Resisting the Algorithm
is it possible?
Is resisting the algorithm merely a futile effort? For example: I forgot how old I am because I didn’t post on Instagram for my birthday this year. I’m 32 years old but I kept experiencing an ongoing psychosis where I fully thought I was 31. I was constantly unsure but settled on 31 for a while, avoiding doing any math because that’s hard and I hate math. I had no idea until my mom reminded me halfway into the year that I’m literally 32 years old.
In a similar sense, I’m over hustle culture. Like a lot of people right now, I hit that realization of: what’s the fucking point? I want to work to live, not live to work. But I do want to live to eat and also have my mother not comment on my weight. Can we get everything we want?
“The Great Resignation,” as it’s been dubbed (funny/dumb), is truly the Great Awakening that the people have been yearning for. How else would Sally and John realize they hated working in fucking hospitality if the economy hadn’t shut down for them to have enough time to even sit down to realize it? Millions of people had to die for the gig economy to give a break to the millions still struggling to get by but still living.
I haven’t written in this newsletter since the summer because honestly? I didn’t feel like it. Writing is hard and mostly sucks. Sure, writers block is a part of the process and maybe pushing through it is the noble thing to do. I admire artists who choose to do that. But if I’m being honest with myself, for the first time in a long time, I don’t think I care as much as I used to.
I’ve been in a phase of really questioning my values. Like, what is my real drive to succeed? Is the point to get rich and famous? If it’s not, then why hustle? If the point is to make a decent living and just get by, the reality is – whether it’s incredibly unfair or not – the arts and entertainment industries will barely provide the majority of us with any stability or opportunity to do that UNLESS (ironically) one is rich and famous.
I know this truth is depressing to accept. But, I find embracing this truth more empowering than depressing because, in doing so, we are one step closer to not giving into it. If we just deny the truth to avoid temporary sense of sadness, we are playing into their game exactly how they want us to. Of course it behooves the exploitative nature of capitalist power to just assume that if we keep working soooo hard, maybe we’ll be the lucky one to “make it” and get one trillion likes on the grid. I mean, look. Would I say no if I booked my ass on a movie tomorrow? No! I’d take it. But I’m aware of the bounds of competition and envy that drives this system. And even though I am often influenced by them as I am also human, I wonder if resisting it could help create change. Is it futile to resist the algorithm?
Ever since things opened back up again post-vaccine, I’ve found myself dreading going to comedy shows or putting myself out there at all, for that matter. This was a new feeling for me because all I used to do was go to comedy shows and do indie-ass stand up style comedy for often relatively empty bar shows. They were fun and many times even rewarding, but were they worth the sacrifice?
I used to clamor to do everything comedy-related like a desperate nerd because I was fully obsessed with it. Years ago, I had made it my life. I had really wanted that. I loved being a comedian. I loved telling people I was a comedian (embarrassing). All I wanted was to become a successful comic. It took a lot of therapy to realize that the goal post of success kept moving and I could never catch it. And to accept that success in comedy was completely out of my control, and my chances only hurt by not being a white guy. I know the common response is it’s “hot to be diverse now” but tell that to the industry, which is still majority run by old white men who hit on their interns. I had to learn that this certain obsession with success has a lot to do with deep feelings of inadequacy blueprinted into me in childhood rather than a true reflection of my own worth. Life is a mirror for what we feel inside, isn’t it? Kind of sucks to have to get hit with that sometimes, considering all the personal responsibility one is required to take in order to experience any personal growth beyond that at all. And it is literally hard work. And I’m supposed to bust my ass at bar shows for the rest of my life on top of it?
I’m not fishing for compliments here. I just have a damaged self-esteem. That’s why putting myself out there has felt less worth it over time. And that is my Great Awakening revelation I learned during the pandemic. If I spent the foundational years of my childhood getting rejected by being the only brown kid in my class in South Carolina while also having a mother who was tough on me due to lacking the resources to deal with her own trauma, why the fuck am I letting myself get sad because I didn’t get a “scholarship” to make digital videos for Viacom? Nothing makes sense when you put it into that context, right? Capitalism, man.
Alas, this corrupt system is so stupid. Yet here we are: trapped in its stupid claws.
It’s like everything: change is hard and long and hard-won. There’s no way around it. I don’t know if this essay is meant to be inspiring or not. Something just told me to try to write again. I don’t want to be afraid to express myself just because it actually sucks to do so. It honestly sucks to get bullied online by some incel who commented on my stand up set just to say, “Of course she did improv.” And even the fact that his dumbass comment legitimately pissed me off is in itself embarrassing to admit, yet a truth of my reality. I was told good art is vulnerable. And it's fucking hard to be vulnerable all the time, isn’t it?
I am angry but it doesn’t need to be my whole thing. I have hope and faith, too, and maybe I don’t express that in equal measures in my art. I guess I nurture my spirituality in private. A by-product of pursuing community in the Brooklyn alt-comedy scene is that being too earnest on stage can get looked down upon and I guess I internalized that like a lil’ bitch.
I do have faith, though. Primarily in connection and relationships. My Great Awakening was also about how true connection can never be sacrificed for career success, because career success isn’t going to go with you to the emergency room when you find out your allergic to a large amount of dust collecting in a room you sublet from a person who never followed you back on Instagram because you’re not famous. (lol vibes).
I wanted to write this essay a couple months ago. You know how the mystical creative flow only hits suddenly in the moment out of nowhere? Like you can’t predict it or rely on it, but you kinda just gotta take it when it comes. (Strangely… just like career opportunities in the arts.) I was in the zone a couple months ago, sitting on my couch, letting-it-all-pour-out-vibes. But one of my good friends hit me up and asked me if she could come over to visit because she was having a hard day. And you know what? In a world where relationships are more important than the productivity that leads to career success, I went with the relationship and decided to be there for my guy. In making that choice, I felt the small yet fulfilling joy of resistance. I was choosing to deepen my friendships rather than deepen my opportunity for capitalist gain. And I still feel good about that.
Sure, it was a bit frustrating because honestly the flow didn’t come back until like two months later. But at the same time, does it matter? I’m still writing the essay, but in November instead of September. And my friendship is much closer, more connected, and more deeply reliable than it was even in the months prior. Because connection is about showing up when you have the opportunity to, I think. I think those moments probably make live more rich and worth living then posting an essay link to Instagram that no one will read unless you post a hot selfie to game the algorithm right. And that friend will show up for you, too, like probably when you have to go to the emergency room because of previously mentioned random dust mite allergy.
The capitalist mode of productivity shouldn’t have to be applied to creativity to make art work right. Many people do run by that mode and make brilliant work. In fact, the constraints of regular deadlines have been known to be conducive to producing creative work. I don’t know if it’s fair to say that’s a capitalist concept, but it’s certainly more aligned with productivity and that is what is considered success in capitalism. Recently, this got me thinking: why am I so resistant to being productive with my creativity lately? Isn’t the point of art to create it and show it to people? Is that such a bad thing? Maybe it simply is valid to want to dedicate ourselves to a craft and be good at something. Maybe that’s just human.
I’ve been stuck in a bit of a paradox. Is it okay that productivity can make me feel better? That maybe productivity even helps me feel worthwhile? And if so, does that mean I’m stuck in capitalism’s dirty claws too much? Can I escape from them if I decide to take the direct opposite approach? As in, avoid productivity until it only becomes imperative – until I have the creative urge to make something that becomes so strong, I just have to do it. Essentially, to wait until I feel like it. And really, to avoid feeling the pressure, disappointment, and feelings of rejection that often come with the creative process.
I ran with this experiment for the past year. 2021 was a year where I de-prioritized anything relating to career success and re-prioritized my personal life. Now we’re coming to the end of the year and I can share some of my findings, I guess. I think it went well. I am coming out of 2021 with deeper relationships than I’ve had in years. I had to face a lot of reasons why I had avoided deepening my relationships in the past, option to instead work hard (and thus, without realizing, isolating myself further from my loved ones). The reasons I uncovered included a fear of rejection that shows up in deep bonds. Can’t seem to escape that one, I guess, in art or life. I had to work on showing up in therapy and healing the hell out of my ass in ways that required an intense amount of stamina and focus. It was extremely hard work in another way, as it was largely internal rather than external. And you know what? Maybe we only have energy to work so hard at one thing at a time.
I did just get out of therapy merely a couple hours ago. I told my therapist some version of these thoughts. I was also incredibly in my feelings, as we sometimes are. I was expressing fear: now instead of my career, it was about my relationships. What if I can’t do a good enough job? What if I never get over all my fears and the trauma that erodes my faith in success? At some point, I told my therapist that I’m working so hard on my emotional world right now that I can’t even think about facing this kind of rejection in creating art right now. She told me, in a true old-fashioned wake-up-moment, classically concerned therapist kinda way, “Maybe you’re working way too hard on your emotional world and burning yourself out here. And if you work less hard at it, you could feel lighter, create the art you want to, and enjoy life a little bit more.” What a novel concept, right? Enjoy life?
I’ve been grasping at straws feeling inadequate for 30+ years now. To just stop worrying if I’m good enough and enjoy life sounds divine, but a tall order. I’m so used to fretting over my worth. The colonial system we’re stuck in taught me to hate myself and from a young age I did a really good job of abiding by that. Will I ever be able to let it go and just be happy?
Well, that’s the thing about change. It takes an incredibly long time and a hundred million tries in the old direction, until we ware ourselves out and have no choice but to try the new way, even though it’s shaky and it sucks to be bad at stuff. But unfortunately, that’s the way of life. Just like capitalism, my relationship to myself, our relationship to the world, everyone’s relationship to everything they’re working on. All change takes time. Fortunately, the pain is an incredible motivator to move towards change.
My friend that I mentioned previously, who I had chosen over working on this essay a couple months back, called me tonight after therapy and we had a really nice chat that helped me feel tremendously better. I talked to her about these feelings and she gave me wise insight. She said we’re like the old man in the clock shop. I had to spend this year working really hard on perfecting this old grandfather clock and getting it to work right. And now that I’ve put in all that work, I’m realizing it’s time to move onto the next thing: work on some of these lil’ cuckoo clocks I got, too. This moment to me, which pulled me out of a downward spiral, felt like synchronistic confirmation from the universe that I really did make the right choice in choosing our friendship over capitalist productivity. Capitalism won’t help you up when you’re down. Unless you’re paying for it.
I saw a bunch of memes on the internet the other day that a great thinker of our age, adrienne maree brown, posted and they made me feel hope. I hope they can provide you some, too. I’m sharing them below. Maybe in another four years we’ll have a new hell to contend with, but it’ll be different and slightly better. If we can hang in there long enough, maybe we can live to witness a better world.
Thanks for reading! I appreciate y’all. Art is sad without an audience (lol). Thanks for giving me a shot. Hit me in the DM’s if you can relate or got thoughts to share. Would love to hear from ya. Unless you’re going to bully me because that would feel bad. But hell, I guess do you.
xo,
Fareeha
