When I Pray My iPhone Listens
While I’m scrolling on TikTok, I often become surrounded by this feeling of unease. My For You Page will narrow in on something so specific that it will make me almost nauseous. Recently, I came across a video of one of my old friends from college that I haven’t spoken to in a while. I did not follow them on the app and had denied TikTok access to my contacts long ago.
As the video starts, they say, I’m going to be ranking some of my old college outfits. The first picture pops up on the screen, and it’s a picture with me. I am staring at my own body. We are standing next to each other, at a denim-on-denim party. We are both head to toe in denim, posing. We look extremely nineteen.
The experience shocked me, more than I expected, to be absentmindedly scrolling through my phone, and then suddenly being confronted by a picture of myself. My For You Page delivered the ultimate personalization. It got so close to me that it became me. The rest of the video consisted of pictures of parties I had attended, pictures in my old dorm room. I was asked to view myself and my life as I would any other kind of content.
Some days, I enjoy the ease TikTok seems to be able to show me videos catered to my interest. But when it can find my image and send it back to me, is when I begin to get this feeling, as if I’m being not only observed but also understood. But who, exactly, is looking at me? And how do they know me so well?
*
I like to think of myself as a discerning and rational person. But I often find myself almost instinctively looking to the media on my phone to answer questions about myself, watching YouTube tarot readers, TikTok astrologers, or Instagram therapists with clipboards in hand, ready to diagnose. If this video found you it’s meant for you and if you do these three things you might have ADHD and these are the five signs you might secretly be queer. I’ve heard friends and influencers say that TikTok knew they were gay before they did, or that TikTok knew they were autistic before they got diagnosed.
This phenomenon has a name: Algorithmic Conspirituality. In the research paper “In FYP We Trust: The Divine Force of Algorithmic Conspirituality.” They say that the term “captures occasions when people find personal, often revelatory connections to content algorithmically recommended to them on social media and explain these connections as a kind of algorithmically mediated cosmic intervention.”
This is evident in how we describe the content that the algorithm prescribes us. Often people will talk about how they are on ‘gay TikTok,’ ‘NYC TikTok,’ ‘ADHD TikTok.’ These different ‘sides’ of TikTok are often spoken about as if there is some sort of pride in the sorting that the algorithm has done. As if the algorithm has not just sorted content to show you, but is in fact also, sorting you as a person into an important and defined category.
*
It’s obvious now that these algorithms have material effects on the course of people’s lives and beliefs. When I’m walking down the street in New York, I can see it. Everyone has let their algorithm dress them. I know what TikTok that girl copied her outfit from. The tall boots, boxer shorts, slick back bun, hoop earrings. Last year it was Urban Outfitters, corset top, Addias Sambas. Next year, it will provide us with a different uniform. There is almost a religious aspect to this, the way the algorithm provides us with rules to live by, a frame with which to shape our life. Instead of looking to religion to learn how to eat, talk, dress, we can now gaze into our phones.
*
My first ever memory is being four years old and at church. I was sitting on a rug with a group of other small children. I was handed a bible and asked to read a passage.
The problem was, of course, that I was a toddler and I did not know how to read. I think I had just freshly learned the alphabet. I looked down at the words in front of me, God’s word, and I could not make sense of them.
That imprint of God has always stayed with me. That there was something sort of inaccessible or intangible about God. That God’s power was in some way wrapped up in the fact that I did not understand him totally.
When I stopped believing in God as a teenager, I tried to fill the religion-shaped hole for a long time. But I think the internet was the only thing that came close to filling that void for me. It gives me that same feeling; the feeling that I’m in the presence of something greater than myself, something that knows information I don’t. It’s not just that the mathematics behind the algorithms are beyond my comprehension. Misunderstanding can often feel mythical, if you frame it correctly.
An interaction with the internet can often parallel an interaction with the sublime; it mimics the experience of being alone without feeling alone. It mimics the feeling of being understood by something distinctly unhuman.
*
This belief that the algorithm is guiding us towards our true selves and our futures is, of course, not without consequences. Most glaring when looking at the history of algorithms pushing people towards various forms of alt-right radicalization.
In episode 145 of the podcast “Reply All,” New York Times Tech Columnist Kevin Roose discusses something called “The Gangnam Style problem.” When YouTube first launched the ‘recommended videos’ feature it was designed to lead users towards more popular content. “The Gangnam Style problem” was the observation that if you watched enough recommended videos, you would always end up at the Gangnam Style music video because it was the most popular video at the time, no matter where you started. You begin your YouTube journey watching videos of watching Drag Race recaps or cats knocking glasses off tables or Monster Truck Rallies, but eventually, there you would land, watching the Gangnam Style music video again and again.
YoutTube realized that this wasn’t the best method for maintaining user watch time. Roose said, “In 2015, YouTube makes another huge change to their algorithm. They’re trying to fix the Gangnam Style problem. And they do that by tweaking the algorithm in a whole bunch of different ways. So now, the algorithm starts recommending videos to people that they’ve never heard of, often, videos more niche than what they’re watching.”
One of the consequences of this algorithm change was that it moved people to the fringes. If someone started out watching a video that was mildly conspiratorial, the next video would be even more so. A user could start out watching a video explaining a conspiracy theory about the moon landing, and end up watching a video about Q Anon or Sandy Hook denial. Roose said, “this is how previously obscure conspiracy theorists, racists, etcetera suddenly started getting a ton of new traffic from YouTube.”
*
Even if it isn’t as something as pointedly horrific as alt-right radicalization, the algorithm is still guiding you towards parting with two crucial things: your time and your money. With TikTok shop, Amazon affiliate links, influencer brand deals, scrolling through your phone can feel like walking through one long advertisement. I’ve found myself convinced that I absolutely need a new item, until pausing for a moment and realizing it would be utterly useless, that it is nothing more than a piece of plastic.
And even if you have lost nothing other than your attention, you have lost something precious.
*
I was talking to my friend over a drink when I asked her what her screen time had been that day. Mine had just surpassed six hours, and I was feeling embarrassed over my excessiveness. And I wanted to know if this kind of excessiveness was normal. My friend scrolled into her phone and responded casually and frankly, twenty-four hours.
A full twenty-four hours? I repeated back to her. We both laughed. She realized that she had just misread the number. That had been her total for the week.
Even though it was just a mistake, I couldn’t stop thinking about the exchange. I thought it pointed to something, that perhaps it could be possible to believe, even if for a second, that we could literally spend a full day on our phone.
*
I was born in 1997, I remember when the internet made a sound, when you could not be on the internet and talk on the phone at the same time. But perhaps most importantly, the internet of my childhood stayed in one place. There was the family computer that stayed in the basement, and when you wanted to log on, you had to descend down the stairs and visit it, like a friend.
And the internet also seemed to have an end. Even as a teen on Tumblr, I remember scrolling to the bottom of my dashboard. And sure you could refresh, but you could also, reach the bottom, a bottom.
As I have grown into an adult, the internet has grown into an endless and ever-present entity. I could scroll on TikTok, seemingly, for the rest of my life if I wanted to. I could live my whole existence simply looking, absorbing what my phone has to offer. The internet has become a confusing mix of both smaller and larger, in that it now could fit in your hand while also containing a kind of infinity.
The progression is slow, incremental. And now we are left, sliding into our pockets–something larger than ourselves.
Nora Rose Tomas is a queer writer and poet based in Brooklyn. She holds an MFA from Columbia University. You can follow her on Instagram @dr_sappho.
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