The Algorithm Hates Grey!

How oversimplification is rotting our ability to think.

IMAGE MADE BY ME USING CANVA

Welcome to 2 Cents & a Lime™ — where I drop two cents on something real, toss in a twist (because life rarely serves anything straight up), and keep it short enough to finish before your coffee goes cold.

This one's got a little more bark.

Sip slowly, it's a mini rant inspired by

Nadine

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This week’s topic? Is Nuance Dead on Social Media?

15 months, 3 days, and several hours since I’ve posted on LinkedIn consistently.

I told myself it was because I had nothing to sell. No course. No funnel. No personal brand to inflate. ROI wasn’t there.

But that was also true in June 2022 when I posted every day like it was my part-time job. So last week, while doomscrolling through a pile of authenticity BS, it hit me.

There’s too much noise. Too much drama. Too much performance.

Every scroll felt like wading through a sea of recycled “vulnerability” wrapped in a CTA.

“Be your whole self.”
“Just post, even if your voice shakes.”
“Let me tell you how I got 10K followers in 7 weeks.”

And yeah, maybe that should be an opportunity to stand out.

But the algorithm doesn’t reward nuance.

It rewards certainty. Extremes. Repetition. Hot takes. Em dashes

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Everything is Everything. Until it Isn’t.

Social media is all about shortcuts. Quick takes, snappy lines, the moral clarity of a protest sign. It rewards confidence over accuracy. If you say, “Maybe it’s both,” the room gets quiet.

Try that in a tweet and you’ll hear crickets or worse, get ratioed.

In the 1600s, pamphlets were the original hot takes. Martin Luther (the German theologian and Protestant reformer) went ‘viral’ with 95 bullet points nailed to a door. The idea of nuance getting in the way of a good movement? That’s old news.

But now, we’ve industrialized it. Nuance is bad for the algorithm. It slows people down. It makes them think. And platforms don’t want thinking. They want engagement.

Click. React. Share. Repeat.

• You’re either oppressed or privileged.

• You’re either brave or brainwashed.

• You’re either for us or against us.

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2 Cents (more like three)

The death of nuance happens in three stages, and once you see the pattern, you can't unsee it.

Stage One
The Strawman Setup. Complicated issues get reduced to their most extreme interpretations. Climate change becomes "either we ban all cars tomorrow, or the planet dies." Tax policy becomes "either we eliminate all taxes or we're communists." There's no middle ground because middle ground doesn't trend.

Stage Two
The Tribal Sort. Once the extremes are established, everyone gets sorted into camps. You're either Team A or Team B. Any attempt to suggest that maybe both sides have valid points, or that the real solution might involve elements from multiple perspectives, gets you labeled as wishy-washy at best, or a secret enemy at worst.

Stage Three
The Conversation Killer Finally, the discussion dies. Not because the issue gets resolved, but because everyone retreats to their corners to shout at people who already agree with them. The complicated problem remains unsolved while everyone congratulates themselves for being on the "right" side.

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& A Lime

Why It Matters More Than Ever

The people who live in nuance tend to be the ones who do the work. The activists who admit that their causes have pros and cons. The founders who say, “We made a decision, and it might’ve been wrong.” The parents who tell their kids, “I don’t know either, but let’s figure it out together.”

Three Things the Algorithm Hopes You Ignore

1. You can be right and still be part of the problem.
   (Hard to meme that one.)

2. People change. And not always in public.
   (Redemption arcs aren’t always linear or postable.)

3. Sometimes, you’re the villain in someone else’s story.
   (No comment section can fix that.)

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So, What Now?

Start by being suspicious of your certainty.

Especially when it feels really, really good.

• Ask what you’re not seeing.

• Who you’re not hearing.

• What context got cropped out?

OR

Just join Substack :)

As philosopher Simone Weil put it, “To be always relevant, you have to say things which are eternal.”

And eternal things don’t trend. They last.

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