I’m living vicariously though @_restaurant_bot’s photos of restaurants I’ll never go to
gets at why the bot is so captivating, both during the pandemic and in our general, social media-driven world. “On an internet that craves ever-narrowing curation, an algorithm that does not adapt to a user’s interest, along with the seeming absence of the human element, constitutes a minor act of resistance,” he writes. Nothing in my life has invited Twitter to think I’d want to see a Google Streetview shot of a chicken restaurant in Lebanon, but here we are.
But unlike Dixon, I do not think the bleak optimization of the restaurant experience is inevitable. Random Restaurant doesn’t remind me of a world that’s lost to time and smartphones, but one that is still waiting for me. Worried as I am, I can still conjure the feeling of coaxing my partner into a sequestered seafood bar in Valencia, “just to see,” and having the best sardines I’ve ever tasted.