It’s inescapable if you are on social media: The click-bait, the over-promising ads, the fake-reality plots made to look (almost) real, the recycled and revamped cliches and attempts at comedy. Are you entertained yet?

You aren’t the target audience, the algorithm is. Yes, it’s your click, your view to the end before you scroll that is wanted, but what’s really targeted is the algorithm. What’s going to get the most amount of views. Sometimes the byproduct of this is a very clever video, a brilliant caption that plays on a well known meme, or even accidental authenticity or charm. But it’s not you, it’s the algorithm that matters.

Play the game, feed the algorithm, and the attention will come. Whose attention? Yours, but that doesn’t mean it was made for you. No, it was made because that’s what is feeding the algorithm right now. It’s the algorithm on the alter, the false god being worshiped. Not for some promise in the future but for right now. Burn the candle quickly, consume the flame as fast as it is produced.

Your stream is what is working for the algorithm right now, it will change, the rules will be different, and the productions will have to chase it. If not, the attention will go elsewhere. So when the strategy is working, the algorithm gets fed. Not for you, but for maximum attention.

You are an algorithmic statistic. The algorithm wants only attention, not any one person’s, not yours. All hail the click, the pause in scrolling, the ‘like’, and the comment. The algorithm does not care if you are entrained or angered, heartened or disheartened, happy or sad. The click, the pause in scrolling, the ‘like’, and the comment are all that matter, all that is worshipped in pursuit of feeding the algorithm.