I don’t know whether it’s my increasing age, the rise of AI slop, or the increasing power of our algorithmic overseers, but recently I’ve been feeling a little bit overwhelmed by “content”.

Somewhere along the line, I’ve fallen into this trap of outsourcing the job of finding things that interest or inspire me to a set of algorithms. Don’t get me wrong, they often don’t do a bad job, but it often leaves me with this feeling of cognitive overload. I find myself bombarded with noise, struggling to find and curate the signals that actually matter to me. My media diet although convenient and served without friction has become rather soulless. It’s a high fructose, low in fibre kind of diet - that can’t be healthy!

Recently, I’ve started to look for small ways to push back, finding the places, people, and tools that give me a little bit more control back in the curation of my content diet. Bringing the human back into the loop: reconnecting with the joy of personal music recommendations, and reading independent writing on my own terms. I’ve also been finding ways to store, organise, and share for future reference.

Here is what I’ve been trying…

Making music personal again

I love music - always have. But when you leave the music discovery entirely to Apple or Spotify’s algorithms and auto-generated mixes, I find things end up in a very comfortable, predictable rut. The algorithm doesn’t care if a song genuinely moves me, it just optimizes for not hitting the “skip” button. It turns everything into pleasant background vibes, but it rarely delivers that feeling where a track makes me sit up and think: dang, what is this?!

One of the things that has helped me break away from this algorithmic laziness has been joining Mr Cutts’ Chop Shop Radio on Patreon.

If you haven’t come across Owen Cutts, he’s a producer, writer, and DJ who just seemingly lives and breathes great music. Joining the Chop Shop felt a bit like walking into an old-school record shop where the person behind the counter actually knows what they’re talking about and genuinely cares. Having that little bit of context for a song or knowing why someone else rates it completely changes how I’ve listened to it.

It got me excited about actively seeking out new music again (or new to me but old).

It’s also reignited the joy of sharing music with other people for me. In recent weeks I’ve been sharing tracks with people and making my own playlists and mixtapes again. It’s interesting to me that the more I share with people the more I get back. Maybe other people never stopped doing this and I just got consumed by other things. Regardless I’m happy to be finding the joy in being curious about music again. I would highly recommend Mr Cutts’ Chop Shop Radio if you find yourself in a similar rut. If you’ve got other great radio show recommendations drop me a line.

Reading other people’s minds

Do the kids even know about RSS (really simple syndication) these days? I’m genuinely not sure.

Whenever I mention RSS outside of nerdy web developer circles or to younger colleagues at work, I usually get a blank stare. Which feels like a real shame, because for those of us who lived through the Google Reader days, RSS was (and still is) one of the best things about the internet:

• No algorithms: You pick a blog or a website to follow, and when they publish something, it lands in your list. Simple.
• Chronological order: Things appear in the order they were written, not sorted by whatever provoked the most outrage that morning.
• No performative noise: No comment wars, no like counters, no popup overlays begging for your email address.
• A proper finish line: When you reach the bottom of your unread posts, that’s it. You’re done. You can close the app and do something else.

It’s just like a letterbox. You decide which post you want through the door, and nobody jumps out to yell at you while you open it.

Outside of the perks associated with a better reading experience above what I love most is the ability to curate sources from totally normal people who are just sharing their thoughts, lives, passions or ideas. Not professional writers, academics or media outlets - just humans being human and thinking out loud. It’s a joy to share their brains. These same people are mostly still sharing these thoughts elsewhere and promoting posts on the major platforms but I find using RSS means I don’t miss things because it didn’t get enough likes, was posted at the wrong time of day or on a week where I was too busy to notice.

There seems to be a trend for people publishing on Substack which is great! I approve. For those who want to consume rather than publish, RSS is totally Substack-friendly and saves clogging up your email inbox with subscription emails.

While RSS as a protocol hasn’t changed much in twenty years, the apps for reading it have got a lot nicer. I’ve used plenty over the years (NetNewsWire, Reeder, Feedly), but lately I’ve settled on Unread.

It’s just well made software that works and plays nicely across Mac and iPhone. The typography and spacing options are great, the swipe gestures feel natural, and there’s zero clutter. Opening it up for ten minutes with a coffee when I get some downtime has become a really nice treat.

Storing and organising my finds

Finding better content on the internet is one struggle, storing it and organising it for future reference or sharing is another.

My browser bookmarks over time had become a mess and weren’t conducive to the content I was discovering via other apps. Good finds were becoming siloed and I’ve been seeking ways to bring order to the chaos.

Raindrop.io has been a recent discovery that seemingly has the potential to help. It’s essentially a very clean, modern bookmark manager and digital filing cabinet. Whenever I spot a good article, a design reference, or something I want to revisit on my iPhone or Mac, I just add it to Raindrop. It integrates well into the native device sharing actions so it’s much easier to store references from multiple sources (everything from TV shows in Netflix, playlists on Spotify, audiobooks, podcasts and Instagram reels).

It’s got a tonne of versatile features like folders and tagging. The search works well and it even keeps a cached copy of the page in case the original site ever disappears. The highlighting feature is invaluable for my uni-related bookmarks, and for nerds like me it’s also got some great developer options. These mean I can extract and share bookmarks in a number of useful ways. I’ve just updated the Reading, Watching, Listening section of my Now page to pull bookmarks from the app. There is also a bunch of other sharing and collaboration options in the app for those less geeky than me…but where would the fun be in that!

We are what we eat!

Trying to write for this website has made me realise that what I produce - what I write, what I think about, how creative I feel - is directly linked to the quality of what I feed my brain.

If my daily intake is mostly algorithmic noise, hot takes, and doomscrolling, it’s pretty hard to find the headspace to think clearly or do creative work. I’m simply using up all my mental energy trying to filter out the junk.

I think it’s just about being a bit more deliberate in choosing a balanced meal with the right ingredients and sometimes putting myself back in the role of curator in addition to consumer.

How do you manage what you consume online these days? Are you still using RSS, or finding other ways to dig out good stuff?