Some Thoughts About the Algorithm and Quiet Creative Burnout

When creativity starts feeding the algorithm

I used to think burnout would arrive loudly, the kind that forces you to stop. The kind you can name and explain.

Mine didn’t arrive like that.

It came quietly. It came disguised as routine. It felt like opening the app and wondering what part of myself I was supposed to offer today.

Somewhere along the way, creating stopped feeling like something I wanted to do and started feeling like something I had to do. The moment I began thinking not what do I want to say, but how should I say this — reel or carousel, voiceover or silence — it started resembling a Monday morning. Not unbearable, just heavy enough to require dragging myself through it.

There’s a particular kind of tiredness that comes from making too many small decisions every day. What looks good. What performs better. What feeds the algorithm. What doesn’t look lazy. What doesn’t feel irrelevant. Creativity slowly turns into maintenance, something you keep up with rather than something you return to for relief.

I don’t think it was the lack of engagement that hurt the most. It was the effort without reassurance. The act of showing up even when it feels like the work dissolves into the feed, barely landing anywhere. You keep going because stopping feels worse, but continuing starts to feel empty.

The algorithm asks for creativity, but not the messy kind. It wants things to be packaged, aesthetic, optimised. It rewards consistency, not confusion. Output, not doubt. Some days, I try to meet it there, adjusting and refining, pretending this doesn’t cost me anything.

But it does.

There’s a quiet grief in realising that something you once turned to for comfort now feels like labour. That expression has become performative. That you’re thinking about reach even while feeling hollow. That you’re feeding something invisible and hoping it feeds you back.

Burnout didn’t make me stop. It just made me quieter.

I still create. I still show up. I still post. I just don’t have a clean explanation for why it feels heavier now. Some days, it feels less like expression and more like persistence, and for now, I’m letting that sit without trying to fix it.