Recommendations are romantic

I’ve been thinking a lot about recommendations recently. Maybe it’s because over the holidays I hung out a lot with my mom and brother, who basically speak in movie/TV/music references. Maybe it’s because I have a crush on a cinephile right now who keeps seeming cuter to me with each stellar movie recommendation. Maybe it’s because the internet is somehow both worse and better at recommending things than it’s ever been, with soulless but mathematically-optimized algorithms pumping out “For You” feeds and “Discover Weekly” playlists, as good old-fashioned human art criticism and curation seem to die a slow, sad death.

I miss the old internet, I really do. Much of my early taste in music, for instance, was shaped by the MySpaces and music blogs of the early oughts. I loved that each recommendation had real weight to it, enough to overcome my natural Taurean hesitance to try new things. If a new song or album was recommended by somebody I thought was cool, that would often be the push I needed to seek it out, even if I’d otherwise resist it – and in some cases I’d end up loving it enough that it shaped my entire musical taste thereafter. And all because someone thought to tell me (or even just to write online), “Hey, I think you’d really like this.”

See, any old algorithm can recommend things that are similar to things you already like, or the things that are often liked by other people who like the things you like. And that’s certainly a valid and sometimes-useful way of seeking out new stuff. But a recommendation from a human is often based on something deeper, something a robot might find ineffable. A human (especially a perceptive one who knows you well) can make recommendations based on your emotions, your psychology, your longings, your fears – sometimes even the aspects you yourself are not fully aware of.

Even recommendations from public figures, who don’t know me at all, can hit me harder than anything in a Discover Weekly playlist – perhaps because I see these works of art as windows into a soul I wish I knew better, a soul I want to emulate. I view these pieces of art with an open-mindedness I’d otherwise never afford them, if I know they’re beloved by a writer I admire, or a musician I worship, or an actor I have the hots for.