Escaping Algorithms (CSP)
How to bring back humane networking
Table of Contents
Introduction
Substack only shows my notes to 20% of my subscribers and even less people on the feed generally speaking. It’s not an effective promotional tool and writing notes has been my main thing currently, because my laptop only works about 3 hours a day. Which is quite frustrating to say the least.
However since I read Hawtorn V. Rabot’s essay on breaking algorithms…
… it got me thinking back to when I was training machine learning models and what I’ve been analyzing ever since I started engaging on social media as a creator.
So to preface this entire essay, this is about community building and creating reach, rather than performing to achieve fame (like many influencers do). It’s also mostly for the creators here on Substack, but if you’re considering joining our ranks as a reader (you should!), then this may be useful for you to think about as well. Either way, I wrote it for all of my subscribers, because I see you as my community, not as my followers.
That said, let me start with that I have a simple ask of you and that I’ll expand in a lengthy way on why I ask this afterwards.
My request
Click on all the links in this post (no need to click on tags)
Read the stuff I wrote (optional)
Like, comment & share as you see fit
My offer
You create a post with links to your favorite posts & notes
You tag me in that post (and optionally: link this post in your post)
I spam your notifications with likes & comments, and the occasional share
The Lengthy Explanation
I’m not here to drive numbers and get an audience that falls away at the turn of me saying something controversial, but I do want to reach people. Meanwhile, I think there’s a lot that needs to change in our society and I’m looking for expanding my community to drive that type of change. I also want to help out my community, but Substack barely shows me the people I’m subscribed to and none of the people I follow. And while there is an option on the website, to only see people you follow in your feed: this option isn’t on the app. That’s the first problem.
I literally get separated from the people I want to connect with, because Substack decided some people should get my attention. I understand why: they’re trying to promote a select few authors — an elite group — to make Substack more visible and valuable on the web. That’s how hierarchy works. And in my opinion, that’s something that needs to change. There are way too many amazing writers and people to only highlight a few.
So I want to take control back, by speaking to the humans on the other side of the algorithm. Yet I’m not someone who likes to spam people in Notes; it’s not my style, though I’m not condoning it either. I just prefer to use my energy as effectively as I can, while also respecting your time. The push marketing sales mentality isn’t something that works for me, but I know it has its purpose sometimes.
However, I choose to walk my own path and this is an experiment in which I want to help you, while you can help me too. Which is a form of collaborative pull marketing I guess?
Human Connection
Ever since I started on Substack I’ve been advocating for connection over engagement, because I see how social media is creating the idea that content is more important than the people who create it. We live in a world where free content made by poor people is the norm. While the select few are praised for regurgitating narratives that the empires we live in have programmed them with. And consequently: they make money as well.
I want to change that paradigm.
So I’ve been analyzing social media and realized that people have become very selective with “likes”, barely comment, and rarely share. That’s not a reflection on the quality of my content — I’ve seen it on much larger accounts as well from people I deeply care about.
Yet, the technology behind it all requires the engagement in order to understand what is valuable. This is the language it speaks. It’s how the weighting in a machine learning model works. There are rules about when something is considered valuable and when it doesn’t meet the standard.
Meanwhile I also understand that people are doom scrolling, because there’s so much information and they don’t know what to focus on. A lot of people are simply too tired to think, and just accept the programming that is being fed to them. No judgment there, I have it too sometimes. But it’s effectively making people robots and destroying our social cohesion, because everyone is living in echo chambers of the algorithms making. So as a creator, I wanted to create something that helps them rely on something else than the algorithm: that’s what this post is.
But it’s also because the algorithms are controlled by who spends the most money, thereby again creating that the most aggressive people in our species get to be ‘on top’. So if this works on Substack… it could work elsewhere. Because as usual, this attitude of ‘who shouts the loudest’ tends to disappear the people who are kind and compassionate, those who don’t want to potentially harm someone by overstepping boundaries. Our social connections don’t need to remain this way.
Let’s start with realizing how we can be humane in a machine world:
Use the like button for everything related to your community. It’s how you show support. It’s NOT actually about liking the content. All you’re saying to the machine is: this isn’t trash. See it this way: by clicking “like”, you simply say that this creator is a human being and not a bot. Use the button like you’re hungry for a candy bar that the vending machine is refusing to give you — after you paid for it. Slam the damn thing repeatedly and mercilessly. Will this fuck up your feed? Yes! Does it matter? No. Keep reading.
Comment on the stuff that you actually like. This lets both the creator and the machine know: this is high value content. Even if you have nothing to say, just say something generic. On TikTok, use at least 7 words. Here on Substack, write out two sentences. Creators will appreciate the interaction. And other people who connect with what that creator does, will read your stuff too!
Restack/share/tag if you think something is perfect or exactly aligned with you. That’s how we network and it’s still not a given that people will see this, considering the amount of information we’re all sifting through. But I’m just sharing the basics here, you may already understand all of this. It’s just that I see way too many people holding back on using these buttons, because they either think it doesn’t matter or they’re overvaluing their importance. So maybe we need to create more awareness as creators how this stuff does matter — since it’s what’s keeping people eating actual food. The buttons are just you instructing the machine on how to behave. That’s why I mention all of this.
Flipping the script
The counter movement to hierarchy is synarchy. It’s to actually connect with the chefs that created what you “consume”. And since you are being fed by your feed, you might as well make sure you eat what you truly enjoy right?
However, circumventing the algorithm and networking with the people on the other side of it, is the way forward in my opinion. We don’t need algorithms — we need social cohesion that doesn’t separate us.
Rather than trying to gorge yourself on all the food (doom scrolling), see your scrolling as a walk through a village. Say hi (like) to the neighbors you pass by, have a chat with your friendlies (comment), and recommend the people you want to see succeed (share).
Go out of your way to visit the market stands (profiles) of the creators you love and engage specifically with what they put out. There’s no better motivation for a creator, than knowing someone truly sees they are a human behind the creations they put out.
And here’s the big thing: Stop using your feed altogether. Ignore it.
Because once you actually connect with creators and others in the comments: you don’t need a feed. You found community. And the ones who control the algorithm can think of another way to restrict us…
Machine Translation
Unfortunately, being over the top in your engagement with the select few that you choose still won’t be enough. The machine will still drive the agenda of the ones who control it, meaning that we as a community will still be hidden in obscurity. And that’s why we need to use our loudest voice in machine world, to highlight a directory of all the other creations we made. We need to start shouting back in a way the machine understands, so we use the algorithm in our favor. In other words: we need to increase our collective footprint and confuse the algorithm so it gets reprogrammed to actually make sense.
This is why I’m asking you to share a post with links to everything: your notes included (it’s also great for SEO by the way). Because I think we’re all tired of getting too much content that’s not truly hitting the spot. While personally as a creator: I want to create quality stuff, rather than promote all the fucking time. It’s the rat race all over again, just in a different form.
Being efficient and making use of our networks, works effectively by creating 1 post with clear instructions on what you desire. You can promote that post as the machine would expect you to do, while needing to put in minimal effort as a human. Meanwhile, the humans that you are actually doing all of this for — your audience — will have a clear and easy way to find what they have been doomscrolling for. And by telling your audience what helps your messages get more visibility, you make use of the network you have built up. That’s the start of synarchy. But the beauty is that your circle overlaps with my circle, and my circle overlaps with their circle, and theirs overlaps with… and overlaps with… etc. I don’t need to explain this, you already know how social stuff works. But the machine doesn’t. Not really. It’s why I had a job as an analyst: the machine doesn’t understand context, just data.
My hope is that the 60+ subscribers that I have currently will read this post and at the very least give it a “like”. Yet, even this post will only be seen by a limited amount of people after I publish it.
I’ve tried to make my content as high quality as I can, with the energy that I have. But if you truly enjoy my content, I need you to understand that we can only get a different message out to the world, if we support each other as a community.
This post isn’t about me. It’s about us.
I want us all to succeed and it starts with supporting each other. I’m just showing one way in how. So please feel free to comment here on how we could improve this. Let’s learn together.
Practical Application
You may also think: this is too much work. So I’ll show you how this can take very little of your time, because I understand we’re not actually talking about human connection for most of this. That type of connection is evident to us — this post is primarily about how we can talk to the machine where it’s helpful, and circumvent it where it’s not.
Here are some low to high intensity tiers on how you can engage with my directory in an efficient way:
Low intensity — you’re tired:
Click all the links — like all the content. You don’t need to read anything. Done.
Time investment: 3 minutes
Creators you can support in 1 hour: 20
Creators you can support with doing 1 hour every day of the week: 140
Medium intensity — you’re busy but want the world to change:
Click all the links — like all the content.
Read 5 notes. Leave 2 liner comments on each.
Read 1 post. Leave a paragraph comment.
Time investment: 20 minutes
Creators you can support in 1 hour: 3
Creators you can support with doing 1 hour every day of the week: 21
High intensity — you’re committed to making algorithm scream the safe word & have creators laud your name:
Use a computer / laptop
Open the browser and navigate to the post
Use CMD+click or CTRL+click, as you click on all of the links (this opens new tabs for each one)
Move through each tab and:
On pass 1: Like everything and close the tabs of things you really aren’t interested in. Don’t read — scan.
On pass 2: Read the Notes. Comment on everything with 2 liners — and go full length on the stuff that you really enjoy, so the creators know what you find valuable. Close the tabs as you submit your comment.
On pass 3: Read the Posts. Don’t force it:
If you only feel like reading the first few paragraphs, that’s fine. Leave a small comment & close.
If you read the whole post, leave a longer comment. Consider restacking if you truly find it valuable. Use a variety of ways of restacking to keep your own feed fun to engage with.
As for the other hours you now have free to spend…
Understand that this is 1 hour a week at most, because you’ll be responding to a directory, rather than being scattered in your attention through a feed.
You can support me and the community by making it a daily routine to check out who you’re subscribed to and what we published. Instead of using the feed of Substack.
To explore new content: check out who your favorite people subscribe to and restack some of the notes of new people you find. Contribute to the network and it will contribute to you. Don’t get fed: feed yourself.
Finally, one of the things I intend to do is also share who I’m following in one of my next posts: this way you benefit from the network I’ve already built and can build your manual feed more easily. I know there are many here who subscribe to everyone who subscribes to them, but I personally only subscribe to people I clearly recognize as allies. Therefore sharing my followers through a post is the only way for giving visibility (that I know of).
My Directory
Posts
Top essays:
Welcome: 3 minute read - Vision for stage 1 of the Dragons Tails enterprise
We’re All Completely Crazy: 30+ minute read - Life philosophy & personal story about psychosis, mental health, and society.
Resilience: 20+ minute read - Personal backstory of the past 10 years of being married, emigrating twice & living off grid.
Mercy: 10+ minute read - Poetic story & contemplation about childhood wounds and forgiveness.
Honor & Vulnerability: 20+ minute read - Social values and the journey that guided me to build my self esteem after years of agoraphobia.
A Neglected Child: 15 minute read - Raw unfiltered story about suicide, bullying, and childhood wounds.
Top poems:
Wounded Woman: A raw response to the criticism on men
Anything but a Kiss: A sensual response to a guarded female partner
A Funeral: How I dream to leave the world
Nothing to Say: Resistance to self expression
Call of the Void: Embracing psychological death
Notes
These are my highest quality notes from the past 3 months.
Mysticism
Community & Self expression
Conclusion
I’d like to dub these posts as “community support posts” (CSP). And I’ll engage full force in any CSP of the people that I’m subscribed. And will try my best to capture those of who I follow. Feel free to tag me if I missed one of your CSPs and I’ll make sure to check in.
Oh and some other random things:
Do check and respond to your notifications — this is your new feed now.
Do link to the origin of knowledge you found — this creates a chain that both machine and people can follow. (it increases weighting)
Do tag people who speak on similar topics together in a Note. (helps social cohesion)
Do start making quality notes now — you’re free from needing to keep to manufactured rules about keeping to a particular frequency of posting.
As for the frequency of publishing a CSP: that’s completely up to you and your style of course. But I’d advise to send a CSP out at most once a week and at least once a month, so as not to overload your audience while also not disappearing from sight. See it as a combination between a newsletter and a phonebook. And/or those old school emergency phone trees. Personally I’m leaning towards publishing one once a month, considering that I don’t publish posts that often.
Anyway, this is an experiment. Take from it what you think is useful.
I’m curious to see if this inspired you in anyway and hopefully I’ll be seeing some CSPs come my way soon!
Sweet :) looking forward to seeing your CSP ;)
Sounds like an innovative model. Humane connection is hard these days, isn't it?