Is the algorithm robbing us of the joy of discovery?

There were a few stalls at Daryaganj that used to sell old comics by the weight. You would show up, dig through a plastic-covered pile, and leave with two kilos of mystery panels. Some issues were torn. Some were yellowing. Most made no sense out of context. But it was yours.

You had picked it. Lived with it. Regretted some of it. And that mix: the good, the bad, and the weird, is what shaped taste.

Today, I search for a Tintin hardcover and spend the next three weeks being recommended pipe tobacco, vintage globes, boat shoes, and collectors’ fountain pens. Apparently, the algorithm thinks I am a Belgian man who retired in 1974.

The scarier part is, I was tempted.

That’s how it works. It nudges. It flatters. It doesn’t force anything. It just quietly says: you liked this, you might like this too. And before you know it, your entire taste profile has been pre-written. You are not discovering anymore. You are being served.

The joy of discovery has been replaced by the satisfaction of agreement.

It hits hardest in culture. Especially fan culture. Music, films, memes, aesthetics, even niche hobbies — all get flattened. Nothing stays weird for long. The moment something starts to gain traction, it’s everywhere. The Labubu craze is a perfect example. It started off as a niche collectable, and within weeks, it was being mass-flipped on Instagram. People weren’t even sure what it was. They just knew it was exclusive.

The same goes for content. You watch one documentary about con artists and suddenly your feed is full of Ponzi schemes and true crime thumbnails with the word “twisted” in all caps.

This isn’t an anti-algorithm tirade. Most of us don’t have the time or energy to deep-dive every time we want to hear a song or find a new show. But the problem isn’t volume. It’s instinct. Somewhere along the way, we stopped picking things for ourselves. We started trusting the feed more than our gut.

And that’s the muscle I feel getting weaker: The part of you that says, “I have no idea what
this is but let’s try it anyway.”

Because when everything feels slightly familiar, nothing really hits.

I don’t need to be surprised all the time. But I want to miss. I want to choose wrong. I want to hear something I hate and come back to it a year later, ready. Taste takes time. It needs friction. Boredom. Curiosity. And even a little regret.

I am not saying go back to zines and LimeWire. I am just saying, maybe once in a while, ignore the recs. Buy the weird book. Play the song with the ugly cover. Click the thing that feels off-brand.

What’s the worst that can happen? Maybe you waste five minutes. But the best? You will actually feel something new, something unexpected. And at this point, I will take that over another mid-tempo remix of my own personality.

The writer is the founder of Comic Con India