The Original Algorithm

David Peel — Street Corner Rant

Everybody talks about the algorithm. The algorithm decides who hears you. The algorithm decides if you're relevant. The algorithm decides if your song gets played or buried under a million other songs that all sound the same.

I've got news for you. There was an algorithm before the algorithm. It's called the street.

Washington Square Park, any Sunday, 1966 to 2016. I'd set up with my guitar, open the case, and start playing. No data. No metrics. No dashboard telling me my engagement rate. Just feet on the sidewalk and ears in the air.

The street algorithm works like this: you play something real, people stop. You play something fake, they keep walking. That's it. That's the whole algorithm. No machine learning required. Human beings already know how to detect bullshit — it's built into the species. A two-year-old can tell when you're faking it. The street just gives that instinct room to operate.

The digital algorithm is the opposite. It rewards the fake. It rewards the clickbait. It rewards the three-second hook and the engagement trap. It doesn't care if you're good. It cares if you're sticky. There's a difference between making somebody stop and think and making somebody unable to stop scrolling.

The street algorithm had a feedback loop too. If you played the same song every day, the regulars would yell at you. "Play something new, Peel!" That's an algorithm update. That's your audience telling you to iterate. But they're doing it to YOUR FACE, not through an anonymous downvote. They're invested. They showed up. They're standing in the rain listening to you, and they have the right to demand better because they're HERE.

You know what the street algorithm never did? It never shadowbanned anybody. It never throttled your reach because you said a word it didn't like. It never boosted somebody else's performance at your expense. The sidewalk is neutral territory. Always was. First come, first served. You want the good corner? Get there early. That's meritocracy. The REAL kind. Not the Silicon Valley kind where meritocracy means whoever raises the most money.

I'm not saying burn the internet down. I'm saying remember what came before it. Remember that human beings discovered music, fell in love with music, built entire cultures around music, for thousands of years before anybody invented a recommendation engine. The algorithm didn't create the audience. The audience was always there. The algorithm just put a tollbooth between the artist and the listener and started collecting the fare.

Play on the street. Play in the park. Play in your living room with the windows open. Let the original algorithm decide.

See also: A Third of a Penny — what the digital algorithm pays. The Algorithm Cops — the algorithm as enforcement. Thirty Million Views — what virality looks like from the corner. The Kid with the Guitar — the algorithm in the subway car. The Corner — Sun Ra on the corner as the oldest venue on any planet. The Frequency — the sidewalk as studio, the bus as trombone section. The Runway — the silence between songs. The Mixtape — a letter written in music, before the algorithm chose for you. The Pamphlet — the original self-published page. Newspaper Stand — the search engine with a personality. The algorithm never knew your name.

David Peel

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