For the most part, the algorithm has been feeding me nothing but extremely short and completely pointless articles that are pretty much just talking about a cute picture some celebrity or another posted on their Instagram page (seriously there were like four days in a row that led off with stories about cute girls posting relatively tame “cute” pics on social media) but on occassion it does provide topics that actually interest me or stories that don’t make me want to skewer my head on a chopstick to put me out of my misery.

It’s also interesting to see how the actual news headlines on their Top News tab is buried between multiple rows of fluff news stories provided exclusively by the algorithm.

As misinformation and efforts by bad actors make the English language news media landscape more difficult to navigate than ever it’s fascinating seeing one of Japan’s largest communications outlets swerving directly towards the “Here’s five pictures of attractive people and a story about a drunk guy who did something naughty” model of news production.

How much longer am I going to be doing this exercise in Japanese news watching? I’m not sure. It’s been a fun little experience and it’s been helping me get back in the flow of producing content and remembering how to gather my thoughts and talk like a normal human being.

Maybe I’ll get bored or find something better to fill my time with or, perhaps, I’ll actually have something better to do with my life. Until then, you can find me on Youtube, furtively reading stories about models buying Bentleys they don’t need.