3 ways to get your creativity back from the algorithm
Your feed is watering you down to beige
I’ve seen Carrie Bradshaw typing at a laptop one too many times for my taste (no pun intended). People of the internet, I implore you: get outside the Pinterest feed. Your feed is full of Carries when you want anything but Carrie.
The feed, the algorithm, can be a tyrant—a force‑fed stream of things we don’t actually want to see, but appear, like a mirage. It’s narrow minded, it’s boring and I’m over it. If you want to dig deeper on this subject read Algorithms of Oppression.
What is taste?
The non-dictionary definition I relate to (borrowed from Sean Yashar) is this:
Taste is a specific vibrational level of consciousness that is born from enjoying discovery.
It’s less “having good opinions” and more a state you slip into: you’re curious, switched on, following threads for the pleasure of it. It’s an instinctual flow state.
Way 1: Kill Your Feed
What I’m getting at here: don’t just plug into a social media platform that will force you to look at whatever is popular. Make an effort not to use Pinterest, Instagram, etc. for your visual education. Try looking elsewhere.
Start with digital image archives (read my post with recs).
Watch a film from 1996 or 1934 — subscribing to the Criterion Channel is worthwhile if you can swing it.
Go to the library and travel to the art book stacks. Open a book. Take pictures of what interests you.
Sit down at the search bar with a clear passion in mind — for example, Navajo weavings. Along the way you might discover Peruvian feather weavings; if that lights you up, go all-in.
Way 2: Go Deep On One Thing
There are people who set out to read a book a week, 52 a year. Great. I always want to ask: what did you actually digest? What did you get into the weeds with? One of my favorite things now is a re-read. I only started doing this recently and find so much pleasure in it.
My 9th grade English teacher said you need to read a poem three times to really digest it. It’s kind of like that.
I’m obsessed with a couple of writers, and when I’m in the mood I dig in. Example: Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley series (the Ripliad) — did you even know there’s more than one? It’s not just The Talented Mr. Ripley; it’s Ripley Under Ground, Ripley’s Game, The Boy Who Followed Ripley, and Ripley Under Water.
He lives in a small village in France. I love living in his Belle Ombre for a week at a time, with its yellow satin sofa and chairs. You start to notice how diligent Highsmith is in her description of the house; across the series it begins to feel like home. He loves his garden, wears Levis, but will not sit on the yellow satin sofa in his Levis. I love little things like this. That’s what I mean by going deep and settling in: you start to care about the sofa fabric and the jeans, not just the plot.
Way 3: Build Your Own Archive
Here’s where we get active. 🤳📸
PSA: you don’t need to be a professional, capital-P photographer to make photographs. To make images. We all know that. But do we practice it?
One of the best decisions I ever made was buying a Fuji Instax and taking it on outings with friends. From the beach, to the desert, to NYC gallery openings, to dinner parties, to documenting life during Covid — I started snapping.
The second part of the photo-making was the photo-keeping. Scrapbooking, or whatever you want to call it—album creation. After a venture, I’d sit down the next day and paste the tiny photos to the page and notate what happened, who was in the pics, the scene, the dates.
Now, after years of doing that, even the lazy years when I didn’t actually keep up the scrapbook archiving, I have a whole pile of photos to draw from and use on my social media platforms. I use them as background images, or the lead image, or whatever.
Memories, personal archives. It’s a joy. And it brings everything closer to me, my eye, and my ownership—my, dare I say, brand.
You haven’t lost your taste. It’s just been numbed by a feed that keeps serving you the same Carries on repeat. 🫠
Killing your feed, going deep on one thing, and building your own archive all do the same thing: they put your attention back in your own hands.
This week, pick one film, book, or album, turn the feed off, really look at it, and save whatever sticks. That’s you taking your taste back from the algorithm.
I thrifted an original Uno game from 1978 and I scanned my favorite cards to use in some digital art ❤️
I reset my Instagram algo every once in a while and it helps!