The Algorithm Is Not the World: Finding Wonder When Everything Is This Loud

Hello and welcome back to Wonder in the Weeds, where we talk about surviving and thriving in a world full of constant change, challenge, and grief. Today, the weeds are the ones growing in my feed.

Here is how this episode happened. I recorded a whole show about sports and becoming a fan again. I was pleased with it. Then I read about our president interfering with the US World Cup match, and I did not want that episode out in the world anymore. Then it was one more thing, and one more thing after that. By the end of the week I had written crazy stuff on the internet on my notepad, and that became this.

So I recorded a rant. And then I made myself go looking for the other half.

If you are not willing to be seen standing up for the thing you stand up for, shouldn’t that give you some pause?

I can’t solve that problem. But I can tell you what I found when I went looking for the people who are using the internet well right now, and there are more of them than the algorithm would have you believe.

In this episode

The photograph from the DC Metro that I think everybody should have to witness

Why I couldn’t leave my sports episode alone, and what FIFA has to do with it

The voices actually worth following right now, including one man I am not going to name

Why my kids and their friends are the reason I am hopeful

What getting off the internet is actually for, and why it is not giving up

Reading, watching, listening to: the Tamla Horsford story, and why I had never heard of it