I drifted off to sleep one night a couple of weeks ago while looking at a YouTube home screen populated with a selection of videos from the art, travel, and cooking channels that I subscribe to — but I woke up the next morning to a barrage of screaming click-bate thumbnail images promoting the outrageous exploits of someone named “Karen”. Who is she anyway?

At first, I thought maybe these were episodes from some wayward 1970’s television show, but no.

I scrolled and scrolled ’til my thumb was numb and never found an end to them. More annoying though was that when I looked at who had uploaded them to YouTube, I discovered that they had been posted by a huge array of different content creators even though the “stars” of these bizarre vignettes all appeared to be named “Karen”.

Seriously?

Don’t get me wrong, I get that one man’s noise is another man’s music and it’s not my place to dictate what sort of content other people should create or enjoy watching.

To be clear, I don’t blame the “uploaders” for this tsunami of repetition. They are all separate, independent people just trying to earn a living — I blame YouTube.

More precisely I blame the You Tube “Algorithm” — that confusing piece of computer code that determines — on its own and without asking — what you like. The Algorithm knows better than me. Really?

I must admit, that like so many others, as a result of lockdowns and working from home this past year, I many have spent a wee bit too much time viewing content online — the dog’s not particularly interested in a game of scrabble these days.

For sure we like watching videos, long or short, or movies or music concerts on our tablet — but only those that we have chosen ourselves — not chosen by some “artificially intelligent” machine parked in a warehouse somewhere.

So, YouTube (or for that matter Netflix) repeatedly getting it wrong is frustrating to the point of being annoying to say the least.

And if we make the mistake of clicking on one of these weird videos even once, the algorithm immediately seems to conclude “Aha, she DOES like strange people in strange places screaming at each other. OK we’ll show her thousands more of them.”

In other words, I make one mistake, and a machine punishes me for weeks.

Yes, I realize that YouTube is about clicks and advertising revenue but has the Covid-weary attention span of the average viewer fallen so far off the rails that they are comfortable with this?

And even if this is the case, why is everyone allowing themselves to be herded and dictated to by the corporate trolls hiding behind the You Tube and other social media algorithms?

I really find it confusing that no one seems to be complaining about this — when did we unilaterally agree to become someone else’s money-making commodity and give up the right to decide what we wanted to watch simply because the content was free?

Am I making this out to be a bigger deal than it is?

I don’t think so.

A content platform that favors one mundane style of content above all others simply for the sake of generating revenue for a very few individuals is like an art gallery that only shows paintings of bowls of plastic fruit — at first glance it seems fine, but it stifles artists and stunts their growth by restricting what they can submit if they want to show their work.

And now, is not the time for stifling creativity — just the opposite.

The world is staring down the face of some really big problems and we need to encourage as many people as possible to develop their creative skills and support their efforts to do so by encouraging the sharing of ideas and insights like never before.

Because if we don’t, where does this all lead?

To a world where a machine tells me what I will eat for supper?

I think not.

How about cat food? Pots and pans? Cleaning supplies? Amazon again? Why not, it's convenient!

But did you know, according to a recent study by the Dunnhumby Retailer Preference Index, the 600lbs gorilla in the hard-hit retail space is now America’s most popular grocery store? I didn't either.

When coupled with over 10,000 stores expected to close this year, representing a 14% uptick from 2020's already horrifying levels (per Coresight Research), the need to rethink globalism in favor of more localized and sustainable consumerism is not only clear. It's urgent.

Since its inception, online commerce has shown itself to be a grotesquely extractive model.

In the past year, the evidence has become all but impossible to ignore. Citizens and communities suffered even as e-retailers' stock went through the roof. All while online spending on everything from groceries to clothing rose, fed by government stimulus checks that have done little or nothing to keep local economies going.

Sustainability having become the topic du jour for everyone from the UN to investors to exclusive panels at Davos, it is gratifying and of little surprise to find consumerism discussed in the same sentence - despite appearing to be at odds with the basic premise of the 2030 SDG goals.

Envisioned by all countries working in concert to promote prosperity while protecting the planet, the 17 sustainable development goals are an interlocking framework that recognizes that ending poverty goes hand-in-hand with strategies that build economic growth and address a range of social needs including education, health, social protection, and job opportunities.

All this, while tackling climate change and environmental protection.

Certainly, consumerism as the idea of people purchasing goods on a mass scale from producers, often multinationals accused of unfair business practices conflicting with sustainable manufacturing and fair wage regulations, may be viewed as encouraging of unethical corporate behavior.

Fortunately, reality is never so simple. Rethinking (our favorite subject at this site), comes in with the emergence of holistic approaches to meeting the increasing demand of a growing population connected by virtue of the world wide web to multiple sources of immediate gratification.
Transparency and shortening of supply chains, more localized yet equally convenient online shopping options (some with unique, impact-centric twists), multi-brand loyalty schemes are coming into view – all the way to replacing straight-up purchasing with product-as-a-service.

As yet, none of these solutions are anywhere close to dominating the market or even capturing a significant share. But, with both newcomers to the field (Stitch Fix, looking at you!) and corporates like HP and Caterpillar dipping their toes in the water, this points to a shift in consumer sentiment that makes these refreshed models a risky, albeit attractive alternative to business as usual.

All I can say as a technology provider whose only horse in the race (while making sure our own principles do not stray from the goals baked into our mission statement) these seismic changes to hardening and equalizing the greater retail space can't become the norm fast enough!

Our neighborhoods where we meet our daily needs need this rethinking. Every such incursion on our common good needs this rethinking.