Correspondence on Genre Filter Drift
Once genre filter drift prevents one awkward moment, it must remain in force for the rest of the routine.
The feed has changed. This is the observation that requires no analysis: the feed that existed three months ago and the feed that exists today are populated differently, and the difference did not require any deliberate action. No settings were changed. No preferences were declared. The algorithm observed behavior and adjusted its output, which is what it was designed to do.
The behavior it observed was two weeks in January during which, for reasons unrelated to any stable preference, mostly documentaries were watched.
What Happened to the Feed
The feed now surfaces documentaries at a rate significantly higher than before January. The documentaries surfaced are not bad documentaries. Some of them are genuinely interesting and would not have been found through other discovery methods. The observation is not a complaint.
The observation is that the feed has become someone slightly different from the person who first opened the application. The algorithm learned something. The viewer has not decided yet whether it learned the right thing.
Three documentaries in a row is a pattern. The algorithm believes it is a preference. These are not the same thing. A pattern can be situational. A preference is structural. The algorithm has no instrument for measuring this distinction, so it treats all patterns as preferences, and preferences accumulate.
The Drift
The drift is visible in retrospect and invisible while occurring. The feed in October looked normal. The feed in January still looked mostly normal. The feed in April had become something that a stranger who looked at the account and then looked at the account holder would find approximately but not precisely accurate.
There are categories that no longer appear. They were never explicitly removed. They were displaced by the accumulation of other signals, which were not preferences so much as the record of certain weeks.
The Seriously Absurd Rule
The documented method for addressing genre filter drift is to watch content in the genres that have been displaced, which is difficult to do, because they no longer appear in the feed, which is why they need to be reintroduced. The platform's search function exists. Using it does not feel like browsing. It feels like filing a correction.
The correction is filed slowly, or not at all, and the feed remains the record of January.