My next book: Filterworld

Announcing my book on algorithmic culture.

Hi! You might be fresh on this newsletter list because of my essays on TikTok or the meme economy, but today I am very happy that the announcement for my next book is out. I’ll writing a book for Doubleday called Filterworld, on the ways that algorithmic platforms have flattened culture, across both digital and physical spaces. Here’s the official Publisher’s Weekly blurb:

I owe so many thanks to my agent Caroline Eisenmann for helping me develop the ideas for the book and the proposal and my Doubleday editor Thomas Gebremedhin for taking on the project with so much enthusiasm. I’m hoping the book will be an authoritative look at the ways we create and consume culture in the era of algorithmic platforms, the risks of homogenization and the danger of passivity. It’s the culmination of a lot of my writing over the past few years, from my essays on AirSpace and algorithmic taste to the rise of ambient television and overtourism.

More importantly for the audience of this newsletter, I want to make the process of researching, reporting, and writing the book as public and participatory as possible. “Filterworld” to me means the ways in which all of our experiences are shaped by algorithms, and that conversation needs to happen with other people, reflecting many different perspectives. So I’ll be using this space to document my work on the book and dive into topics or news stories as they come up, like my GameStop stock newsletter. I want to build a dialogue around Filterworld long before the book comes out and I hope you’ll join me in the discussion — maybe this newsletter is Filterworld beta, and you’re my beta testers or early adopters (should you choose to accept it).

The book won’t be out for 2.5 years (crazy!) but I learned while writing my first book The Longing for Less, on minimalism, that everything that happens in the course of writing a book influences the end result and is contained within it. I’m really excited to embark on the journey and figure out, along with everyone else, what Filterworld means. Maybe that’s what my first dispatch will be: the term that I’ve landed on.

Please feel free to email me by replying to this newsletter or emailing chaykak@gmail.com, and pass it on to anyone who might be interested in the development of this book on algorithmic culture:

Otherwise, I’ll be returning to my regular work after the frantic months of selling the book, catching up with my emails (sorry!!), and finishing a few more freelance pieces. More soon!

Thank you for reading,

Kyle