#46: The Algorithm dictates my love for Norm Macdonald

The Canadian comedian Norm Macdonald died just over a year ago, in September 2021. As is often the case for public figures and entertainers, upon the news of his death there was an outburst of remembrance across Reddit, TikTok, YouTube, etc. — his fans loudly holding vigil and sharing his greatest hits. This introduced a lot of casual onlookers to Norm Macdonald for the first time, myself included.

Around that time, I came across a few TikToks of Norm Macdonald’s skits. I didn’t even really notice them at the time; I enjoyed them like any other TikToks — fleetingly, without giving them a lot of thought.

Those few seconds of exposure were enough to put Norm Macdonald on my TikTok feed a few more times. I wasn’t deliberately looking for his material, but when I came across it by chance, I always watched the whole clip because I was curious what he was going to say next.

That was enough to keep putting him on my feed. A few weeks later, much like a frog suddenly realizing the water has become quite hot, I noticed: a good chunk of my TikTok feed was Norm Macdonald. I was baffled. I don’t even like Norm Macdonald!

But at this point, Norm Macdonald was everywhere in my digital life. Because I kept seeing his stuff on TikTok and he had recently died, I had gotten a little curious, had googled him and read about his life, and watched one or two longer clips on YouTube. Now he was in my YouTube feed as well, constantly showing up among recommended videos.

I’ll be the first to admit: some of the sets were pretty funny. The Turtle, the Moth, these are good skits and a fun way to spend five minutes. Maybe I spent an hour or two in total watching his material. This was enough to convince YouTube that this is the content that must be served to me.¹

A full year later, my YouTube feed still has a heavy exposure to Norm Macdonald. As does my TikTok feed. And I repeat: I have no great affection for Norm Macdonald. I’ve watched maybe four hours total of his work in the past year. Yes, some of his material is pretty funny, and yes, I usually watch the whole video, which probably satisfies some KPI machine somewhere and determines that I should be served more helpings of Norm.

So I’m in this weird position where — despite at almost no point actively seeking it out — I keep being served this content that I have only a marginal interest in. The entire thing feels incredibly postmodern: it’s like I have been the unwitting recipient to this snowball effect that I didn’t ask for. It started with a tiny chance exposure — literally a couple of seconds — and the algorithms at work decided that I like Norm Macdonald according to some set of KPIs, and now I keep being served Norm Macdonald content, and by this point, his jokes have made their way into my personal repertoire by sheer exposure. Where’s my agency in all of this?

When I was younger, I was often troubled by why I consume certain media: do I actually like this author, or am I just reading them because that’s who my friends are reading? Do I actually like this band, or am I just trying to fit in with its social scene? Is my affection for this artist authentic, real, or is it just something that’s arbitrarily been thrust upon me? Maybe that was the classic neurotic hyperactive introspection of an early-20-something trying to find which of my own thoughts and feelings were real or on some level fake, what is truly me as opposed to pretense, and all this handwringing was silly: if you don’t like the book, put it down, regardless of what the people on 4chan’s literature board think.

But now, some years later, I feel like I’ve arrived at the apotheosis of that prior fear: it’s actually happening! The automated content machine is serving me all of this content that I have no real interest in, and could go probably the rest of my life without thinking about it again, and holy shit this content is actually becoming sort of part of me by sheer repeated exposure due to the decisions of The Algorithm. Forget “do I like this band, or am I just trying to fit in with its social scene” — try “do I like this comedian, or is this just the outcome of some shareholder value maximization machine in Mountain View that has made this decision for me?” Jesus Christ. Ironically, this whole situation is so bureaucratically absurd and internally contrived that it would make a classic Norm Macdonald monologue.

Thank you for reading! Follow me on Twitter, or subscribe for free to my Substack:

1. Maybe that was because I don’t look up that much other stuff, outside of a small universe of video interests.