiment: Which of these two are ai generated?

ready?

These two are both entirely ai generated. I have no idea if they're real people, but in a few months you could ai generate a Biden sex scandal, you could generate politics in whatever situation you want, you can generate popular streamers nude, whatever. and worse yet is ai generated video is already being developed and it doesn't look bad.

I posted on this already but as of right now it only needs one clear frame of a body and it can generate motion. yeah there are issues but it's been like two years since ai development started being taken seriously and we've gotten to this point already. within another two years it'll be close to perfected. There was even tests done with tiktokers and it works. it just fucking works.

There is genuinely not one upside to ai art. at all. it's theft, it's harming peoples lives, its harming the environment, its cutting jobs back and hurting the economy, it's invading peoples privacy, its making pedophilia accessible, and more. it's a plague and there's no vaccine for it. And all because people don't want to take a year to learn anatomy.

[ms-demeanor]

The thing about LLMs is that they're like cars that have a touchscreen on the console; it's more expensive and worse than what came before in almost all circumstances.

And like car touchscreens it's something that I suspect that the vast majority of consumers dislike and would prefer not to use.

But that doesn't mean that touchscreens are bad it just means they don't belong in cars.

It *IS* a massive problem that "AI" is being shoved at us by a bunch of people who invested WAY too much into AI and are trying to make a return on their investment. It is *ALSO* a problem that "AI" is a terrible name for the pattern interpretation tools that tech companies have dumped billions of dollars into so people are being told that a lot of things that are just pretty basic algorithmic tools are "AI," which makes the whole thing feel overhyped, oversold, and useless (which it is for a tremendous number of people!)

But I get really frustrated with claims that AI slop is what ruined google search (google search has been ruined for a long time; when their goal became "people need to do more searches so we can serve them more ads" instead of "we need to return the best results for our users" it was destroyed and that had nothing to do with AI and everything to do with a profit motive) or that AI is why we're being inundated by spammers (spammers have been a problem for a VERY long time) or that it's impossible to find good info these days because the internet is full of garbage AI articles to generate clicks (that has been the BANE OF MY EXISTENCE in terms of research for MUCH LONGER than GPT4 has been around it is called search engine optimization and if you haven't had your results full of poorly written non-information listicles for the last seven years I suspect you haven't been doing quite the same volume of searching as I have been).

These are known problems that are being exacerbated by this particular kind of tool, but the problem with phishing isn't that the emails are extremely tailored to particular users, it's that the world is chock full of scammers who are incentivized to treat people like shit for money.

[bellenotthebeast]

Hello.

I want you to listen. Don’t scroll away because of the buzz word ‘Lando’.

Listen.

This has gone beyond hate for Lando. This about all the drivers.

This is about treating drivers respectfully. This is about your parasocial relationships with the drivers. This is about you reading into everything they say.

This is about the F1 media taking clips out of context because they don’t want a race they want a drama.

This is about you taking those clips and not bothering to find the original source, and taking it to fuel a hatred for someone you don’t know.

This is about you hating on a new driver because you miss the old one.

This is about you sending hate to fans of a driver you don’t like.

When I dislike something I scroll- I ignore, because it’s not worth my time. Why should I let the social media algorithm think I like the video because I watch it? I block a person I dislike. I don’t go onto their account and spend time out of my life to comment.

But unfortunately the amount of hate I’m seeing it’s getting hard to ignore it.

Haters and fans. Opposite end of the spectrum, still on the same spectrum.

You’re still thinking about the guy you supposedly hate. You talk about him under other driver related posts, you make it your entire personality.

You make it toxic.

The difference in drivers is what makes the sport fun. I’m friends with people who have other favourite drivers. What we do is we talk about the race. We talk about how their driver did really well and what mine could’ve done better. We have fun.

Because it’s the sport that bonds us.

I don’t send death threats to them. People have become so obsessed with other peoples lives and it shows.

A driver can’t say he feels lonely without getting jumped on for it. A driver gets asked his opinion after a high adrenaline race, one he feels he didn’t do well and he sounds a little bitter. Of course he’s going to. Yet you read into it.

He celebrates and you read into it.

And then dislike them when they decide not to do anything anymore.

You criticise them for the mistakes they’ve already owned up to and refuse to even acknowledge the good they’ve achieved.

New fans get scared to join because they worry everyone will hate them. Which kills the sport in turn.

Lando. Max. Every single driver on the grid do not know you. And you do not know them. You know of them. You do not know them.

You do not know what they do or who they are the moment they’re away from the cameras.

You do not need to like a driver. Nor do you need to dislike them. I don’t dislike drivers, I just have drivers I favour a bit more than others. Because why would I hate them?

I dislike some of the things they do- during the race. Of course. I’m bitter after a race doesn’t go well. I’m a fan of the sport.

But that’s as far as it goes.

I do not care for their personal life as it’s theirs, nor do I care for what minuscule thing they’ve done.

If you don’t feel called out, then good- I’m not talking about you. You’re the good ones. If you are feeling ‘attacked’ then perhaps it’s time to rethink what you want to spend limited time, that is your life, on.

We only have so many minutes in our lives to actually live. So live it. Don’t spend it on hating on others.

Good day/night. 😊

[cacodaemonia]

I was unfortunate enough to come across this ask from someone I don't follow a while back. It was one of those wtf moments that was so strong, I had to show the screenshot to a friend who isn't in fandom and never has been. They know the basics of how fandom works, and I've told them about the pro-censorship people in fandom, but this post really required some extra explanation, and I thought I'd share how I broke it down for them:

Obviously, most antis are very young. We all know this. That doesn't mean that all young people are anti-sex, pro-censorship, or unable/unwilling to distinguish fiction from reality, but it's much easier for young folks to get caught up in dangerous and toxic communities—in both real life and online.

From what I've seen over the years, there are all kinds of reasons why antis campaign against fiction they don't like and why they harass other fans and small creators. But I think a key point is that they seldom target big name authors, movie studios, or other media companies who make 'problematic' things.

That right there tells you a lot about one of their primary motivations: power over others.

They want to feel morally superior to people who create art (including writing, etc.) that they dislike. And because they can't influence powerful individuals and companies, they turn their personal disgust and outrage on people who are their relative equals or on those who have even less socioeconomic power—especially marginalized groups like queer and disabled people, who make up large portions of fandom.

There are plenty of other factors that impact this radicalization, of course, but I really think that the power aspect and feeling like they're one of The Good People are the most important elements.

But anyway, the screenshot above got me thinking about how someone could reach the point where they genuinely believe that government censorship of fanworks is necessary to... what? Prevent people from making (subjectively) 'gross' art because... that will lead others to commit actual real life crimes?? That's what the anti above seem to be suggesting with the slippery slope comment, and when I got to this point in the explanation to my non-fandom friend, they were BOGGLED. They simply could not comprehend the massive leap of 'logic.'

So I paused for a moment and considered how I could explain it, based on the various stages of indoctrination I've seen among antis over the years.

I think that a lot of these young people are probably very new to fandom. They find out about fanfic and go onto AO3, and they likely assume that some algorithm will handfeed them what they want—even though they haven't bothered to learn how an archive like AO3 works and haven't used any search filters to include or exclude things they like or don't like (this required a whole explanation about AO3 filters to my friend btw).

So anyway, these people who have grown up on sanitized mass media fail to heed any of AO3's many warnings, including creators' tags, and they come across something that they think is gross or that makes them uncomfortable. For example, "Ewww, fics about underage characters having sex is gross and makes me uncomfortable." That's fine. Hit the back button and use filters to avoid that. Problem solved!

But then maybe they go on social media and complain about someone making art they don't like, and they rapidly get sucked the echo chambers of cult-like anti communities. And this is where they all amp each other up by exchanging conservative talking points dressed up in ostensibly progressive language. They begin to feel angry and self-righteous and certain that they have to do something about this issue they've collectively fabricated. After all, "Think of the children!!"

I should also point out that most antis don't seem to even understand the words they use. For example, in that screenshot, it's pretty clear that the op is using 'censorship,' 'glorification,' and even 'slippery slope' as emotional catch phrases rather than words that have useful and concrete meanings outside of fandom.

Finally, their crusade against the fiction they dislike becomes such a huge part of their identities and 'friend' (more like mutual purity surveillance) groups that they just keep building it up into this huge moral panic until they're unironically saying things like, "Writing a fic about a 17 year-old and an 18 year-old kissing is actual pedophilia and the author should be harassed and doxxed and imprisoned."

When I got to that point, my friend was still boggled, but it was more of a horrified sort of boggled, where you just stare into space and contemplate the merits of a giant space rock hitting earth in the near future.

I really wish people getting sucked into anti mindsets would take a moment to consider how bathshit their beliefs sound to the average human being on the planet who doesn't spend huge amounts of time on social media.

[fatphobiabusters]

Hello. I’ve never sent a message on here before, although I’ve been following for awhile, but I was hoping I could vent a bit (anonymously, if possible. Thanks.). So I came across a disgusting YouTube video (channel name is Asmongold Clips so people can avoid it) where a guy mocked a fat airline passenger and joked about essentially locking fat people up in concentration camps to lose weight, all while using very dehumanizing language. Against my better judgment, I left a reply (my first-ever YouTube comment at that) since I didn’t come across anyone calling him out. I immediately got attacked for it, and while I’ve gained a lot more confidence in myself and my ability to handle offensive things ever since coming across blogs like this, it still bothered me. Probably doesn’t help that I’m also autistic as well as a minor and can’t process things like this very well. Not long after this, I also heard that leaving comments on any kind of YouTube video supposedly gives the channel money if it’s over a certain amount of words. I’m not positive if this is true, but it left me feeling guilty/worried. I don’t know, I guess I just wanted to see what your all’s thoughts are on this and if I handled it well, or if there are better ways of dealing with things like this. Thanks for listening, and sorry if it became a bit rambling. Also, know that I really appreciate this blog; it’s helped a lot.

____

Mod squirrel:

People in the youtube comments are uniquely out of pocket and Im not sure why. To be frank no one will listen if they want a fight. If you leave a comment you do it on the off chance someone else relates but not in hopes of changing minds. Ive actually disabled notifications for comment replies because I argue too much in YT comments. I try a one and done approach with comments and dont wait around or care if someone who can't even upload a pfp has to say.

All that said:

You aren't obligated to fight every battle. Its definitely a skill that has to be trained up. You can leave a dislike and move on. Like I said youtube doesn't work for changing minds in the comments. If you want to make comments look into disabling the notifications for replies, say your peace and not look back.

The money thing I have no idea. I thought everything was about views and retention time. Either way thats not your burden. You can try the dislike button instead (at a minimum this teachers the algorithm what you don't want to see giving you more peace, hopefully).

And because this got me thinking: I dont suggest minors going full face forward like, say Greta Thunberg. As sad as it is to say. Any minor, on any issue, leave it to the adults because these bigots and trolls can be vile. You can support and stuff but dont become the "face" of anything. Being swatted or something is a possibility and I especially don't want any minors getting caught up in that. You can help in other ways but yall gotta stay safe. Greta has had absolutely horrid things said about her and if you want to care about issues there's levels between 1 and 100.

The occasional youtube comments won't put a target on you. That level of stuff is fine. Reading books and educating yourself is a foundational level that can take years.

I dont think you, anon, specifically are going to run off to do something wild but your ask got me thinking about how in movies there's always the teen who wants to save the world. Today's digital climate is so murky and dangerous. Its a balance between safety and realizing your full activism goals.

Anyway a bit of a tangent there.

Tldr you're doing great, you didn't do anything wrong. 🫂

[glacierclear]

Straight up I've enjoyed your art for like 10+ years now or whatever and it's always great and I love it and please never stop. But I haven't been interacting with any of it recently because I really do not want other sites with algorithms sending me fandom stuff I actively dislike. (I have bad taste don't worry, no judgement here) Also I'm genuinely terrified of whatever stuff ABO could cause to be shown to me. SO I'm sending you this as filler for the past like couple months of not reblogging stuff and going "this rocks/great work/this is hilarious/I don't go here but.../etc."

Also Also Carson is hot and I'm love her?? I would high-five her as a fellow boob appreciator if I could.

oh!!!!!! well this is nice to hear! first of all, no one is ever obligated to interact with my posts haha. I know it helps artists a lot, and there's a big pressure to like and comment, but for me PERSONALLY I have never needed to push for that, and i also accept that as a primarily adult erotica artist it uh, is risky to interact with that BFHSHJE digital footprint or something.....

so it's nothing you need to feel worried about <33333 making the effort to reach out like this is really sweet thank you!!! Carson also appreciates you