How clips took over social media, and the internet

Once upon a time, you could probably guess why most things appeared on your feed. Maybe you followed the creator who posted it; maybe you’d liked their stuff in the past; maybe all your friends were into them. That’s not how it works anymore, though. The stuff you see on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube Shorts, and elsewhere has become much harder to trace — the feeds are run by algorithms with lots of conflicting incentives, and are being gamed by an army of internet users you might not even know exist.

On this episode of The Vergecast, The Verge’s Mia Sato explains how “clipping” works, and how turning content into bite-sized chunks has become big business all around the internet. It is increasingly possible to simply brute-force your way into people’s consciousness simply by appearing on their feeds a lot, and attention is all that matters, brute force is good enough. Mia explains how this happened, why social media platforms seem to both hate it and be resigned to it, and what it means for our experience online.

After that, The Verge’s Victoria Song joins the show to compare notes with David on the new Fitbit Air. They’ve both been wearing and testing Google’s new $99 fitness tracker and its AI coach, and agree that Google appears to be onto something here. Of course, it all brings up the same questions as usual, about how you should preserve your privacy and whether you want to pour your vitals and feelings into a chatbot. But at least in this case, you do seem to get something back.

Finally, Vee sticks around to help David answer a question from the Vergecast Hotline (call 866-VERGE11 or email vergecast@theverge.com!) about smart glasses, and whether helping you find things could be a killer app for the new category. In theory, your glasses have everything they need in order to keep tabs on your stuff; but is that worth the upgrade?

If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started: