Dear Internet,

Please help, my YouTube algorithm is broken, and I don’t know how to fix it. I keep getting pushed videos about something called a Clavicular, and targeted ads for GLP-1 weight loss medication, and I can’t make it stop.

I can’t pinpoint when the shift happened, only that it did, and now everything looks the same. I have tried to balance it out with old Egyptian movies from the 1960s (I’m learning Arabic) and university-level lectures on the rise and fall of the Soviet Union (really), but it doesn’t seem to matter what keywords and terms I enter into the search bar. My home screen’s baseline is still an algorithmic slurry of rage-bait, half aimed at people who think millennial women are destroying Western civilization, the other half at people who think Sydney Sweeney is Hitler in low-rise jeans.

How the fuck did I get to a point where I know what the hell a Taylor Frankie Paul is? Mormon wife content makes up a 5th of my “suggested” videos, now. And Paul, with her unnaturally large toothy smile and overly spray-tanned skin, who became a tabloid sensation for spousal abuse (she likes throwing chairs at romantic partners), now stares at me from several thumbnails on my “for you” page a day. Her male equivalent–Clavicular, a product of the online incel community, a looksmaxxer, and a decade-long user of Trenbolone, a non-human approved anabolic steroid, at only twenty years old, makes up a tenth of my video push notifications. Everything that I used to watch, the educational videos, the lectures, the nuanced political commentary, has been pushed off the website or mutated into something else entirely.

For context, 5 or so years ago, the majority of my recommendations were philosophy channels, the occasional Benjamin Boyce and Peter Bogasshian video, and Japanese all-girl metal bands’ rock music videos (Hanabi and Doll$boxx mostly–and yes, I still recommend). But now Benjamin Boyce has morphed from a voice of intellectual reason and nuance into a person trapped within his own echo chamber–where he increasingly enjoys platforming people on the right who just love to “ask questions” regarding “the Jews.” Bogasshian, a former philosophy professor, has also become a victim of his own success, who seems to be driven more by his ego lately than by making actually interesting videos that broadcast a wide variety of views.

In fact, most of the former members of “The Intellectual Dark Web” appear to be floundering with their newfound fame and mainstream success. I like Rob Henderson and Lionel Shriver, for instance, but I always know when they have a new project or book coming out–because they are rotated like musical chairs on the same handful of YouTube channels. Each one of these shows that I used to watch, Triggernometry, Andrew Gold, Winston Marshall, Meghan Daum (etc., etc.), all seem to platform the same guests, filtering through them week by week, where the same ideas are reiterated and reworded for roughly an identical audience.

Maybe that’s why I am in this conundrum, I became so desperate for new ideas and new voices that I inadvertently walked through the looking glass into the world of internet Trash TV.

In 2019, for instance, I was, for all intents and purposes, a lurker on the darker intellectual corners of the internet; it was comforting to find videos showcasing gender-critical feminists like Meghan Murphy and Magdalen Berns. But now? I’m still digging through the mud and looking at the current depths of pop cultural wasteland, and I am not enjoying what I find–but conversely, I also can’t look away.

When Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster are entertaining Hasan Piker as a serious intellectual voice, and Benjamin Boyce is casually complaining on-stream about how you can’t criticize Israel’s sway over America’s Billionaire class without being called an “antisemite,” you know something has gone seriously sideways. And now, in 2026, for some reason, even our intellectual and cultural underbellies are encompassed by trash that has the mainstream tabloid media energy of a 2002 OK! Magazine cover.

I lived the most formative year of my life submerged in this culture, and I thought we all had walked away from it in the mid-2000s. But no, it’s still around, and it’s emerging again along with lace-up low-rise flare jeans and the misplaced nostalgia of Y2K reality television style. Suddenly, we have a reboot of Malcolm in the Middle happening, a sequel to The Devil Wears Prada, and a new Hilary Duff album.

I graduated from high school in 2007. Every style that I thought was hideous back then, including the ugly raccoon-tail dye jobs–you know, like the haircut sported by the gold medal-winning American figure skater Alysa Liu, is somehow making a comeback.

2000s fashion was unbearably ugly. I should know—I lived it. But Zoomers, per my YouTube algorithm, appear to be obsessed with everything Y2K related. And yet, I’m also getting pushed YouTube videos that Millennials (hello) are the lamest generation ever born. We are apparently “cringe” to Gen Z, who will gladly rip off our worst fashion choices from 2005, but don’t have enough personality to pull them off IRL.

How do I know this? Because YouTube really, really, really wanted me to know about it–and with video titles like: COACHELLA WAS SO MESSY THIS YEAR OMG CAN YOU BELIEVE IT, how could I not resist pressing the play button? And fine. I clicked one because I like pushing buttons, and the internet knows it. Per my annoyance, and also to be fair to my scammy reality-television-esque internet soup media-ecosystem I now call my YouTube algorithm, it did seem kind of lame–at least compared to what Coachella used to look and sound like, but hell, what do I know, I’m just a “cringe” Millennial?

Music festivals are no longer about music; you only realize how much once you fall deep enough into the algorithm. And if you want to mess up your internet search history even more, start googling what bands actually played Coachella…and man…Now I know what a “Katseye” is, and I think it’s to my further detriment.

Katseye, for those of you with healthier internet habits, is a girl group whose sound and aesthetic feel lifted straight out of 2003. Backed by major labels like Geffen and HYBE, they are less a band than a product—every outfit, sound, and public appearance carefully engineered. Katseye, along with other corporate pop acts like Justin Bieber and Sabrina Carpenter, was also one of the major headlining acts at Coachella 2026.

You know, there was a time when Coachella was about indie rock? When did an act like Justin Bieber become the draw? When did it morph from a semi-countercultural, crunchy granola crowd dominated by artists and theater kids into an arena where carbon copy influencers all rocking something called “the clean girl aesthetic” sell their services on social media for free tickets and free stuff? And also, why the heck am I seeing all this garbage in my feed in the first place?

I will admittedly take partial responsibility for my situation–I do like pushing buttons after all. You see, I research shit for a living now. And I also traded my Instagram addiction for a long-form video watching one, an addiction that I am sure David Foster Wallace (Gen Z’s new favorite “performative” male writer) would be horrified by. And even prior to me getting paid for this, I was writing culture essays here that required me to search obscure topics in strange areas. So I am part of the reason my social media accounts are going haywire. Even if the algorithm also doesn’t distinguish between what I value and what I react to, flattening both into the same signal.

Regardless of my YouTube algorithm dictating what videos reach my eyeballs, I am still the reason I have been inundated with Twitch streamer content for the last year, because I actively searched for it. After all, I have written not one but two separate articles on Hasan Piker in the span of a year and a half. I am also responsible for being inundated with Mormon and Trad Wife content–because I am in the middle of finishing up an essay about millennial feminism, the trad wife movement, and the Amish…(you think I’m joking-I’m not). But just because I research these things doesn’t mean I need to know what a Taylor Frankie Paul is, the Mormon version of Snookie for the decidedly more white bread crowd that watches the Bachelorette and not Jersey Shore.

In high school, I was a loser. I was too bookish and nerdy and still looked prepubescent. So music, movies, media–having taste was how I bolstered my fragile self-esteem. I may not have been getting invited to the parties because I was not what would be considered a conventionally attractive teenager in the world of the mid 2000s–no stick straight hair, no thongs poking out of low-rise jeans, and no boobs–but hell, could I give album recommendations; that was my superpower, or so I thought. I used my musical knowledge as a shield of snobbery–because it is the only thing (at the time) I thought I had to offer that could make me more interesting, more nuanced, more compelling–but in reality, it only made me more annoying to my peers.

The truth is, that I wanted to fit in desperately, but when I couldn’t (my sister likes to imply I’m autistic–but I don’t really think that’s the case), I decided to take a 90-degree turn instead. All I had was my music, my movies, my books, and a dream to leave my hometown behind someday and emerge more cultured and cooler somewhere else. And oddly, I’ve sort of accomplished this goal–I am living a more successful life, making art, writing stuff, and wearing fun clothes in a coastal city far away and somewhat off the grid from everyone I used to know. So why does my victory feel so hollow?

Probably because my online life is a reminder that the cultural artifices and artifacts I value and enjoy mean so little to the generation below me.

I don’t recall Millennials disparaging Gen X in the same way Zoomers mock our cultural tastes and quirks online. But what’s interesting about Coachella is the way in which they attempt to emulate our style and sensibilities without any of the soul. Fashion choices for festivals have now been outsourced to influencers who hawk their low-brow brands on sites like TikTok. Which is funny to someone who grew up with brands like Abercrombie and Aeropostale plastered across countless chests of teenagers I would pass by at my local mall. Suddenly, “branding” yourself is cool with the music festival crowd–how very 2002 normie Millennial of you.

Young twenty-something women now ask the internet hivemind what: ““we“ are wearing this summer?” and, “what trends are “we” bringing back? “ The word “we”, when applied to taste, is disconcerting. It implies that even self-expression has been outsourced, and it also indicates a lack of personal autonomy in one’s cultural preferences.

Influencers are begging to go to Coachella, not because it is a beacon of musical taste anymore (far fucking from it) but because it is a mainstream cultural event populated by vanilla A-list celebrities. So it’s a status symbol instead of a transformative artistic experience. What you wear also plays into this performance for the internet, where personality is flattened to conform to the new monoculture.

Hence why Millennials are considered cringe–because for us, the internet was a tool of self-expression. MySpace, for instance, was a medium for socializing in addition to discovering new music, unlike its distant relative TikTok, which operates more like a high school inside a gigantic open-air mall. This brings me to the worst part of my YouTube’s algorithmic transformation: the TikTok video compilations. Oh, how I hate them so–and these are thumbnails I actively try to avoid, but somehow YouTube feeds me them anyway.

What I have gleaned from them (on the titles alone) is that there is a performativity crisis among our younger cohort. Performativity appears to be a cultural trend of putting on “airs” for the presumably hyper online audience. Carrying Infinite Jest around a coffee shop and attempting to read it in public, ordering matcha lattes, being “nonchalant,” dressing too well, not dressing well enough, trying too hard in school, actively enjoying yourself in public, there are so many ways to be mocked for being yourself.

Now that having taste, being original, and enjoying art is “embarrassing,” it makes perfect and logical sense as to why music festivals have devolved into internet influencer conferences hosted by the Kardashian-Jenners. Because no one goes to anything anymore to experience it firsthand. In our new reality, where we live every moment of our lives online, everything one posts is for an audience.

Which I find extremely ironic, as the people creating this strip-mall-esque internet content-that dominates my feed are so “bland” because the people on the other side of the screen are terrified about being too theatrical for a literal online audience base presumably watching them for entertainment value-lest they be considered “cringe.” God forbid! No wonder comedy is a dying industry-I mean half of them want to be political commentators anyway…

I have always been drawn to the cultural underbelly. To me, underground art and musical movements have been a source of fascination and entertainment since I was a kid. It is why I draw and document the things that I do–including MySpace Scene Queens, the Hipster movement, Punks, Goths, Industrial music, Gangster Rap, and so on. Many of these subcultures became more accessible to me because I was able to learn more about them on the internet. But now in the age of algorithmic curation and online internet humiliation rituals, I feel as if the real weirdos–(and no Clavicular, real-life Zoolander, doesn’t count) are disappearing into the ether.

And I know what you are probably asking: why does this matter, why does it bother me so much – after all, it’s only my YouTube algorithm; yours is probably perfectly fine. However, this flattening of mass culture, where once alternative music festivals have been transformed into beige colored playgrounds for the rich and famous, and outfit choices and musical tastes are curated for us by marketing teams and corporate brands sold to us through our social media platforms of choice, signifies to me something sinister and dangerous.

Because Zoomers don’t appear to be rebelling the way older generations have. They aren’t pushing back on mass-marketed trends, they aren’t creating interesting music, and because they are essentially imitating cultural tastes from 20-odd years ago, they aren’t making anything new, which means culture itself is not progressing but stagnating.

When culture stagnates, ideas don’t disappear—but they stop evolving.

To some degree, I understand Gen Z’s hesitation to be themselves on and offline. Millennials are cringe. We are one of the most self-absorbed generations in history; we were raised by the Boomers after all…But I digress. And with this selfishness comes a lack of awareness.

But being afraid of being embarrassed means that you also never put yourself out there, which also means you will never truly create anything good, interesting, or culturally defining. If you can’t express yourself the way you want online–and this also goes for dressing the way you want in addition to saying the things you want to say-how can you create anything long-lasting and worthwhile?

I would like to be wrong about my last several paragraphs–but unfortunately, my YouTube algorithm is telling me that I am painfully culturally in-tune. This is the curse of clicking buttons online. The other disconcerting facet of this issue is all the Millennials and Gen-Xers who have also decided to fall in line and get with the times. Trying desperately to keep up with the “youths” is also deeply uncool and, dare I say, a tad cringe?

Like the Triggernometry guys who are interviewing Twitch streamers and the former dusty Fox News hosts trying to find common ground with Groypers like Nick Fuentes, you look old and out of touch just by trying to engage with pop cultural figures who have nothing of substance to offer other than their viewer counts and follower numbers. I’m over it, and I’m bored, and I don’t give a rat’s ass what a comedian has to say about geopolitics in the Middle East on the Joe Rogan podcast. Give me Douglas Murray–or better yet, an actual Middle East scholar any day instead.

But at the same time, I still am holding out hope that my algorithm will morph and mutate with the times. Trends come and go, and culture isn’t static or beyond salvaging. In high school the internet was how I discovered independent films and international indie rock acts, and in the mid to late 2010s, YouTube, along with the Intellectual Dark Web, did make me feel less ideologically alone. I also have lived through the cultural wasteland that was the early 2000s before–and I can do it again, but this time with cooler clothes and a stronger sense of self-identity.

So for now, I’ll keep clicking through the depths of the internet, looking for something that feels real, or at least unscripted. Not because I expect to find it, but because I’m not sure what it means if I stop typing obscure keywords into my search bar.