For the past few days, I have been staring at a BBC headline that reads “Netflix: How did it know I was bi before I did?” and trying to decide what to make of it.
I should note, first and foremost, that the idea of an algorithm “knowing” that someone is queer before they’ve figured it out itself is not exactly new; last fall, Mashable ran a similar piece about TikTok. The premise to both articles is roughly the same: a young woman starts consuming a lot of queer-themed content on a media platform, pieces together that she’s bi, and then comes to the conclusion that the media platform was serving her queer content because it had keyed in to her bisexuality before she did.
I should also note that, no, the algorithm does not know that you are queer, because the algorithm doesn’t “know” anything. At most, the algorithm randomly feeds you a piece of queer content, and then when you engage with it, it serves you more queer content, until your feed is fully queer and suddenly you’ve come to the conclusion that you’re probably drawn to this content for, you know, a reason beyond being The World’s Most Enthusiastic Ally™️.
So there’s that component.
But I think what’s really sticking in my craw — the reason I have been stuck on this headline for so many days — is that it implies that there is a media consumption pattern that is inherently queer, inherently bisexual. Because if the algorithms “know” when a person is bi, then, uh, what is going on with my feed, you know?
Netflix booted me from my mom’s account when it started cracking down on password sharing, so I can’t take a look at what it might recommend for me, but my Hulu recommendations are… not what I would call “queer media” (with the exception of Drag Me To Dinner, which honestly doesn’t seem like a show I would watch since I don’t watch reality competitions?), Paramount+ mostly knows that I like Star Trek, and Max — I mean I would not trust Max to know anything, and let’s say it doesn’t.
And it’s not that I’m not into queer media and characters: I love Steven Universe and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, I’m a big Harley Quinn fan, and the gayer that Star Trek gets the happier I am. But none of those shows seem to be what people mean when they talk about the algorithm “knowing” that they’re bi. It’s not queer dating shows, it’s not steamy sapphic romances, it’s not, like… the media that automatically lands on lists of queer media? I mean, it’s queer, right, but it’s the kind of queer stuff that straight people could plausibly watch too. It’s queer media that’s going other stuff going on in addition to being Queer Media™️, if you catch my drift.
As you’ve probably guessed from reading this newsletter, I am a bit of a natural contrarian, when someone tells me that bi people all walk like this, my immediate instinct is to walk like that. I resent the idea that there’s some specific pattern of media consumption that might make me more “authentically” bisexual, and I resent the idea that being bisexual necessitates that I consume a specific range of media. What if I don’t want to, you know? I mean, what if?
Fundamentally, though: I feel like so much of this comes back to this obsession that people have with the “tells” of specific sexual identities, with the idea that who we want to fuck is somehow ingrained in our DNA, that if only you look hard enough you’ll find a way to sort the bis from the straights from the gays and lesbians. But I do not believe that sexuality is anywhere near that orderly.
If the algorithm “knows” you’re queer it is for other reasons entirely.
if this “proves” anything it’s how starved bi people can be for the slightest affirmation of our identities 😕
I'm now picturing a bi competition show as mulched through memes and Netflix. Who was the most-gifted child? Who sits in chairs the worst?? Ugh