Checkmate

Social media, algorithms, and failed gambits

Who doesn’t love a good doomscroll?

Sitting down, firing up a social media platform, and just pushing the envelope for how long we can whip down the page/ screen on the hunt for something funny, interesting, captivating, rage-inducing, annoying, or weirdly satisfying.

I’m always looking for something, even if I didn’t know what that thing was before I sat down to look.

And I could trust it would always deliver. They always seem to guess exactly right. Just the thing I was seeking, even if I couldn’t have told you exactly what it was.

That was, until the other day when I was given a version of this video:

Nothing much to it. I kind of know who the pissed off guy is (Magnus Carlsen). I know how chess pieces move. Can set up a board right now, play, and probably lose quickly.

But in short order, Instagram made a calculated decision. It assumed, mostly out of nowhere, I was all-in on chess at the highest order.

All of a sudden, I’m in a doomscrolling situation where 80% of my Instagram feed is chess bombardment at every corner.

Heck, it’s assuming I’m just loving this shit, even getting deeper into the weeds with chess jokes. So deep in fact that I’m asking my friend James (a chess expert) about why this video is supposed to be funny:

To which he wrote:

“GxQ, Bxh7#. If pawn doesn’t take queen Qxh7# Brilliant queen sacrifice!”

The answer made even less sense than the video.

But that didn’t stop me or the algorithm from a continued wall-to-wall chess orgy. I kept at it for the better part of the next day. Kept scrolling. Kept getting delivered more and more hot chess vids. Maybe I lingered on a few of them too long. But there was no end in sight. And finally, after 24+ hours of this, I realized something:

The algo fucked up.

Instagram tech had finally made the wrong guess.

I didn’t want 24/7 chesscapades. Couldn’t care less what zugzwang, fianchetto, or the Nimzo-Indian Defense meant. Happy to sit it out.

And it was time to walk away. Not from chess on my feed.

But from the feed altogether.

A walkaway moment from something I’ve got my 10,000 hours of expertise in.

Want to be very clear here: I'm pro social media.

Twitter changed my life, helped me run a sports business, and usually delivers exactly what I want first thing in the morning.

Writing advice

NBA draft analysis

Brooklyn Nets rumors

Email templates (ooh sexy)

The algorithm normally nails it.

And over the years, I’ve fallen into other places like Sprinter Van conversion walkthroughs, off-grid solar setups for remote cabins in the woods, civil disobedience tactics with police officers, endless political “debates”, or Gordon Ramsay screaming bloody murder at people about scrambled eggs.

All shit I never had any intention of trying, but damn if it wasn't fun to watch.

Love a good morning, sunrise edition of Twitter's For You feed, which is just a figurative what’s-what of topics, stances, opinions, and video clips that are always 100% in my wheelhouse, whether I could have predicted it ahead of time or not. I'm here for all of it.

So it was something of a wake-up call to get handed the bad dose of laced content, and so I deleted them all (off my phone, not my comp. I’m not a monk.)

The chess debacle highlighted the issue for me with social media’s presence in my own life. I’d handed over the content curation reins of control to something I mostly trusted on a macro level (It will give me something good!) without consciously considering where it was getting the ideas.

The “guessing right” aspect of my feed meant that I could, guilt-free, fire it up at any time, any hour, and trust the algorithmic process of perfect delivery. Which is to say, I’d gotten in deep.

The deletion effect has been startling and a clear window into the amount of time the social media algos had leveraged on my behalf. For days after, I’ve picked up the phone with the intention of scrolling a feed that wasn’t there. Like a phantom leg or something, I wanted to scratch even though it had been lopped off already.

Never picked it up with a goal in mind unless the goal was “Look at stuff”.

My standard rotation:

Twitter/X | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram

Would be down for any and all of it if it were a click away. But it’s not. Or it still is, it just takes a little more work to get there.

Funny how something can feel essential until it's slightly inconvenient to access. And really, this is nothing close to a “solution” to anything. Will it all go back on my phone? I don’t know. Probably. I’ll find a reason.

But until then, I’ll bide my time. See what opens up. See if the algorithms can reset. See if I’m ready to go back with more of a future plan about how to deal with the 1s and 0s my feeds have me reduced to.

And I’m sure the digital dealer will be ready, willing, and able when I get there. Prepared to deliver me everything I want (or didn’t realize I wanted, but definitely want) right in that moment. Like it mostly always has before.

Because remember, maybe I’m not thinking about the algorithms. But the algorithms are definitely thinking about me.

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Doug Norrie is the Boss and the Assistant to the Regional Manager of DN Creative, a writing agency working with creators and businesses to tell their stories.

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