There's a version of the internet where Gloria Steinem's message from the 1970s would land differently. That version doesn't exist right now. We're stuck with the one where the algorithm decides what we see, who we trust, and who we're angry at by dinner. The recent piece on what Steinem can teach us makes a point that hit me square in the chest: we can't separate the vicious anti-feminist reaction we're enduring from the fact that so much of our public life is mediated by toxic, isolating algorithms. That's not a hot take. That's just the weather.
Here's the thing about being a student in 2026: we're the first generation that's had to learn who we are while a machine quietly decides what we're shown. You open your phone to study tips and end up in a doom spiral about whether your worth is tied to a comment section. You log off feeling smaller, more alone, and somehow more convinced that everyone else has it figured out. That's not community. That's a feedback loop wearing a hoodie. Steinem's whole deal was about building movements through shared experience, through showing up in the same room, through the messy work of actually listening to someone's face. We've swapped that for engagement metrics. And surprise, surprise, outrage performs better than empathy.
But here's where I land, and it's not a "tech is bad" rant. It's a practical one. If the algorithm is the problem, then the fix isn't to log off forever. It's to get more intentional about what we let in, and more importantly, who we let in with. I'm not saying we all become digital monks. I'm saying we need to treat our feeds like a group project. You wouldn't let a random stranger in your study group rewrite your notes without checking sources. So why are we letting anonymous outrage shape our politics? The practical takeaway from the Steinem piece is this: the anti-feminist backlash isn't just about ideas, it's about infrastructure. And infrastructure we can actually do something about.
If a friend came to me and asked what to do, I'd tell them this: stop scrolling alone. Find two people, max, and start a group chat where you actually talk through what you're seeing. Share the article, but also share why it matters to your life on Wednesday afternoon. That's the move. That's how you build a counterweight to the isolation. It's not glamorous. It's not going to trend. But it's real, and it's the only thing I've seen that actually works when the feed gets loud. The specific thing to watch? Whether the next wave of campus organizing figures out how to use the algorithm for connection instead of letting it use us. Because if we don't, we're just feeding the machine that's feeding on us. And I didn't come to college to be somebody's engagement bait.
