Fariha Ahmed - VCUarts Qatar Showcase

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Fariha Ahmed

Contacts

Algorhythm

Commodification of Hobbies on Social Media Platforms

Forcing the world online, the COVID-19 pandemic turned social media based hobbies into income generating cashcows. Digital creative spaces became sites of capitalist logic where hobbyists became both laborers and commodities. Nowadays, profit-focused algorithms continue to operate imperceptibly, shaping creative behavior and decision-making in ways that are difficult to recognize, and even harder to resist.

ALGORHYTHM replicates and translates this experience. Structured as a navigable convenience store, this interactive digital work invites audiences to walk the aisles and meet ALGO, the algorithm personified, to understand how platform mechanics function behind the scenes. The elements in this online convenience store are drawn from my autoethnographic research into my ongoing hobby of rug-making (tufting) on Instagram.

What begins as a simple walk through the store turns into a powerful lesson in platform literacy where audiences experience firsthand how algorithmically guided social media platforms extract value from creator labor and audience attention alike.

Tufted Interactive Tea Rug

Tufted Dice Stool

Tufted Mobile Mirror

Fariha Ahmed

MFA in Design 2026

Forcing the world online, the COVID-19 pandemic turned social media based hobbies into income generating cashcows. Digital creative spaces became sites of capitalist logic where hobbyists became both laborers and commodities. Nowadays, profit-focused algorithms continue to operate imperceptibly, shaping creative behavior and decision-making in ways that are difficult to recognize, and even harder to resist.

ALGORHYTHM replicates and translates this experience. Structured as a navigable convenience store, this interactive digital work invites audiences to walk the aisles and meet ALGO, the algorithm personified, to understand how platform mechanics function behind the scenes. The elements in this online convenience store are drawn from my autoethnographic research into my ongoing hobby of rug-making (tufting) on Instagram.

What begins as a simple walk through the store turns into a powerful lesson in platform literacy where audiences experience firsthand how algorithmically guided social media platforms extract value from creator labor and audience attention alike.

Tags

Interactive

Algorhythm

Commodification of Hobbies on Social Media Platforms

Fariha Ahmed

MFA in Design 2026

Tags

Interactive

Forcing the world online, the COVID-19 pandemic turned social media based hobbies into income generating cashcows. Digital creative spaces became sites of capitalist logic where hobbyists became both laborers and commodities. Nowadays, profit-focused algorithms continue to operate imperceptibly, shaping creative behavior and decision-making in ways that are difficult to recognize, and even harder to resist.

ALGORHYTHM replicates and translates this experience. Structured as a navigable convenience store, this interactive digital work invites audiences to walk the aisles and meet ALGO, the algorithm personified, to understand how platform mechanics function behind the scenes. The elements in this online convenience store are drawn from my autoethnographic research into my ongoing hobby of rug-making (tufting) on Instagram.

What begins as a simple walk through the store turns into a powerful lesson in platform literacy where audiences experience firsthand how algorithmically guided social media platforms extract value from creator labor and audience attention alike.

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