the monsters hiding in your algorithm

Did you know Kehlani released a fifth album? Did you know Abu Dhabi is building a new version of the Las Vegas Sphere? Did you know GTA 6 is coming out in November? Did you know Calvin Klein just launched their Jung Kook Collection?TikTok’s “trending searches” often read like an advertisement, because that’s exactly what they are. These are the things you’re supposed to look up, the things that bring in the most revenue. The search results are reliably clean, polished videos, showing exactly the content you expected to see.As soon as you stray from the beaten path, however, you begin to encounter demons. You were never supposed to search “agd74864skgmkvc.” The old rules don’t apply here. You are in the TikTok Farlands, where horrible entities lurk in the shadows.The Farlands are no different than the monster under your childhood bed, or a medieval cartographer writing hic sunt dracones at the edge of a map. Whenever we exceed our ability to categorize, the supernatural takes over.…