I don’t think I ever meant to find teachers online. But somehow, they found me first.
When I was younger, I thought learning meant sitting in a classroom, waiting for someone to write things on a whiteboard. I thought teachers were supposed to be older people with ID cards and tired smiles. But then, the internet started teaching me things I didn’t even know I wanted to learn. It didn’t happen all at once, but it was slow. Random videos, songs, articles. A late-night YouTube video about songwriting. A podcast about cybersecurity I half-listened to while doing homework. A random stranger on Reddit saying something that hit harder than any quote in a textbook. And somehow, all of that started changing how I saw the world.
I started realising that I was being mentored by people who didn’t even know I existed.
There’s this funny thing about this generation. We learn from ghosts. Not in the spooky way, but in the sense that so many of the people who shape us don’t even know we’re watching them. They post something, it finds its way to us, and it sits there quietly until one day it clicks. A creator talks about how failure is just practice in disguise, and it sticks in my head for weeks. Someone explains a music trick once, and I end up using it in my own track. I’ve learned from people who will never know my name, and yet, somehow, I carry a piece of them with me.
My mum always talks about how, back in her day, learning meant sitting next to someone and watching what they did until you got it right. But for me, the people I learn from aren’t always next to me. Sometimes, they’re half a world away, their lessons carried by a glowing screen.
I like to call them my accidental mentors.
The algorithm is weird. It’s not a person, but it acts like one. It throws me advice, stories, and random videos at random hours of the day. Some of them stick, some don’t, but the right ones always find me when I need them most. It’s almost like it’s listening. There’s this quiet comfort in that. When I was confused about what I wanted to do, whether to chase acting or focus on music or both, I kept seeing clips of people talking about chasing their dreams even when nobody believed in them. Coincidence, maybe. But part of me likes to think the internet just knew.
It’s strange how something made of code can feel so human. I’d be scrolling through my feed and find something that just fits exactly where my thoughts are. Someone I’ve never met will say something that feels like they wrote it for me.
That’s what I mean by comfort in the code.
It’s not about the videos or the data or the likes. It’s about this invisible network of people who make you feel less alone while you’re trying to figure yourself out.
But the thing is, it’s not always good. The same algorithm that comforts me can also trap me. Sometimes it feeds me the same kind of content over and over until it feels like the whole world thinks the same way. And that’s scary. Because it makes you forget that there are ideas that don’t trend, wisdom that doesn’t go viral, and beauty that doesn’t fit into a square frame. That’s when I learned something important. You have to teach the algorithm who you want to be.
It learns from you. Every search, every replay, every pause; it’s paying attention. So if you only ever feed it shallow things, that’s all it’ll give you back. But if you keep looking for real things, meaningful things, things that make you think, it starts to respond differently. You get what you give. I started to notice that. The more I searched for things that inspired me, the more it started showing me people who actually changed the way I think. I like to think of it like digital reflection. It learns from my curiosity. And somewhere in between all that, I discovered motorsport.
It started as a random short video; a camera mounted to a driver’s helmet as they sped through a track, the engine roaring like it was alive. I don’t even know why I stopped scrolling that day. But I did. Maybe it was the control. The precision. The way the driver looked calm, even while everything around them moved at an impossible speed.
Motorsport taught me something the algorithm never spelt out: balance. It’s not just about speed. It’s about control under chaos. The confidence to push forward even when everything’s a blur. Sometimes, when I’m producing music or writing something new, I think about it like a race. There’s that rush to create, the tension between going too fast and losing control, or going too slow and losing momentum. In the same way drivers trust their instincts, I’ve learned to trust mine.
And just like them, I crash too. Sometimes a song doesn’t land. Sometimes a piece falls apart halfway through. But every lap teaches something. Every attempt rewires how you handle the curve the next time. It’s weird how both the algorithm and motorsport teach the same lesson in different languages. Both rely on patterns, precision, and feedback loops. One runs on engines, the other on data. But both require intuitive human touch. Maybe that’s why I love both.
And then one day, I realised I wasn’t just learning anymore. I was echoing.
When I shared advice with a friend who was stuck creatively and academically, when I helped an artist blow up with their backtrack, when I wrote something online, and someone said, “This helped me”, then that’s when it hit me. I’d become the kind of voice that once helped me. The people who shaped me didn’t plan to teach anyone. They were just sharing what they loved. And somehow, it reached me. Now, I get to do the same. It’s this full circle kind of thing. The internet raised me through its echoes, and now I’m adding mine to the mix.
We always talk about legacy like it’s something massive. Like its fame, or awards, or people knowing your name. But maybe it’s smaller than that. Maybe legacy is when something you say sticks in someone’s mind. Maybe it’s when you inspire one person, even if you never know it. That’s how it works online. You post something, and it disappears. Or at least you think it does. But somewhere out there, it finds someone who needs it.
The algorithm isn’t really about recommendations. It’s about timing. The right words, the right story, the right moment. Sometimes when I close my laptop, I think about all the people who have quietly shaped me without ever knowing. The music producers who showed me how to layer sound. The writers who taught me how to make people feel something. The drivers who made me see how focus can turn chaos into art.
And it’s funny, because now, I find myself doing the same thing.
Every time I post something honest, or write an article, or make a song that comes from the heart, I wonder if it’ll find someone who needs it. Maybe a thirteen-year-old like I once was, scrolling through the same noise. Maybe they’ll read my words and feel what I once felt—that they’re not alone. That thought makes it all worth it.
So no, I don’t see the algorithm as some robot that controls everything. I see it as a mirror. One that reflects what I search for, what I care about, what I dream about. Sometimes it overwhelms me. Sometimes it gets me wrong. But most of the time, it reminds me that I’m part of something much bigger.
We’re all echoes, really. Shaped by the voices that came before, shaping the ones that come after. So if the algorithm ever shows you something that changes how you think, pause for a moment. That’s not luck. That’s someone else’s echo finding you.
And someday, someone else’s feed might be waiting for yours.
