The algorithm ate the artist by Rayyan Courbis

We used to follow trends. Now trends follow us, watch us, measure us, manipulate us and, eventually, tell us what we are supposed to like. Welcome to the brave new world of algorithmic taste, where originality is tolerated only if it performs well.

There was a time when discovering something beautiful meant stumbling across it. A photograph in a forgotten magazine, a painting in a small gallery, an unusual dress in a crowded street, a piece of music nobody around you had heard. Taste was an adventure, sometimes an accident, occasionally a rebellion. Today, apparently, we need an algorithm to tell us what is beautiful. How wonderfully pathetic.

Social media has turned global taste into a gigantic automated popularity contest. Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest and their digital cousins are no longer simply platforms where people share images and ideas. They are powerful cultural gatekeepers, quietly determining what receives attention, what disappears into obscurity and what millions of people will suddenly consider fashionable, desirable or aesthetically acceptable.

And the great trick is that we willingly participate. The algorithm does not particularly care whether a photograph is original, whether a painting has artistic depth or whether a fashion trend represents genuine creativity. It cares about engagement. Likes, comments, shares, viewing time and repetition become the currency of cultural relevance. The more predictable the reaction, the easier the content becomes to distribute. Consequently, creators increasingly learn to produce what the machine rewards rather than what their imagination demands.

The result is an extraordinary global aesthetic conformity disguised as individual expression. Scroll through different countries and cities and observe the visual similarities. The same minimalist interiors, identical coffee presentations, carefully manufactured imperfections, familiar fashion silhouettes, pastel colours, identical holiday photographs and faces arranged for maximum digital approval. Different languages, different cultures, different backgrounds, but remarkably similar visual ambitions.

Apparently, the entire planet has decided that originality means having the same original idea. This is not merely a question of fashion. Algorithmic curation influences architecture, photography, graphic design, beauty standards, food presentation, popular art and even the way ordinary people experience their surroundings. A restaurant designs its interior to become Instagram-friendly. A photographer frames a landscape according to what performs best on a small screen. An artist considers whether a painting will attract attention before considering what it communicates.

Creativity becomes content. Culture becomes marketing. Taste becomes data. Naturally, social media companies will defend their systems by arguing that algorithms simply respond to public preferences. There is some truth in that. They help people discover creators, communities and artistic movements that traditional cultural institutions might ignore. Independent artists can reach international audiences without waiting for the approval of galleries, publishers or commercial establishments.

But there is a rather important difference between helping people discover something and repeatedly showing them what the system has already decided they should see.

Algorithms do not simply reflect taste. They help manufacture it. And the consequences extend beyond aesthetics. When visibility becomes the principal measure of cultural value, less commercially attractive traditions, experimental art and unfamiliar visual languages struggle to compete. Cultural diversity does not necessarily disappear, but it becomes increasingly packaged into easily digestible, marketable fragments.

The most disturbing development is the gradual disappearance of curiosity. We stop exploring because the feed has already prepared our next discovery. We stop looking for the unfamiliar because familiarity produces comfortable engagement. We mistake popularity for quality and repetition for importance.

Meanwhile, creators become unpaid employees of an invisible cultural production line, constantly adjusting their work to satisfy an unpredictable machine. Yesterday's successful aesthetic becomes tomorrow's compulsory imitation. Even rebellion acquires a template, a hashtag and a recommended posting time.

Perhaps the greatest irony is that a technology supposedly designed to connect the world's cultures is helping manufacture a universal visual monoculture. We do not need to abandon social media. Nor should we romanticise an imaginary past in which artistic recognition was democratic. It never was. But we desperately need to recover the distinction between visibility and value, between popularity and originality, between discovering beauty and being instructed to admire it.

The algorithm can recommend a thousand photographs of the same sunset. It cannot tell us why one particular sunset makes us feel something. At least, not yet. And when it finally does, perhaps we should be worried.