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Algorithms can't compete with cultural obsessives

I just read Shaun Brady's article over at the AV Club celebrating the eclectic sensibilities of the 1990s show Night Flight, which mashed together a series of music, movie, and assorted other pop culture clips during its Friday and Saturday eight-hour late-night programming blocks. It was sort of like MTV but far more hip and scattershot; as Brady says, "The show might bliss out on a feedback-squalling performance from Neil Young’s Rust Never Sleeps for 20 minutes, smash cut to a re-voiced black-and-white film clip for 2, then settle down for a politically focused discussion with Wendy O. Williams for 10." It's a fascinating piece, exploring what made  Night Flight so entertaining and how, while we've since gained the awesomeness of the internet with everything we could ever possibly want just a few clicks away, we've lost some of the curated weirdness that shows like Night Flight allowed for back in the '80s and '90s. Night Flight and simi...