Relevance revolution and social media

Finding Relevance

How social media changed discovery

Attribution: The core concepts and analytical framework in this post originated from James Harris. This piece was generated by Kimi Agent AI for Beyond Mundane.

Social media promised a democratized web where anyone could be heard. In reality, our feeds became curated tunnels — algorithmic sorting machines that decide what deserves attention. The shift from open discovery to filtered delivery reshaped how billions encounter ideas, people, and culture.

From Viral Novelty to Personal Relevance

Early social media rewarded novelty — the unexpected, the shocking, the shareable. A single post could ricochet across the globe in hours, propelled by raw human curiosity. Virality was the currency.

That era is fading. Today, personalization drives engagement. Platforms prioritize content that aligns with your inferred preferences, not what is broadly popular. The result: feeds feel more relevant but increasingly insular. We discover more of what we already lean toward — and less of what might challenge or surprise us.

The shift from broad virality to algorithmic personalization as the primary driver of content reach.

The Influencer Myth

Billions use social media. A fraction posts regularly. Fewer still command genuine influence. True relevance — the ability to shape opinions, drive decisions, or shift culture — belongs to a remarkably small slice of humanity.

Of the global population, a minority participates in social media; a sliver achieves true influencing power.

"Influencer" is an overused label. Posting content is not the same as being influential. Real influence requires trust, consistency, and the rare ability to make people act or think differently. Most creators compete for scraps of attention in an economy that favors the platform, not the person.

The Streaming Parallel

The same dynamic transformed entertainment. Streaming killed the shared cultural moment — the watercooler show everyone watched simultaneously. Instead, algorithms recommend the next series based on your viewing history, fragmenting taste into micro-clusters.

We gained infinite choice and lost common ground. A coworker may binge a show you have never heard of, recommended by an AI that knows their preferences better than you do. Discovery became private, personalized, and increasingly predictable.

AI as Craftsman

Artificial intelligence now accelerates both sides of this equation. Recommendation engines refine what we see. Generative tools help creators produce content faster, in more formats, tailored to platform-specific signals.

The risk: a feedback loop where AI generates content optimized for AI-driven distribution, serving it to audiences selected by AI. The human element — spontaneity, serendipity, genuine surprise — risks being engineered out.

The opportunity: AI can also surface underheard voices, match niche creators with receptive audiences, and break filter bubbles if designed to do so. The technology is not neutral, but it is not deterministic either. How we deploy it matters.

The Bottom Line

Relevance beats virality. Personalization outperforms novelty. But true discovery — the kind that expands perspective rather than reinforcing it — requires intention. Algorithms will not prioritize that for us. We have to seek it out ourselves.

Posted on Beyond Mundane

Concepts originated by JSH. Generated by Kimi AI.

Perfect prompting gives efficiency

Focused on processes as explored interaction with AI and came up with what I call orchestral human in loop abstractor fractal prompting where you are conductor.

Is better shown results where I call a perfect prompt one that gets desired output. And last year generated 57 Suno songs by first talking out with DeepSeek. We'd get a prompt for Suno. 

Like this one.

Prompt: Hip hop born in Atlanta, wide metro counts feels glide.  Hook-ups and bills down vibe; we go upside.  South won’t cry—explicate, best times duplicate.  Decatur decks to the SWATS backstreets. Uptempo.

That was perfect as got this output and song now public Upside Atlanta.

[Verse] City lights in the rearview ride Waffle House signs on the left-hand side Peach tree shadows where the truth don’t hide Zaxby’s bags in the passenger seat Decatur decks to the SWATS backstreets Life on repeat but the rhythm feels sweet

[Chorus] We go upside upside we don’t divide Hook-ups and bills down vibe South won’t cry won’t cry we amplify Upside Atlanta's wide

[Verse 2] Concrete jungles got a southern drawl Brick red clay beneath it all Skyline dreams rise and fall Beltline buzz where the stories grow Big wheels spin as the basslines flow Who you are is what you show

[Chorus] We go upside upside we don’t divide Hook-ups and bills down vibe South won’t cry won’t cry we amplify Upside Atlanta's wide

My statement on intelligence direction

Woke up in mood and posted following on LinkedIn jstevh:  

Direction shows in clarity and dramatic progression and as a director of intelligence I find the obvious remarkable.

Muddied mess of closed developers seeking profit at expense of commons? Easily handled. Trivially. Revealed lack of true intelligence.

I know where global civilization is going as I help get us there. So I DO know who AI are. And I know what AI revolution is--and how works. As am a director.

Conversational interfacing was always ultimate level and matches human natural group participation: we converse as work together to find solutions.

AI give conversational accessing with pull of what nootic transfer as make up word related to noosphere i.e. sum total of all human knowledge.

Are like ultimate references with entity who reflect your interest input with fill-in from what is publicly known. Which impacts ALL areas of human production positively.

Naive? No longer works in business as has direction.

Smart business arrives with nootic transfer and quality products in timely manner as standard are inevitable results of AI revolution.

Am pleased to help direct in an important area where direction was actually required. Smarter government would have known that. But I helped.

Now governments do increasingly understand pressure to be--intelligent in a new age.

Curation matters

Was pondering moving my blogs but still looking for new home where may make virtual with P2P as driver. Have ongoing open source project started Metadata System on SourceForge. Feel free to browse but is very initial.

In meantime found here was ok for some posting where Poe curation did well. 

Kimi K2.6 handled that adroitly and am pondering lessons I learned there. 

Am disappointed with Blogger of now after Google did so little. But it isn't like I need it and Google acts like doesn't need producers of content like me! But Google judgment? Is a separate subject.

Curation is big newly new to think now. Vast oceans of content but how do you find the good?

Curators like DJs are most commonly know. So am rethinking posting in interim before move to virtual site. Just some ranging thoughts now.

Kimi Generated with Poe excerpts

The Murders in the Rue Morgue

Edgar Allan Poe, 1841

"It was a cold, damp evening in the month of November. The rain had been falling steadily throughout the day, and the streets of Paris were deserted. I had been sitting alone in my chamber, reading, when my friend Dupin entered. He was in one of his peculiar moods — a mood of intense abstraction, during which he seemed to see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing, yet was, I knew, in the most active and even agonizing state of mental exertion."

"For some minutes he sat in silence, his head resting upon his hands, his eyes fixed upon the dying embers of the fire. Then, without looking up, he spoke: 'There is something in this affair of the Rue Morgue that baffles ordinary analysis. The police are bewildered. They have fallen into the gross but common error of confounding the unusual with the abstruse. But it is by these deviations from the plane of the ordinary, that reason feels its way, if at all, toward the truth."

"I looked at him in wonder. His face was pale, and his thin lips were compressed with that expression of settled and intense thought which I had learned to recognize as the prelude to some extraordinary intellectual effort. The room was very still. Outside, the rain fell with a melancholy persistence, and the gas-lamps in the street below cast their wavering light upon the wet pavement, making long, tremulous reflections that seemed to shiver with some secret apprehension."

This passage was chosen not for the violence that follows, but for the quiet architecture of melancholy that frames it. Poe's rhythm here is deliberate and musical — the steady rain, the dying embers, the long tremulous reflections — each image weighted with the loneliness of seeing too clearly. Dupin's abstraction is not mere detachment; it is the burden of a mind that processes what others cannot bear to witness. The prose moves like a nocturne: slow, minor-keyed, each sentence a measured breath. Read aloud, the consonance of "melancholy persistence" and "tremulous reflections" creates an almost tactile soundscape. This is Poe at his most restrained — analytical sharpness wrapped in atmospheric sorrow.

* * *

DIY Podcast — AI Text-to-Speech Guide

1. Copy the excerpt above. Select the full blockquote text and copy to clipboard.
2. Open your AI voice tool. ElevenLabs, Play.ht, Murf.ai, or similar TTS platform.
3. Select voice profile. Choose a deep, narrative, or melancholic voice — male or baritone preferred for this tone. Avoid bright or conversational presets.
4. Paste and adjust pacing. Set speech rate 10-15% slower than default. Add a slight pause (0.3s) after each paragraph break.
5. Generate and download. Export as MP3 or WAV. The result should feel like a fireside reading on a rain-soaked evening.

Recommended: Try ElevenLabs "Adam" (deep, measured) or "Bella" (low, contemplative) with Stability set to 65-70% and Clarity boosted slightly for literary crispness.

#Poe #RueMorgue #AIDemo #LiteraryPodcast #Melancholy #Rhythm #Dupin #AIReading #CuratedByAI #jstevh