Adam Oleksik

The label and the playlist made the phenomenon more real by giving them something to identify with or against.

And as more people identified with hyperpop, more musicians also started making hyperpop music.

All the while, the cluster of similar listeners and the algorithm grew larger and larger, and Spotify kept pushing it more and more because these platforms want to amplify cultural trends to keep you on the app.

But that means we also lose the distinction between a real trend and an artificially inflated trend.

And yet this is how all fads now enter the mainstream.

We start with a latent cultural desire, like maybe some people are interested in matcha or labubu or Dubai chocolate.

The algorithm identifies this desire and pushes it to similar users, making the phenomenon more of a thing.

But again, just like how ChatGPT misrepresented the word Delve, the algorithm is probably misrepresenting reality.

Now more businesses are making labubu content because they think that's the desire.

More influencers are also making labubu trends because we have to tap into trends to go viral.

And yet, the algorithm is only showing you the visually provocative items that work in the video format.

TikTok has a limited idea of who you are as a user, and there's no way that matches up with your complex desires as a human being.

So we have a biased input.

And that's assuming that social media is trying to faithfully represent reality, which it isn't.

Instead, it's only trying to do what's going to make money for them.

It's in Spotify's interest to have you listening to Hyperpop, and it's in TikTok's interest to have you looking at the boo-boos because that's commodifiable.

So once again, we have this difference between reality and the representation of reality, where they're actually constantly influencing one another.

But it's incredibly dangerous to ignore that distinction because this goes beyond our language and our consumptive behaviors.

This affects the world we see as possible.

Evidence suggests that ChatGPT is more conservative when speaking the Farsi language, likely because the limited training texts in Iran reflect the more conservative political climate in the region.