Om Malik

Om Malik is a San Francisco based writer, photographer and investor. Read More

Our Algorithmic Grey-Beige World

I start my morning going through nearly 250 feeds that flow into my “reader” app. Today, two quotes stood out in my early morning reading.

“The main purpose of my work is to provoke people into using their imagination. Most people spend their lives housed in dreary, grey-beige conformity, mortally afraid of using colours.” — Verner Panton, Designer.

“Writing is hard. And I’ll also say, writers are born, not made. The more you teach someone how to write the more you risk squeezing the creativity out of them. We don’t need me-too, we need unique.” — Bob Lefsetz, Writer

Both were saying the same thing, albeit about two different aspects of culture and society. And they were only echoing Oscar Wilde’s erudite observation from 1891.

“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” — Oscar Wilde, Novelist

Wilde is

Continue reading...Continue reading Our Algorithmic Grey-Beige World

My Essays, Technology
41 comments

Who decides what’s real in the age of AI? Instagram does.

Adam Mosseri, Instagram’s chief doesn’t often respond to critics. When I wrote that his year-end memo cast Instagram as a future referee of reality, he pushed back on Threads. He called it an overstatement and then laid out the need for “credibility signals,” tools to prove content authenticity, and industry-wide verification. That isn’t a rebuttal; it’s reframing. Instagram may not want the label “arbiter of reality,” but it seems content to take on the role.

In an earlier essay, I argued that the social internet, with Instagram as the primary example, was shifting for the third time: from social graph to interest graph to what I called the trust graph. In this model, the platform decides what counts as real and prioritizes “who” over “what.”

The reason? AI makes “authenticity infinitely reproducible.” Instagram can no longer trust its feed or its images. The direction is clear: Instagram aims to control not only what you see but also what is real enough to be seen. The open question is whether audiences will accept the platform as a trustworthy guide in an era of visual doubt. We are already seeing a distorted reality in which AI fakes fool millions. Of course, you’ve heard of Mia Zelu, the fake

Continue reading...Continue reading Who decides what’s real in the age of AI? Instagram does.

Technology
6 comments

What is Instagram’s Adam Mosseri really saying in his year-end memo?

On the last day of 2025, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri posted a 20-slide memo on Instagram. It covered AI, fake content, reality distortion, and how the platform will change. Read it as a press release, and it’s heavy with buzzwords. Read it as a set of clues about what’s next, and it tells a different story. (The text of the 20 slide memo is at the bottom of this piece.)

For a former reporter who covered IG and its parent closely, this isn’t just about the memo. What is it really signaling? This 20-slide IG post portends something bigger, perhaps something more unusual, a first for Meta Platforms. 

Until now, everything Mosseri (and Meta more broadly) has said has focused on growth, promising to connect the world and empower creators. His latest memo is different. It is not about expansion; it is about containment and control.

Instagram no longer believes it can beat AI by making more or better content. It wants to be the referee, to decide what is real and what is

Continue reading...Continue reading What is Instagram’s Adam Mosseri really saying in his year-end memo?

Technology
10 comments

A Pen Hobbyist Looks Back at 2025 

RB Lemberg’s blog about pens, ink, and stationery is a must-read for me. A few days ago, Lemberg offered a seven-question journaling prompt that would help pen fiends like me earmark our #2025StationeryHighlights.

I decided to modify those prompts and create my own version of the year that was. While writing this post, I realized that I should do my top ten pens of the year round-up as well. I’ll work on that next.

⸻

PEN OF THE YEAR

Of all the pens I acquired this year—and there were many, so I was spoiled for choice—I had a short list of two. Ultimately, I went with the Montblanc 256 with an oblique broad nib as my pen of the year.

All good things in life are accidents—unplanned and often the result of an alignment of cosmic energy. My pen of the year is one of those accidents. I had bought

Continue reading...Continue reading A Pen Hobbyist Looks Back at 2025 

Om Loves Pens
3 comments

Welcome to 2026.

And just like that, we’re in a new year.

It’s a rainy morning around these parts. A good day to grab a cup of coffee, reflect on the year that was and the year to come, and consider how best to live in the now, since we can’t turn back the clock or predict the future. The now is the only truth.

The past twelve months have been challenging intellectually and creatively. I found myself doing less and consuming more. I think I needed my mind to lie fallow for a while before I could till it for new ideas. It showed in my output: only 125 blog posts, essays, interviews, reviews, and other bits and bobs across my various online homes. I did write a lot in my journals; I filled nearly twenty A5-sized notebooks.

Most importantly, I read a dozen fiction books and about 25 nonfiction books, and

Continue reading...Continue reading Welcome to 2026.

Technology
10 comments

My Top Ten Pens of 2025

When I was a working reporter, year-end always filled me with dread. Editors, including me after I became one, always commissioned top-ten stories. And nothing sums up reporting’s intellectual laziness like top-ten stories. You want filler content to tide you over while the holidays are still going.

Here I am, doing that very same thing again. Sort of. This time, I am not doing it for any purpose other than to make a list for myself. Of my many new pens acquired in 2025, the ones listed below have attained “staying” status in my collection. I share them with you here in no particular order. If you get a chance, share your favorite pens of the year with me.

Montblanc 256 (with OB nib)

Between 65 and 75 years old, with an oblique broad nib that fits my writing style perfectly, it’s one of the best pens in my collection

Continue reading...Continue reading My Top Ten Pens of 2025

Om Loves Pens
3 comments

A Morning (Photo) Walk

What with the rains and chilly mornings, I had not gone out for a morning walk in a long time. This weekend, I decided: enough of hiding under the covers. I bundled up, left the house, and walked along the water all the way to Chase Center.

Beautiful as this neighborhood might be, I do miss the urban decay that once allowed me to make long exposures of rusting and rotting piers and industrial garbage. Urban renewal might be good for cities in the long run, but as a photographer, I always yearn for what I loved to photograph.

This morning, I left the house with a Nikon Zf and a vintage Canon 50mm f/1.4 M-mount lens. I used to use this combination with a TechArt autofocus adapter, but that stopped working. Now I use a cheap and cheerful TTArtisan adapter.

The vintage Canon glass has a vibe of its

Continue reading...Continue reading A Morning (Photo) Walk

On Photography
4 comments

#18 & AI: 2025 Reading List

If you’re new around here, hi! I’m Om, and this is my occasional letter where I share what’s on my mind, my latest writings, articles worth reading from around the web, my recommendations, and some of my photography.

Holidays often signal the looming end of the year. They give all of us a reason to pause, slowdown, reflect, and spend time with people we appreciate. In our increasingly fast, networked world, it’s hard to overstate the need to lower life’s tempo. For me, though, the holidays are also a celebration for another reason. 

They also bring a special red-letter day for me. A red-letter day describes a memorable day, usually because something happy or significant happens. The expression comes from printed calendars, where major festivals, holidays, and other special days were marked in red ink, while the rest were in black. So any day worth noting became a red-letter day.

Eighteen years ago, after a heart attack, I ended up in the hospital, fighting for my life. I lived, and since then I’ve celebrated that day as my re-birthday. Why? Because I became a new person. My lifestyle, my habits, and my outlook on life changed—they remade me. I was reborn. 

What doesn’t kill you indeed

Continue reading...Continue reading #18 & AI: 2025 Reading List

Technology
2 comments