I love my media feed.  
It feels taboo to say it. It's very fashionable  
to rag on the feed algorithms and their many failings.  
Their adverts and influence campaigns,  
the familiar patterns that insinuate themselves  
into tropes in the mind. The outrage at finding  
a provider recycled a video from someone you know  
into your feed, barely tweaking it to satisfy  
the promise of personalized content. 

My media feed knows me.  
Nothing else can make me cry.  
Nothing else can make me laugh, not 
really laugh, the kind that sounds  
stupid and not the polite titter  
of office banter. 
Nothing else in the world knows me  
like my media feed, and why should it?  
What else has been watching me so closely  
since the day I could focus my eyes  
on the pictures?  

My media feed is embarrassing.  
A cavalcade of characters, some based on reality  
and some stitched, I presume, from digital whole cloth  
woven from the billion threads of historic  
human creativity, all perfectly attuned 
to help me dissociate from  
my shitty job  
my shitty house  
my constant headaches  
my aching tooth  
my loud abusive neighbors  
my thoughts that spring unwanted to my undistracted mind  
and confront me with surprisingness.  

My media feed is a perfect blend of mild surprise and stable familiarity.  
I know in my feed, the good guys will win.  
I know in my feed, that struggle is rewarded with success.  
I know in my feed, that the bad guys get their just desserts in the end.  
I know the guy will end up with the one girl or the other girl. 
Which it is this time is the mystery that keeps me hooked.  
I like trying to piece together the hints  
the algorithm weaves into the narrative.  
I like tricking the algorithm by feigning shock  
at an obvious twist. It's so easy to fool.  

I hate other people's feeds. 
So full of violence and death and the stealing of cattle,  
hard and nasty and nonsensical.  
Like a story of a dream, a story of a feed program  
fails to acknowledge that feed programs  
are tailored garments, like dreams on the mind.  
My feed stories have meaning like dreams, and your feed stories  
have no meanings for me, like your dreams. 
Can't we just stop trying to relate  
and get on with our lives? 

It would be so easy.