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Kyle Chayka

What Kyle Chayka thinks about taste

@kyle-chayka · 21 positions · On ppll ↗

Staff writer at The New Yorker, where he writes the Infinite Scroll column, and author of Filterworld and The Longing for Less.

Kyle Chayka did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

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Only Kyle Chayka on taste. See everyone on taste

9 dated positions, 2024 to 2026, in their own words. Our reading of what Kyle Chayka has said — not written or endorsed by them.

  1. Our readingAI models default to generic, lowest-common-denominator output unless a user actively pushes back against them.

    Their wordsIf the user doesn't actively push back against the AI model, then they get the generic output, the lowest common acceptable denominator of aesthetics and taste.

    ↗The generic style of AI web designkylechayka.substack.com 1st of 3 in this piece

  2. 5 weeks earlier

  3. Our readingSlop is becoming the defining cultural metaphor of the late 2020s.

    Their words"Slop" is fast becoming the central metaphor for the cultural output of the late twenty-twenties.

    ↗RIP Millennial lifestyle brandskylechayka.substack.com 1st of 3 in this piece

  4. 2 months earlier

  5. Our readingAI companies promote themselves around 'taste' because their products are unappealing outside tech circles.

    Silicon Valley

    Their wordsA.I. companies need to associate themselves with taste precisely because their tools are not very palatable, much less cool, to anyone outside of Silicon Valley.

    ↗Why tech bros are obsessed with "taste"kylechayka.substack.com 1st of 3 in this piece

  7. Our readingTech's embrace of 'taste' is an attempt to dress anti-humanist technology in humanist branding.

    Their wordsWe might call what's going on now "taste-washing," an attempt to give anti-humanist technologies a veneer of liberal humanism.

    ↗Why tech bros are obsessed with "taste"kylechayka.substack.com 2nd of 3 in this piece

  9. Our readingThe online ecosystem has become so degraded that it has impaired people's ability to exercise taste.

    Their wordsAnother conclusion might be that the online ecosystem has become so polluted-so fragmented, deceptive, overstimulating, ersatz-that it has warped our ability to exercise taste at all.

    ↗Why tech bros are obsessed with "taste"kylechayka.substack.com 3rd of 3 in this piece

  10. 7 months earlier

  11. Our readingPeople's desperate need to manipulate their own image, and their acceptance of being human-machine hybrids in the AI era, is reflected in current ugly, artificial-feeling consumer aesthetics.

    Their wordsI think this slop-adjacent realm of dupe products and Instagrammable potions points to our increasingly desperate need to manipulate our own images, and an acceptance of the fact that we're kind of hybridized monsters ourselves in this post-A.I. human-machine moment

    ↗Labubus and the brainrot aesthetickylechayka.substack.com 1st of 2 in this piece

  13. Our readingContemporary consumer products no longer claim purity or naturalness; they present themselves openly as artificial mixtures.

    Their wordsAny pretense of the pure or organic is undercut by a kind of willful alchemy; everything is an admixture.

    ↗Labubus and the brainrot aesthetickylechayka.substack.com 2nd of 2 in this piece

  14. 19 months earlier

  15. Our readingTaste is not just pretentious or elitist: everybody has it.

    Their wordstaste gets a bad rap sometimes as something that can be pretentious or elitist, but I think we all have taste.

    ↗'Filterworld' explores how social media algorithms 'flatten' our culture (Fresh Air, NPR)npr.org 1st of 3 in this piece

  17. Our readingFashion is for saying something about yourself, not for conforming to a data-driven standard.

    Their wordsdistorting the purpose of fashion, which is actually to communicate something about yourself, not to conform to some data-driven standard.

    ↗'Filterworld' explores how social media algorithms 'flatten' our culture (Fresh Air, NPR)npr.org 2nd of 3 in this piece