When I first read “The Soft Truth,” I thought the end symbolized some kind of break from the internet. Almost like the narrator was free from the clutches of the blue sphere and, therefore, the neverending scrolling of the internet. But, as we talked about it in class, I came to a different conclusion. I think that the “real” main character is the double the narrator is seeing. She wears similar things and owns similar things to the narrator, like the “Customers who bought this item also bought” algorithm on Amazon and other websites. The narrator represents the part of the real character who is searching for that blue sphere, so when she finds it, she ceases to exist. 

The Ney York Times “Making of a YouTube Radical” article reminded me of the film/documentary The Social Dilemma. In the film, the son character goes through similar things that Caleb Cain does, like getting sucked down the far-right rabbit hole. The movie is a cool comparison because it personifies the algorithm and shows how he gets deeper and deeper (and the types of ads he gets, like one for guns). I think this article is a good one to read because I remember watching the movie and thinking the son character might be a little far-fetched, but he has many similarities to this real-life situation. 

For the digital project analysis, we looked at the chrome extension NonAd Blocker. We found that the extension’s developers, Carl Jamilkowski and Miklos Pataky, created NonAd Blocket at Stupid Hackathon in 2016. We examined the digital project for its three elements and three digital values.