You think you choose the art you love. A painting grabs you in a gallery. A song stops you mid-scroll. A film leaves you gutted in a dark theater. But let’s be real: that first encounter is rarely a choice anymore. It’s a feed. And the feed has its own logic, its own rhythm, its… Continue reading Who Decides What’s Art? (Spoiler: It’s Not You)

I have a confession. Last Tuesday I lost 47 minutes to a TikTok of a woman sculpting butter into a swan. 2.3 million views, 400,000 likes, a comment section tripping over itself to call it “high art.” Meanwhile, a painter I follow—someone who spent six months on a single canvas trying to map the texture… Continue reading The Algorithm Is the Critic Now: How the Feed Decides What Art Even Is

Let’s not kid ourselves: the art world has always been a rigged game. For centuries, a handful of gatekeepers—critics, curators, patrons with deep pockets—decided what got the gilded frame and what got tossed into history’s attic. Then the 21st century rolled in promising a revolution. The internet, we were told, would democratize taste. Anyone with… Continue reading The Algorithmic Gaze: How Social Media Decides What Art Gets Seen (and What Gets Called Art)

Let’s just say it: the algorithm has more taste than you. Not more sensitivity, not a deeper grasp of art history, not soul—but more raw power to decide what flickers across your screen and burrows into your brain as “art.” I know this because last Tuesday at 2 a.m., Instagram served me a 15-second painting… Continue reading Algorithms Are the New Critics: How Social Media Decides What Gets Called Art

Art now competes with the algorithmic scroll. The Feed Is the New Gallery Wall You wake up, grab your phone, and before your feet hit the cold floor, you’ve already seen three paintings, a dance performance, a poem typed over a blurry sunset, and a raccoon video set to Vivaldi. The feed doesn’t care about… Continue reading The Feed Is the New Gallery Wall

The feed doesn’t just show art—it sculpts it. (Photo by cottonbro / Pexels) You open Instagram. A watercolor jellyfish, glowing like a neon sacrament, floats past. Then a hyperrealistic charcoal eye, every tear duct rendered with the devotion of a Dutch master. Then a digital illustration of a girl with pink hair, crying binary code.… Continue reading The Algorithm Ate My Taste: How Social Media Decides What Art Looks Like

What we call art has always been a tug-of-war between makers, gatekeepers, and the people looking. But right now, the loudest gatekeeper doesn’t have a degree in art history, a curatorial statement, or a pulse. It’s a sorting system that cares about exactly one thing: engagement. Not beauty. Not difficulty. Not truth. Just engagement. And… Continue reading How the Algorithm Decides What Art Looks Like (And Why It Has Terrible Taste)

There is a particular kind of madness that descends when you stare at a canvas that has spent three months being whispered to, fought with, and coaxed into something resembling a truth. You clean your brushes, you stare some more, and then you photograph it. Not for the archive, not for the portfolio, but for… Continue reading The Algorithmic Easel: How Social Media Shapes What Gets Called Art

Here’s a hot take you can slap on a sampler and loop until it distorts: the best music writing of the last two decades barely cares what a song says. It’s not in the rhyme schemes, the diary-page confessions, the meticulously annotated genius pages. It’s in the frequencies. The textures. The choices made in rooms… Continue reading Why the Most Interesting Music Writing Is About Production Not Lyrics

Let’s commit a tiny act of sacrilege right up front: lyrics are pretty much the least interesting part of any song. I know—someone just death-gripped their annotated To Pimp a Butterfly and let out a small, horrified gasp. But stay with me. When we obsess over what a singer is saying, we miss the real… Continue reading Why the Most Interesting Music Writing Is About Production, Not Lyrics