Are There Any Gems in the World Left Hidden?

a cultural critique on losing mystery

Our pervasive surveillance culture has significantly changed how we experience and interact with the world, particularly in terms of discovery and the serendipity in physically finding places and people: bars, parks, restaurants, galleries, coffee shops, friendships, romantic partners, etc.

As the daughter of a small restaurant owner, I completely understand the power of the internet in highlighting deserving local businesses that may not seek attention but certainly deserve it. However, the virality or micro-virality of hidden gems rapidly risks stripping them of their unique hues and tones, turning them into just another prosaic stop on the many AI-written listicles in digital magazines with paywalls higher than my Crunchyroll Premium subscription.

Priyanka Mattoo's "The Best Restaurant in Town" article in Taste Magazine beautifully captured this sentiment: “We could have spent that evening, and that money, at so many other places. But exploration is about sharing whatever experiences may follow: to brace for shock, to share peals of laughter, to bond. The best restaurants in town aren’t the ones that anyone else can define for us. They’re built of our memories, our heartbreaks, our highlights. The best restaurants are the ones that mean the most to us, and they won’t be spoon-fed to us in our daily media diets. They’re the ones we arrive at, physically and emotionally, on our own.”

Kill the Algorithm 

Similarly, just as GPS and digital maps guide our every physical step, new apps constantly cater to our diverse interests—food, fashion, news, and love—ensuring we always have some agenda through aesthetically curated lists, vlogs, or schedules. Yet, in embracing these conveniences, we risk losing what it means to take a chance on the unknown and the thrill of discovering something entirely on our own. The sheer volume of readily available information and oversharing on social media prompt reflection on two paradoxical behaviors.

First, champions of instant gratification are slowly losing the art of researching. Every piece of information must be sourced for them immediately, or face the phrase we see all too often in TikTok's “GRWM” algorithm, “Don’t gatekeep, where is everything from?” Sometimes (most of the time), the desired information is buried in a caption that is considered too long these days. Other times, content creators unwittingly find themselves catering to a niche audience without realizing it.

Sometime after 2020, the fear of being socially ostracized online for ‘gatekeeping’ led to the floodgates opening and drowning the world of hidden gems on TikTok. Once the public latched on to words like “gatekeep,” many corners of the internet diluted, melted, and forged the term into an unoriginal, dull verbal weapon. Its overuse and misapplication in every comment section render the original term meaningless. I remind myself that reverse Google Imaging existed long before TikTok whenever I want to know where that New York City socialite got her gold handcuff. There are thousands of resourceful ways to find that “thing” we’re all dying to consume next before demanding the information as if it is our God-given right to know immediately.

Secondly, while these same champions embrace research, they are susceptible to the paradox of choice—an idea introduced by Barry Schwartz in his 2004 book. This phenomenon occurs because having too many choices requires more cognitive effort, leading to decision fatigue and increased regret over our choices.

Because of the digital renaissance, increased globalization, and ongoing fevers of capitalism, we exist in a world of infinite choices and possibilities. It is only natural that we will continue taking our time, googling every review, rightfully paying with our values instead of our wallets first, and saving every potential purchase into a curated digital folder to visit later.

Who has time to wander anymore, or money to waste on a precious meal, or worse - both on a date? Time is precious, and decision paralysis is rampant on these digital streets.

We’re also currently at the stage in the economy wherein finding a reasonably priced, very basic sweater on TikTok shop is equivalent to feeling some mental and emotional fortitude about winning a mini lottery in your hometown. The sweater is 100% polyester but go ahead and buy it. Just know how to distinguish between the fleeting happiness of a bargain and the deeper implications of your purchasing choices.

I get it. The “bestselling” and the “run, don’t walk” ads bring out the clown in all of us, including me. The theatrics of “putting someone on” a SheIn wardrobe, or quite the opposite depending on where your algorithm takes you that day, the latest Louis Vuitton summer collection, is designed to be compelling. It's meant to make you double-click your Apple Pay.

Do you know how many pairs of colorful little crew socks I purchased on TikTok shop in the past two weeks? And we’re in the middle of a heatwave, why would I need socks, you ask? Because my favorite fashion icon paired the colorful socks with black loafers, but she lives in Berlin, and I live in New York City, and it is July. And ah, fuck it.

There must be a revelation in not of how much we consume but of how we consume. As I’ve mentioned previously, it’s been theatrical lately. I fear I am the metaphorical monkey dancing when my algorithm says, "Dance for a beaded bow necklace."

no shade to these creators (get your bag!) this is just for visual context

Marry Mystery

It is worth examining the implications of these behaviors and how our accelerating pace toward digital omnipresence distorts the human psyche and the most fundamental human narrative that has defined our experiences since the beginning of time: getting lost, taking risks, and finding our way back home. Today, this narrative has morphed on TikTok into “doing it for the plot” or “taking side quests.”

Now that everything is available on the screen, can we even physically stumble upon anything anymore? Does mystery touch us the way it did before? Sometimes, I want to fight my instincts to check the Beli app for the best Italian restaurants near me whenever I crave risotto. I want to fight the urge to check the best cafes or libraries to write in and, instead, head to the ones I know or wait to discover more on my way there. I want to find my own hidden gems at my own pace.

Research serves its purpose—it saves money, protects our skincare routines, and ensures our safety. But when our bodies crave a taco on sunny days with a cool breeze, do we consult Google Maps to find our saved taco spots? Or do we rely on our memory—the most human repository—where we savored the best chicken tinga and accidentally spilled salsa on our first date?

I also often reflect on our nostalgia and current trendy obsession with the Y2K era, which seems tied to its screen-less way of life. There were more meet-cutes, and people knew where to go by becoming regulars there. This period represented a time when interactions were physical, and discoveries were more personal and less mediated by algorithms and digital influencers. There was hardly any structure compared to today’s spectacle of listing every experience we could possibly have with content like “How to spend the perfect solo date,” or “Top 5 hidden gems in Governor’s Island,” or “Where to meet cute, single guys in NYC” ravaging target audiences in every channel of media we consume.

If we continue to follow an online syllabus dictating how to live out our human experiences indefinitely, how will we learn to break free from agendas crafted by others? These 'others' include ad agencies, marketers, celebrities, influencers, and the capitalist entities that dominate our world—entities that breathe in and shit out money. Using sources of information as a crutch or foundation is important but giving them the power of our permanent dependence can erode our autonomy and authenticity.

Date Individuality

I wish the answer could be as easy as let’s all abstain from hyper-consumerism together, and somehow, the world moves on quickly and gracefully. Yet, as we are stronger and better collectively, the answer to this specific phenomenon will lie within us individually. Only because it is our individuality itself that is at risk. Who are we outside of being a constant target, cosplaying as a targeted consumer? Are we a niche audience, a curated character, an aesthetic, an 'it girl,' or an icon?

Unfortunately, we are all a list of consumer segments for marketers to analyze. Fortunately, there is a way out. We must bring back personal taste. Much like the Byzantine Empire (pardon the often-used Roman Empire analogy), taste takes time to develop, eventually decline, and transform anew. The process can be steadfast and capricious, and I think that’s part of living and observing the world change as we change.

When I listened to Ezra Klein’s interview with Kyle Chayka on “How to Discover Your Own Taste,” I felt a bit at ease knowing the fight against the algorithm was nothing new, and that we were all on some level aware of how we are losing our sense of self through capitalism.

According to Chayka, we are “the ideal worker in industrialization. It’s the person who has no desires that are not the desires of everyone else. And I feel like — I mean, that’s dystopian, for one thing. That is a very poor motivation for living maybe. I think having taste seems more important than ever, or cultivating your own taste, because you are surrounded by so many options and because it’s so easy to be passively fed whatever you’re looking for. Taste is always a way of carving out a distinction for yourself and figuring out who you are. And I think that’s more important when algorithmic feeds try to tell you who you are all the time.”

Chayka also reflects on two different ways he sees taste. Internal taste, meaning what are we feeling when we experience a work of art. What is happening inside of our brain, our soul when we listen to music? External taste, he describes, as being self-conscious about what and how other people consume. Those who we deem to have better or poorer taste than us can hinder the analysis of our own raw, untouched experiences. Unconsciously, we are always going to fixate on our own familiarity, with people and memories to draw conclusions on whether we “like” or “dislike” that thing. I do not think it is possible to exist purely with internal taste as humans are born to find, gather, and share together.

On the basis of understanding taste, I keep thinking about this quote that was mentioned in the podcast from Montesquieu, “Natural taste is not a theoretical knowledge. It’s a quick and exquisite application of rules which we do not even know.”

Accepting the possibility of surprise is instrumental in shaping our individuality. Chayka calls that the ineffability of taste. He says, “that’s fundamentally what’s not data-driven about it. It’s not just about what most people engage with and how similar this person is to you. It’s purely just about existing with something and feeling it.”

When we give our undivided attention to something, we are able to shape and give meaning to our experiences. When I’m led by my #foryoupage every single weeknight to find the best happy hour spots near me, I am forced to live within the guardrails of my online presence instead of living in the open, hardly-ever-quiet neighborhood of Midtown East.

I’m a firm believer in the idea that inspiration for enhancing our “natural taste” lives on the outside, in the physical, however material world. Not inside of a screen screaming, selling things at us. It may live in our local deli (as Taste Magazine would attest), and it may live in our kitchens (children of immigrants, I guarantee the best DIY furniture or kitchen appliances are curated by very resourceful parents). It thrives and grows when our attention to that “thing,” whatever it is, is left undisrupted from white noise as well as the noise of our own self-doubt and limited beliefs. Inspiration unfolds in observing the living, breathing world around us. Outside of our screens, there is so much information around us that it sometimes exists in what we already know and suppress.

So, there must be a reconnection to the 'journey' of our consumption and a reconciliation with the idea of risk. We must challenge ourselves to give attention to things we can actually touch, taste, feel, and smell, instead of seeking the essence of these sensory experiences through digital guides, how-tos, lists, and vlogs. In doing so, we may find that the most meaningful hidden gems are those discovered through our willingness to embrace the unknown.

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Sources

Priyanka Mattoo - The Best Restaurant in Town

The Decision Lab - The Paradox of Choice

The Ezra Klein Show - How to Discover Your Own Taste

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Featured Image: Broken Window, c. 1970 by Brett Weston