Affective Landscapes
Everyday Encounters with Algorithms
I have been a Twiter user for more than ten years now, but I still do not know how to use it. Tweeting does not come naturally to me, and I would not really be able to explain what the platform is for. However, like most users, I think of Twiter as a real-time micro-blogging platform from which you can tweet small snippets of thoughts, pieces of information, or links to a group of followers. For many, the realtime reverse chronological feed is the most defining aspect of Twiter’s user experience. It, therefore, felt somewhat transgressive when Twiter announced in early 2016 they would introduce an “algorithmic timeline” to replace its iconic real-time feed. It did not come as a surprise that the news that Twiter was preparing to change this defining feature completely would cause a massive public outcry. Like any big platform change nowadays, enraged users gathered around a hashtag to protest. For days and weeks, #RIPTwiter demonstrated the dismay people felt at the arrival of the algorithm. “In case you never hear from me again, you can thank Twiter’s genius new algorithm system . . . #RIPTwiter.”1 “The main thing I love about Twiter is that it does not use an algorithm. Sounds like that’s changing. #RIPTwiter.”2 “Every time I hear the word ‘algorithm’ my heart breaks. #RIPTwiter.”3 I want to start this chapter with the case of #RIPTwiter, not because the user protests surrounding platforms are somehow exceptional, but because of the emerging ordinariness of algorithms that these tweets and many more like them seem to convey. As Christian Sandvig (2015) notes, in the years 2006–2013, “There has been a five-fold increase in the number of times the word ‘algorithm’ appeared in the major newspapers of the world.” This number has likely just exploded since 2013, with the news media now routinely reporting on algorithms. While many people are still not aware of the extent to which algorithms are curating their online experiences (Eslami et al., 2015), we might nevertheless—or precisely because of it—sense the emergence of a new “structure of feeling” (Williams, 1977) surrounding algorithms as evident in various emerging discursive impulses surrounding the algorithm.4
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