A short excerpt from a YouTube video by Lennon Bone criticizing how artists are sold shortcuts and 'hacks' to grow social media, which cast the algorithm as the villain. The speaker argues the algorithm is actually the intended audience—real people—and that focusing on engaging genuine people rather than hacks will produce better results.
I'm constantly seeing a lot of brilliantly creative people get caught in this trap. Everyday people are selling them on these hacks and shortcuts things to grow their following. And the people that are really good at selling them on this story use one main thing as the villain, and that villain is the algorithm. And in the story that they tell, the stakes for you as the artist are really high. If you don't understand the algorithm, you'll never get all the followers that you want. But imagine for a moment, in true Scooby Doo fashion, you're, like, pulling the mask off of his face, only to reveal the actual person that you're talking to. The you want to be your fan. The algorithm is just the person that you're trying to talk to in the first place. You pull the mask off, and in a fit of, like, fear and passion, they tell you that they just wanted you to pay attention to them in the first place. The real villain was all those hacks and shortcuts that you were being sold. If you just take away all the hacks and you just focus on the person that you're trying to reach, everything will fall into place.
