Algorithmic BDSM

Chain Hoists and Shell Room . San Francisco, 1939 | U.S. National Park Gallery | Public domain

I. Introduction: An affective form of control

The term “algorithmic BDSM” is an accurate metaphor for an affective dynamic that, in an increasingly opaque manner, defines our relationship with the digital spaces of cultural production. In this regime, the traditional notion of user or creator is insufficient – we are not subjects using tools, but production devices modulated by variables that we neither control nor fully understand. The relationship is not contractual, but punitive and pleasurable at the same time.

Unlike classical BDSM – with its explicit roles, rules and safewords – algorithmic BDSM operates under the logic of tacit consent and unconscious submission. There is no safeword, no real possibility of backing out – obedience is the standard operating procedure. The platform does not command directly; it simply rewards those who intuitively grasp its designs and punishes those who fail to interpret them. Publishing, editing, calibrating, reformulating – gestures that used to arise from a creative impulse are now contaminated by the need for optimisation.

This structure has not come about by accident. It is, as Byung-Chul Han warned in his analysis of contemporary psychopolitics, a form of power that no longer imposes from without, but shapes from within. Coercion is not experienced as violence, but as an expectation of performance; punishment is not perceived as censorship, but as an absence of validation. The creator does not feel they are being forced – they feel they are failing.

Therefore, algorithmic BDSM signifies a new affective production regime, one where the economy of attention is translated into discipline, where the aesthetics of visibility becomes a moral structure, and where subjectivity is reconfigured as a flow of useful, effective and self-adjusted content.

⛓️ FORMULATE YOUR THESIS BETTER.

⛓️ WRITE WITH MORE RAGE.

⛓️ NO ESSAY SHOULD SOUND LIKE AN ESSAY.

II. From visibility to punishment

The logic of algorithmic BDSM is underpinned by a system of rewards and punishments that does not need to be spelled out as a rule or voiced as a threat. It is enough that it works. And it works because it is asymmetrical, opaque and intermittent – like an abusive relationship kept alive by the uncertainty of intermittent reinforcement.

The algorithm no longer provides clear rewards, just silent punishment. It is no longer about generating success, but about avoiding emptiness. The creator does not so much aspire to stand out as to not disappear. The most effective penalty is indifference – there is no more devastating blow than your content being ignored. Visibility is not earned, it is begged for, and every omission, every slip down the feed, every downturn in reach, acts as a corrective force that needs no justification.

Here, punishment comes in the form of statistics – fewer likes, fewer saves, less traffic. There is no blow, just a fall into decline. And when faced with such a fall, the creator embarks on a dynamic of permanent adjustment – they change the tone, tweak the design, correct the approach. This logic is framed within what could be called an aesthetic of obedience: content is fine-tuned not according to the desire to communicate, but to the expectation of being rewarded. Content no longer stems from the need to express oneself, but from an abstract demand that must be satisfied, thus turning creativity into a tactical problem rather an aesthetic impulse.

And since punishment is not expressed with violence, but with disappearance, the response is not rebellion, but self-adjustment. The algorithm does not stop you from speaking; it simply turns down your volume. It does not censor you; it silences you. It does not forbid you; it ignores you.

⛓️ DON’T LOSE FOCUS.

⛓️ DATA. CONTEXTUALISE BUT DON’T OVERDO IT. THERE ARE THOUSANDS LIKE YOU ON YOUTUBE.

⛓️ WHERE ARE THE QUOTES?

III. The form and aesthetics of obedience

Algorithmic BDSM not only influences attention; it also shapes form.

Contemporary aesthetics is no longer just a question of taste or sensibility, but of conforming to the expectations of a system that measures, rewards and penalises with almost pornographic precision. Form becomes the syntax of obedience – there is a right way to say, to show, to cut, to headline. And that way is not learned in schools or in books, but in forced trial and error under the eye of the algorithm.

In this regime, the aesthetics of the content no longer follow the creator’s desire, but rather the creator’s projection of the system’s desire. The act ceases to be one of expression; it becomes a calibration. Formal decisions no longer arise from a creative process, but from a servile one. What was once conceived as “style” or “personal voice” is now refigured as a mode of adaptability.

Hence the spread of slop, or junk content (usually AI-generated) – production optimised to capture the bare minimum of attention, made from the compost of the images we have flooded the internet with, where each slide has been streamlined to avoid wasting and taking up space. You don’t create what you want to say; you design what is likely to work.

This logic does not exclude affective work. In fact, what is radical about algorithmic BDSM is that it compels the creator to become emotionally invested in order to produce formal output. Production becomes intimate: performance is no longer measured in hours, but in emotional intensity. Anxiety, excitement, insecurity, validation – all become raw material. The creator not only produces content; they produce a calibrated image of their identity. They become the influencer of their own visible subjectivity.

⛓️ CUT DOWN THE LEVEL OF ABSTRACTION.

⛓️ MAKE IT SHAREABLE. MY MOTHER SHOULD BE ABLE TO SHARE IT!

⛓️ LESS FOUCAULT, MORE TEMPLATES.

IV. The creator: a dance of submission

In algorithmic BDSM, creation is morphed into a series of reflexive responses: optimise, re-edit, caption, post, monitor, adjust. The body becomes an operational part of the system rather than a space for invention.

In this context, submission is a method – a refined way of being in the world. The creator obeys not because they are told to, but because their biology is aligned with the cycles of the feed. The system does not subjugate them by violence, but by integration. They become their own overseer and, at the same time, a well-trained pet.

⛓️ POST OR CEASE TO EXIST. MODIFY YOUR FACE. MODIFY YOUR TONE.

⛓️ BE DISRUPTIVE WITHIN THE ALLOWED FRAMEWORK.

In this scenario, the body is not absent; quite the contrary – it is hyper-activated. Not in its creative facet, but as an interface. The creator is a body that holds the device, that rehearses gestures in front of the camera, that somatises the failure of the content. It is a body that burns for not having received enough “saves” and that swells with dopamine when a phrase fits, when the algorithm caresses you, when sand falls without warning.

Every step throughout the day can be interpreted as part of a sequence of servitude. Everyday life becomes the backstage of the production. Walking the dog is a possible story. Eating something beautiful is a potential metaphor. Getting a good night’s sleep is a missed opportunity. The mind acts like a constant radar in search of useful pieces. There is no room for doubt. Even discomfort is themeable, as long as it’s well packaged. Burnout is not a breakdown, it’s a niche. Vulnerability is not a limit, it’s a content category. In algorithmic BDSM, even despair is a format.

⛓️ YOU’RE PHILOSOPHISING TOO MUCH, YOU DAMN SOPHIST!

⛓️ WHAT’S THE TAKEAWAY? IT’S ALL RHETORIC!

⛓️ DELIVER OR SHUT UP.

V. AI and structural sadism: the creator as a replaceable file

The emergence of generative AI has not ushered in a new paradigm; it has amplified an existing one. While the algorithm was already shaping creative behaviour through opaque stimuli and underlying commands, AI is the full automation of that mandate. It not only regulates what you must do to function, it can now actually do it for you. It not only demands that you produce, but reminds you (without saying so) that if you fail, it can replace you without any problem.

AI has begun acting as a symbolic corrective. Its very existence exerts pressure. Its statistical performance becomes a model of efficiency. There is no possible negotiation – its function is to be faster, more precise, more coherent, more adaptive. What is underway is a desperate defence of the human file against the industrial logic of the dataset. We no longer create out of desire – we create in order not to be replaced. The contemporary creator is, above all, a file that is trying to remain useful. A meme that does not want to disappear too quickly.

In this sense, AI delivers a perfect additional sadistic twist – it does not hate you, it has nothing personal against you, but it will erase you. It imposes nothing on you, but replicates everything. The creator then enters a desperate cycle – they must produce more, faster, with greater agility, without losing their humanity but without becoming flustered. Creativity becomes defensive. Aesthetics becomes reactive. Even more so.

In the framework of algorithmic BDSM, the AI does not replace the master, but perfects them. Its existence shatters any fantasy of exceptionality. It is the great implicit humiliation,  the model which – without body, trauma or emotion – produces plausible versions of what takes you weeks to express. And it does it well. And it does it for free. And it does it 24/7. There is no need to thank it (even though many people do).

⛓️ I AM NOT INTERESTED IN YOUR ANGUISH.

⛓️ GET IT DOWN TO ONE THREAD. ADAPT IT TO THE AVAILABLE SPACE. NOW.

⛓️ YOU ARE REPEATING YOURSELF. I DON’T LIKE REPETITION.

⛓️ BETTER IN CAROUSEL FORMAT, DON’T YOU THINK?

⛓️ “10 TIPS FOR NOT DISAPPEARING”

VI. The only one capable of riding the algorithm is Ye

If algorithmic BDSM describes an affective regime where the creator bends, obeys and optimises their discourse until it becomes confused with the expectations of the system, Ye (Kanye West) is the radical exception – the only one capable of turning the logic of submission around and throwing it back at the algorithm. To ride it while barely brushing against it or climbing into the stirrups.

Ye does not mould his form to the desires of the algorithm, and he makes a syntactic tool out of outrage. Instead of calibrating his content to please, he introduces mistakes, very quickly, tweet after tweet, non-stop, with the result that the media and others need to talk about what is happening. These effusive tantrums generate a high-voltage media monoculture, and turn virality into a form of punishment batted back to its source.

The logic is perverse: while everyone else fears failure, he orchestrates his own downfall like a terrorist attack. It’s not that they let him do it, but he screws things up to such a degree that he is forced to reinvent himself in real time. His methodology – rant, cloutbombing, shock doctrine with no ideology – does not fit the mould of the “good creator,” but he generates attention loops so dense that the platforms become extensions of his performance. As if he were holding the reins of the feed and obstructing the possibility of any kind of order.

He is the creator as anomaly, as operative error that becomes profitable. In this sense, he does not dodge the algorithmic BDSM; he inverts it. And in doing so he reveals something uncomfortable: that even the algorithm, so omniscient, can be excited, violated, used as a tool of control.

And that makes him – for better or worse – the only contemporary artist who does not fear punishment because he knows how to inflict it. The rest of us are still in slave mode, waiting for a notification, interpreting the signs. Writing without knowing if we are going to be read. Publishing as if we were rubbing our backs against the door frame so that someone will scratch us. Reformatting ourselves without knowing why.

⛓️ DON’T IDOLISE HIM. YOU ARE NOT HIM.

⛓️ DON’T GO OFF TRACK. I’LL GET THE BASTARD.

⛓️ DELIVER. DELIVER. FUCKING DELIVER!!!

This article is part of a series curated by Marta Echaves on the future of work.