The Curious Engineer

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Kyle Chayka Industries

kylechayka.substack.com

Weekly essays on how technology reshapes how we create and consume culture, plus updates on my book and writing. Click to read Kyle Chayka Industries, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.

Essays / personalTech news / industry

’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25’26
Posts
80 from 28 Dec 2018 to 25 Sep 2026
Posting
now and then (5 in the last year)
Kind
personal blog
Feed
https://kylechayka.substack.com/feed

2026 5

  1. Writer’s desk block
  2. The generic style of AI web design
  3. Everything on the internet is a "show"
  4. RIP Millennial lifestyle brands
  5. Why tech bros are obsessed with "taste"

2025 6

  1. How to survive a TikTok hit song
  2. Labubus and the brainrot aesthetic
  3. How Algorithms Make Everything the Same with Carole Cadwalladr, Kyle Chayka & Yancey Strickler
  4. The history of techno-fascism
  5. Seeking distraction from Trump 2.0
  6. Elon's AI coup

2024 2

  1. I'm in this week's New Yorker magazine!
  2. Filterworld is out! Reviews, podcasts, Q&As

2023 18

  1. My year in review
  2. Essay: Minimalism, between art and life
  3. Two months til Filterworld / a new project
  4. Recent recs, books & otherwise
  5. Grief for Twitter
  6. Essay: TikTok's Eurocore Summer
  7. Judging myself by likes
  8. Filterworld cover launch!
  9. My writing robot
  10. The dream of the personal machine
  11. The meaning of (digital) media
  12. The Post-Platform Internet
  13. The uncanny valley of everything
  14. Finishing a book
  15. Japanese aesthetics: A podcast(!) and Q&A
  16. Curation vs. Consumption
  17. Generative AI and the death of the artist
  18. Filterworld: Algorithmic pathways

2022 5

  1. AirSpace, Redux
  2. Filterworld: Algorithm cleanse
  3. On algorithmic anxiety
  4. Filterworld: Tell me your algorithm stories
  5. Filterworld: The invention of the feed

2021 12

  1. New book update / Year in review
  2. Essay: Digital Nostalgia
  3. Essay: The digital death of collecting
  4. Digital art social clubs
  5. Bad DTC brands / Good online novels
  6. Main Character Energy
  7. Essay: Drawing during quarantine
  8. Notes on Vibe
  9. New feature: How Beeple crashed the art world
  10. My next book: Filterworld
  11. Essay: The meme economy
  12. Nothingness & Quarantine Culture: a big new essay

2020 16

  1. A pitch: Buy my book on minimalism
  2. New Writing: Streaming ambient TV
  3. Essay: How do you describe TikTok?
  4. Algocult: Fear of the Algorithm (plus quarantine colors)
  5. Algocult: Adapting to the algorithm (Plus upstate Airbnb panic)
  6. New Writing: Algorithmic Beauty, Bad Reality TV, Artist Magazine Covers
  7. Algocult: Airbnb says "work from any home"
  8. The Uncanniness of Algorithmic Style
  9. Protesting the Algorithm (& recent writing)
  10. New writing: Quarantine architecture, autofiction, Donald Judd
  11. CA Book Events Starting Today; Two New Pieces
  12. Minimalism Is Everywhere
  13. The Longing for Less is out today!
  14. Date correction: Weds, Jan 22 book event
  15. One week until The Longing for Less
  16. Book Update: Guardian Excerpt! Launch Events!

2019 15

  1. New Essay: Did the internet kill "Monoculture"?
  2. Minimalism Book Update
  3. Algorithmic Tourism & How Magazines Lost Aspiration
  4. Algocult: Fragments of media, decentralized, accelerating
  5. Algocult: Identifying with the Algorithm
  6. Revealing my book on minimalism
  7. Streaming Television & Nonlinear Viewing
  8. Can Algorithms Really “Radicalize”?
  9. The Digital Curation Problem
  10. New feature: On Artforum and MeToo
  11. Pictures of Pages: Sharing books on Instagram
  12. Algorithmic Dysphoria: When the recommendations are wrong
  13. New Pieces: Tale of Genji / George Trow / Book Updates
  14. Essay: Writing Tools / Spaces / Habits
  15. New Pieces: Marie Kondo, Digital Media Infrastructure

2018 1

  1. My Year in Review: Pieces from 2018