So a massive earthquake just rattled half the globe, triggered tsunami alerts coast to coast, and… your X timeline is still recommending “10 low-calorie snacks to curb your midnight cravings” and that viral meme about a waiter recalling your order unironically.
Congratulations, Elon Musk’s algorithm didn’t even blink. The top 5 stories on the platform? A celebrity cat costume mishap, a rebrand of a mid-tier vape juice, some advocate tweeting-number-of-the-day, and someone vowing to stop using TikTok in solidarity with your data privacy concerns. Earthquake? Globally viral? Apocalyptic? Not even considered trending.
This is not negligence. This is curation. A quietly existential statement about the weirdness of a world that treats global catastrophe like just another pop-up ad. X decided—deliberately or algorithmically—that the tremor beneath our feet didn’t rate a scroll.
1. News That Feels Neutral Don’t Shake
In a sane media ecosystem, “earthquake,” “tsunami warning,” and “10 countries on alert” would dominate. Entire keynote addresses would shift. Instead, the algorithm served ragebait, snake oil, and theme park conspiracy theories. Because if clicks are king, empathy is a courtier at best.
That an earthquake of magnitude “almost cinematic” got folded into the list between “Top Five Coffee Shops in Fort Lauderdale” and “DIY Beard Oil Recipes” is not just irony. It’s inertia.
2. Algorithmic Apathy Is the Real Disaster
Let’s be real: the platform’s algorithm doesn’t care about minor details like death tolls, mass evacuations, or rising waters. It cares about engagement. It prefers short graphs rising upward—even if the story behind them is a catastrophe.
A tweet that quips, “That moment when your cat judges your pandemic snack habits” gets boosted. A tsunami alert for millions? Pass. Hashtags like #SnackWars and #CatGuiltyParty are riding high.
3. A World That Responds in Footnotes
Tsunami sirens wailed in Tokyo, Lima, and Manila. Evacuation orders were issued. Apps buzzed. Scientists scrambled. But did your feed greet that with gravity? Or ghost it in favor of mock intimacy threads about “the one time your roommate said something insensitive”?
This isn’t just a glitch—it’s the steady refusal of collective concern. A demand: pain must be packaged as comedy, news must be snackable, and gravitas must whisper beneath the louder turmoil.
4. Where Are the Bee Stings When You Need Them?
Somewhere in an underground bunker, a tiny cartoon bee could’ve been tweeting instantly: “Earth is shaking. Please move inland. Ignore the cheddar puffs ad.” Instead, your timeline rails about resigned roommate behavior and ungendered hot chocolate recipes.
But hey, at least your news feed is optimized to sell you survival gear through affiliate links, so… mission accomplished?
Final Thought:
When an earthquake that shakes continents doesn’t outrank a TikTok-influencer confession, we’re not just divided. We’re dependent on the broken gatekeepers of attention, the ones who decide our world’s urgency based on how loudly it screams in clicks.
In 2025, where platforms define reality, if your app doesn’t believe the quake happened, did it even happen?
Thanks for nothing, algorithm.