This week Mr. Dustin Travis White and I are celebrating nine years of marriage (although we currently have no plans but we are hoping that something cool/romantic will pop up for us in Portland or Seattle). And while we have many, many things in common: our love of cats, thrifting, music of all genres, art museums, breakfast tacos, Sex and the City, weird old books, and elaborate desserts, the way we experience social media is quite different. Or at least, what the algorithm serves us is quite different.
So whenever I see something going wild on social media, seeming as if “everyone” is talking about it, I always ask him “hey, is XYZ a big thing on your side of the internet?” And about 75% of the time, it is news to him!
And I’m not surprised by that. As I have said to many people over the last few years, and something that I have to repeat to myself quite often: social media distorts our perception of the world as a whole. And there are several reasons why:
So let’s start with the algorithm:
“The algorithm” is a source of frustration for content creators and small businesses, but what is an algorithm? Well, while we tend to associate the term “algorithm” with social media, it’s actually just a set of step by step instructions for solving a problem or completing a task. An algorithm starts with inputs, follows a specific step-by-step process, and produces an output.
Some examples of completely non-computer related algorithms in action?
To step it up and get a bit more technological:
Now of course, as we get into the technological examples of algorithms, we start to see that it’s never perfect. And really, all of us have missed a red sock when sorting laundry, too. But sometimes google maps will have you doing left turns across a six lane highway or your inbox is sending important emails to your spam folder. In all cases, algorithms are only as good as the rules that have been fed into them, and often it’s on the people engineering these algorithms to anticipate and make a rule for every exception or weird outlier…but it’s never foolproof
But all in all, an algorithm is supposed to be a clear, logical process that takes a bunch of input (ingredients, laundry, your location/destination) and turns into in an output.
How does a social media platform decide what to show you? What is this mysterious algorithm? Well, first off…if you’ve been following along with this series, then you know from our conversation with Kim that these platforms know more about you than most of the actual humans in your life. And their goal is to keep you on the platform as long as possible. So what you see is tailor made for you (even though sometimes it’s kinda silly) And to keep you on the platform as long as possible, the algorithm will show you what it thinks you’ll care about most. It learns from how you use the app. And it uses every single action you take to determine what it will show you next:
As we discussed with Kim, it’s going to use all of this information about you and your habits to lump you in with similar users…and then serve all of you similar content and ads. In theory, it will also avoid showing you TOO much stuff from the same account while also mixing in people you follow, new stuff you’ve never seen before, and of course, ads.
But remember, the goal of the people and companies who build these algorithms is to keep you scrolling by showing the content it believes you’ll enjoy or react to the most…not necessarily what’s newest or most important. When it comes to things like “shadow banning,” (meaning: when the algorithm does not show your content to your followers and other accounts), all of the platforms say that they do NOT shadowban users or specific topics, but the algorithm does by design assign a lower score to content that people are likely to report or just scroll by really fast. When I think about something like pro-Palestine or leftist content seeming to be shadowbanned, it could be that the algorithm has rightly or wrongly been told to recognize this kind of content as highly likely to be reported, therefore scoring it lower and showing it to less people. Or it could be that people are just scrolling past that stuff because they are using social media for fun and relaxation. I don’t know. But what I DO know is that every time I have posted about Shein, Temu, or fast fashion as a whole on TikTok, the content has been suppressed, shown to almost no one, while other posts about thrifting are shown to a lot of people. It could be that TikTok has trained the algorithm to score anything anti-Shein a lot lower, so it shows it to less people. The same could be said for pro-Palestine content on Instagram. I don’t know. What I will say is that my feed on every platform has been highly pro-Palestine and leftist, so I DO know that content is being shown to someone.
When it comes to brands or fashion trends that seem to be something “everyone” is talking about, it’s most likely the function of a few things:
Remember, the algorithm wants to show you things you like and/or things that elicit a reaction (aka engagement) from you, so you’ll spend more time on the app…so it’s hoping to predict what brands or trends you want to see (even if you don’t know about them yet). And when you think about that, it becomes really obvious why Dustin would see a different “side of the internet” than I am seeing. He’s engaging in music, music gear, and film. I’m posting about sustainability and cute things. Yes, we have overlapping interests, but the algorithm doesn’t quite seem to get that.
Okay, so that’s the algorithm. Here’s another reason you might be seeing a skewed version of the world that isn’t actually reflective of society:
The people who post most often, are the super loudest voices on social media…they are the individuals who have the most time to post often. I don’t think I had a clear view of that until I started using Threads. I wasn’t much of a Twitter user because that place has always been terrible, but Threads isn’t completely dissimilar at this point. And what I noticed early on is that there were people I “know” who were posting every hour, multiple times an hour, engaging in back and forths in the comments all day long. I would ask myself often, “how are they finding the time to do this?”
Well, some people are getting paid to post on social media. Threads, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook pay certain accounts based on engagement. For those creators, posting as often as possible, and the most engaging (often inflammatory/clickbait) kind of stuff will mean a bigger payout. But others are posting nonstop because they have nothing else to do. They might be unemployed, stuck at home, dealing with health issues that isolate them, dealing with a breakup or other relationship pain. To make matters worse, spending so much time on social media is bad for our brains. I’m going to share the abstract from a study about this in the show notes. It says, “The use of social networks is strongly correlated with the development of anxiety and other psychological problems such as depression, insomnia, stress, decreased subjective happiness, and a sense of mental deprivation. The majority of the cited literature predicts that the likelihood of social media-induced mental health problems is directly proportional to the amount of time spent on these sites, the frequency of usage, and the number of platforms being used.”
So whether someone is being paid to post or is just posting for free…they are getting progressively more unhappy. The more they post, the unhappier they become. And this means that the unhappiest voices are the loudest…The volume of posts just amplifies their messages.
And that means….that what you are seeing most often on social media is probably not indicative of society as a whole at that point, or even a large swath of society, especially when we couple it with what we have learned about the algorithm so far:
Last year at this time–aka October–a friend of mine who LOVES Halloween–like literally starts working on her costume early in the year, decorates her entire place from top to bottom, tries to only eat Halloween foods in October (I have a lot of questions about that one) and really just LIVES for October said to me (quite sadly), “I’m afraid to post about Halloween this year because I don’t want to get cancelled.” I was like, “Huh?” And she said, “yeah, there’s a lot of pushback against celebrating Halloween this year because the world is essentially falling apart.” She cited posts like “white women are too busy buying sexy Halloween costumes to care about genocide” and “imagine caring about your Halloween costume when people are dying.” That second one was literally posted by someone, who later that day shared in their stories that they were doing a pop up of secondhand costume pieces that weekend….so I don’t know what to say there.
But my friend was concerned. She was like, “listen, I post about Gaza nonstop, I’m giving money as often as possible, I’m volunteering my time phone banking for the election, and I’ve done my best to show up for everything…but I feel like I’m a selfish monster if I wear a costume this year…and it makes me so sad because I just need to feel something comforting and fun right now.”
And so while the algorithm might be serving you anti-Halloween messaging because you reacted to it or slowed down to read one post about it (once again, I’m drowning in Taylor Swift posts…please send help), plenty of other people are seeing and sharing pumpkin patch photos and cool costumes they are making. If you’re never seeing good news on your social media feeds, I promise it’s not because good things aren’t happening in the world, it’s just that outrage gleans more engagement, so that’s what the algorithm is showing you.
There may have been a time when social media was a mirror of our world, but it hasn’t been that way for a long time…basically the moment our feeds stopped being chronological and became algorithm driven.
But back to the Halloween issue:
I asked Dustin, “Hey, is your side of the internet saying that Halloween is cancelled?” This is something we do a lot because the algorithm serves us completely different content, with slight overlaps in terms of politics. And he was like, “no, but I do see pictures of people carving pumpkins and making cool weird costumes.” I was relieved to hear this, not because I had big Halloween plans, but because since that conversation with my friend, my feed at been filled with content like “white women love genocide, voting for KKKamala, and cultural appropriation Halloween costumes.” And it was fucking with me, even though this posts were predominantly from white women who should know better than to call a black woman “KKKamala” because that’s really messed up.
Oh and in case you’re wondering my thoughts on celebrating Halloween or whatever else brings you comfort in this hellscape of a time:
KEEP DOING IT! Life in 2025 is hard (and that’s an understatement). As I have moved through this year, working and trying to keep my head above water financially, professionally, and emotionally…I have settled into this chronic state of nauseating fear and anxiety. It’s always there, whether I’m hard at work on a project, cooking dinner, reading a book, or talking to a friend. And yes, it is taking a toll on me….mentally and physically. That’s why it’s important to let ourselves do things that DO make us feel good. You should not feel guilty if you’re excited about decorating your house for a holiday or making a costume or listening to a certain pop star’s record. These are the things that recharge us and help us keep up the good fight.
And you know what’s even better? Doing these things in more responsible, thoughtful ways. Meaning: minimizing the waste and impact of these endeavors.
In fact, I think there is great joy in taking something that makes you happy…and then doing it in a more sustainable, ethical way. It’s like double fun, double happiness. And we all need it right now.
But like I said, Dustin and I do these “what is your side of the internet saying” check-ins pretty regularly because to be honest, his side of the internet is full of cool creative people being funny and doing cool stuff, and mine is often clogged with virtue signalling, in-fighting, and people complaining about and/or defending Taylor Swift.
So this summer, right after my birthday, Dustin went on tour with his band American Motors for a few weeks, which meant I was home alone in the middle of nowhere. And I was not doing well mentally. This year has been rough and I’ve been dealing with harassment from a (I hope) former Clotheshorse fan that has made me very afraid of being home alone. In the midst of that, I was spending a lot of time online with no one to “check” with on what they were seeing. And something that I was seeing a ton of was posts about…Cracker Barrel.
For all of you who either don’t know what Cracker Barrel is and/or aren’t as chronically online as me: Cracker Barrel is (per wikipedia), “an American chain of restaurant and gift stores with a Southern country theme.” I have only been to Cracker Barrel one time, it was in the early 00s and I was with my grandmother. I ate a salad and some macaroni and cheese. It was forgettable. The meal was forgettable (seriously, I would much rather eat at a Bob Evans restaurant or Friendly’s, two other favorites of my Gam Sandy). But one thing that did strike me as unusual (and possibly really smart) was that to enter the restaurant, we first had to walk through a Cracker Barrel store that sold rocking chairs, many types of decorative wreaths and baskets, those hard candy sticks that come in flavors like “bubble gum” and “root beer,” and any number of “country-themed” products.
Now, the McCarty-White household is pretty anti Cracker Barrel because there are pretty much no vegetarian, gluten free options there. Furthermore, we don’t eat at chain restaurants very often, so it’s just not something we even think about. So imagine my surprise when suddenly there was all of this commentary about Cracker Barrel’s new rebrand being “woke.”
The main controversy seemed to center around two things:
Something I want to add here about the renovations that Cracker Barrel was planning: it was a smart financial decision for its existing 600 locations AND for any additional stores it planned on opening. Why? Remember when I was explaining what happened to Red Lobster as an example of how private equity works? Well, like Red Lobster, for many of these restaurant chains, their biggest asset is the land where the restaurants are located. Basically the company owns the land and the restaurants kinda “rent” it from the company. It’s rich people math, okay? And when they close a location, if the restaurant has very specific architecture/design (think Pizza Hut), it becomes a lot more difficult to rent out that property because it is very clearly an old Pizza Hut or a Cracker Barrel. In fact, it might just become a tear down situation, which is expensive. So if a restaurant is just a beige or brown box, it can kinda become anything. I’m going to share this video that Dustin recommended that explains why all fast food and chain restaurants kinda just look like boring grey boxes these days.
Anyway, so for like three days, my entire feed on most platforms was Cracker Barrel. And because these platforms know that I’m a radical leftist, I was seeing content coming from the left perspective, kinda like “these right wing MAGA snowflakes are butt hurt about a boring rebrand.” And probably I was seeing so much of it because of course I did click on a link from a post so I could read an article about what was happening. After all, I was (and still am) in the midst of a series about emotional branding. And certainly this rebrand was evoking a lot of emotions amongst Cracker Barrel fans.
Now, without Dustin there, I didn’t get to ask “Hey, are you seeing a lot of Cracker Barrel on your side of the internet?” I wasn’t going to text him to ask because we try to avoid texting one another social media stuff and news articles. At the same time, something about this whole situation felt…off. Like it came in really fast and really, really hard, just flooding every platform seemingly within a few hours. And sure, I expect that from a big news stories, but this was just a restaurant chain that was doing a rebrand and some renovations. Like not the biggest thing happening in the world by a long shot.
The Cracker Barrel outrage kinda died down by the time Dustin returned from tour, so we never even discussed it…until a few weeks ago when a story emerged about the whole thing that made me turn to Dustin and ask, “Hey, while you were on tour did you see a lot of wild Cracker Barrel content?” And he was like, “yeah, it was overwhelming! So much everywhere and it was kinda boring and weird.”
And that’s when I told him what I had just read: “According to data compiled by intelligence platform PeakMetrics, nearly half of the early posts about Cracker Barrel’s logo change appeared to be generated by bots.”
Okay, but what is a bot?
Social media bots are automated accounts that perform actions on social media, without a human actually doing them. They’re controlled by software that can like, follow, comment, post, or message automatically. And they might even look like real accounts, with profile photos, little bits of copy in their profiles, and real-seeming posts. But really they are just code pretending to be actual users.
And because these aren’t real people, a whole bunch of them can be mobilized really fast to churn out content and sort of flood the algorithm with whatever they are pushing. They exist purely to manipulate visibility (ie, make something a bigger conversation) OR influence perception (like make you think that the Cracker Barrel rebrand is some woke conspiracy rather than just an outdated design trend).
These bots can serve a lot of troublesome purposes:
All in all, bots distort our perception of what’s really happening in the world…and can lead us to some dangerous decisions. Yes, we have confirmed proof that bots have been influencing election outcomes around the world for the past decade. These bot accounts definitely helped Trump get elected twice. They 100% spread misinformation in the most recent election and got a ton of people to sit this election out.
But bots were also a big part of the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard trial. There is a six part BBC podcast called “Who Trolled Amber” that digs into it.
From the show :
We obtained a cache of almost one million tweets posted about [Amber Heard] in the run-up to the trial. One data expert who we commissioned to look at the cache told us that more than 50 percent of these tweets were inauthentic.
According to the expert, that means they either came from bots, which are automated accounts, or paid for “trolls” – real people hired to slander someone online.
In one case, 100 accounts sent 1,000 identical messages at once to companies working with Heard saying: “This brand supports domestic violence against men.” We also found bot-networks tweeting pro-Depp content in Thailand and Spain as well as fake pro-Depp accounts that used AI-generated profile pictures to appear authentic.
The goal here was to turn public opinion against Heard and possibly protect Depp’s flagging career. And you know what? It worked! A similar strategy was used in the recent Blake Lively/Justin Baldoni lawsuit, with bots infiltrating celebrity subreddits (among other places) posting anti-Blake content. And you know what? It also worked. Basically the bot started the thread, maybe a few bots commented, that pushed it up in the algorithm…and then real people joined in. Because if there is one thing the internet can agree on…it’s super fun to shit on women in a comments section.
But back to Cracker Barrel…I’m going to share this full article from Gizmodo in the show notes, where it breaks down what happened with Cracker Barrel.
And the thing is…it worked! It felt like “everyone” was talking about Cracker Barrel. And it made the whole thing feel like a big cultural moment, something that everyone needed to think about….like suddenly it was something where everyone had to pick a side? And really, it was just a really boring rebrand and renovation. It wasn’t deeper than that at all. It wasn’t indicative of “wokeness” (seriously, Cracker Barrel is so unwoke that it doesn’t even have gluten free and vegan options, so I don’t want to hear it, okay). It was a non-story that became a values litmus test, when really it just should have been something confined to Cracker Barrel mega fans, advertising industry professionals, and design nerds.
So knowing everything that we have discussed so far, let’s examine how “Cracker Barrel’s rebrand is woke” flooded everyone’s psyche for a few days:
So all of this is to say…harnessing the algorithm and even using bots…these are just more tools in the marketing toolbox that create an emotional connection with a brand. Maybe that emotional experience begins with extremely negative, outraged thoughts…but regardless, it increases brand awareness, and maybe even converts us into customers over time. And think about the things it seemed like “everyone” was talking about at some point online:
In fact, the “viral” aspect of brands and trends means that we might be kinda “flooded” into building a connection with them, of wanting to buy into them, when maybe we would not have given them a second glance outside of social media. Just one more reason for us to take a step back and ask ourselves, “why do I feel so connected to this brand that isn’t even a person, much less an entity that cares for me.”
If you want to share your opinion/additional thoughts on the subjects we cover in each episode, feel free to email, whether it’s a typed out message or an audio recording: [email protected]
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