My wife convinced me to install Instagram so she could send me videos of stuff. My experience was that at first it was annoying, then I found out I could follow some cool hobbyist folks working on cars, old computer systems, electronics, and of course all the mechanical keyboard content, as well as travel (I'm an extensive world traveler and used to post travel content on Instagram over 5 years ago) and I got sucked in. I started getting recommendations for comedy shorts and cat/dog videos which I enjoyed, and pretty soon I had a list of subscriptions which made it possible to scroll for hours watching videos which interest me without repeats.
The problem became:
1. Ads, the ads are bad because they're well targeted and mostly for things which are unnecessary or scams/knockoffs. I found myself buying things I didn't need from dubious brands.
2. Thots. Maybe because I'm a male between 25-50 or something, but even though I subscribe to 0 people on Instagram that qualify as thots, my feed started getting filled with women using Instagram to advertise their OF/services. Usually these seem cross-recommended as related to comedy shorts, cosplay/gaming, or cars, but aren't really any of those things.
3. Notifications. Instagram generates unnecessary notifications which ends up driving you back into the app, especially if you are like me and require there to be no number badges on any apps on your phone to eliminate FOMO anxiety.
The net effect was that I talked with my wife and deleted the app. It was the only social media app I've attempted to use in the last 3 years, and it lasted about 30 days before I felt it was necessary to delete it once again. I had used Instagram from 2015-2017, but had deleted it in 2017 previously. It's gotten much worse, and even in 2017 I felt it was unhealthy.
The thing is, I'm pretty sure Instagram is "better" (in the sense of less bad) than TikTok and many other apps that are more popular.
> 2. Thots. Maybe because I'm a male between 25-50 or something, but even though I subscribe to 0 people on Instagram that qualify as thots, my feed started getting filled with women using Instagram to advertise their OF/services. Usually these seem cross-recommended as related to comedy shorts, cosplay/gaming, or cars, but aren't really any of those things.
THANK YOU FOR POSTING THIS. I have consistently resisted ever following, or even looking at the profiles of obvious IG thots and yet recently, because my IG account only follows a handful of others and runs out of content quickly, IG has been FILLING my feed with IG models. Not just one, not just a few, like a healthy amount of scrolling is required to get beyond them to other types of sponsored content.
I cannot for the life of me figure it out. I'm sure something I did or revealed has tagged me as "likely to find this content captivating" but I don't and I wish I could flag it as such. My best guess is that because I follow some "BRO" accounts (qualified captain, i70 things, etc) and happen to fall in gender/age pairing where that kind of content is a reliable draw, they'll keep trying.
I mostly maintain my account to follow hobbies and local businesses, but I'm about to shitcan it for the second or third time.
>I cannot for the life of me figure it out. I'm sure something I did or revealed has tagged me as "likely to find this content captivating" but I don't and I wish I could flag it as such
A lot of engineers in SV (and in this forum) think they know better than the users. They think they are so much better than everyone else that they feel a allowing the user to tell them they don't like something is just extra noise that doesn't provide useful information.
What probably happened, is that you watched a video for 1 second too long, and the algorithm took that as a positive signal, and since the average amount of dudes probably spend longer than you, they assume they can increase your engagement through biology and your monkey brain alone.
I hate it too, don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of a nice pair of Tatas, but I don’t need them in my face all day. You have to actively steer your feed away from it by gaming the algorithm harder. If a Thot shows up in your feed, swipe away instantly. Don’t even stop for a second. Then when something comes in that isn’t a thot but engages you, smash that like button so hard the algorithm thinks you’ve got the shakes.
I had the same problem and hated it. What fixed it was clicking "Not Interested" on enough of the posts to where it eventually gave up trying to show stuff like that. I think you're correct about the fact that it figures out you're an adult male and assumes you want that content, since a common theme with adult males is, well, an interest in attractive women.
The algorithm has now decided to just show me cute animal stuff for several months, which is fine by me. It's all low-effort and mostly dumb, but it's better than unsolicited butts popping up everywhere when I just want to see what my friends are up to.
Now if I could just fix the scenario where somehow it decides I really like garbage pay-to-play mobile games and shows me _nothing_ but ads for them for days on end.
>Now if I could just fix the scenario where somehow it decides I really like garbage pay-to-play mobile games and shows me _nothing_ but ads for them for days on end.
My wife used to use instagram just to look at cat videos and wedding dresses. She wasnt into cars or gym workouts or whiskey or whatever. She's also surprisingly female. Her suggested posts and ads were always just girls with onlyfans accounts. I thinks it's just a matter of what most of the platform offers at this point.
I don't use a whole lot of social media with targeting as part of the core feature set (just Instagram and Snapchat.) Instagram has their algo honed into exactly the type of people I like to see, and my search page is filled with basically nothing except that. This is despite the fact that I don't engage (comment or like) with any posts. They must have some intense screen lingering analytics to figure out what people like. I find it very annoying and wish I could see what data they're basing recommendations on. It's a large impetus for me to get rid of my Instagram account entirely.
> Ads, the ads are bad because they're well targeted and mostly for things which are unnecessary or scams/knockoffs. I found myself buying things I didn't need from dubious brands.
I make it a rule to never click on an ad no matter what. On the rare occasion I see any ad at all, if I do see something I think I want, I'll search for it later on my own. That let's me look at reviews, compare other similar items, and it means I'm buying from reputable sources only. Block every ad you can, never click or interact with any ad you can't block (or just haven't blocked yet).
You don't have to click on ads to be fed relevant ads. Your search history, app usage history, browsing history, credit card purchase history, location history, your social network (using any of those signals), can all be aggregated to profile you and your (potential) interests.
Searching and purchasing the item later can and (often but not always) is fed back to the system so it knows you purchased something you got an ad for.
All true! I block whatever ads I can to minimize the odds, and I take some comfort in the fact that when I see an ad for an item and end up buying later, what I pick up is not always the same product that was advertised or bought from the same place that paid for the ad.
We cannot avoid being influenced by advertising, and sometimes ads are even useful. It's just a shame that the ad industry has become so corrupt and obsessed with surveillance that the smartest thing is to avoid ads entirely whenever possible.
The enshittafication of TikTok is just starting. Right now they are still doing their best to provide a quality service rather than extract value. Instagram is about a decade into getting steadily worse, more addicting, and more unhealthy.
So IMHO no not yet, but it will get there eventually.
Ooc why didn't you disable notifications? I have them disabled and with a nicely curated feed (like yours) it's pleasant. The hard part is limiting your usage. I trick myself by putting the app many screens deep and in a folder so it's not one tap away.
The thing I dislike the most about Instagram is it seems like at some point it will be like "I'm done showing you content from your feed, here is generically popular stuff". There's a divider and a little message, but if I'm casually scrolling I might miss it and I'm on my timeline, if I wanted to be on Discover I'd be on Discover.
When TikTok runs out of relevant content and starts showing me generic/popular stuff; I say aloud "Ope, I'm out of tiktoks".
These days I don't check TikTok every day or I hit the normie soft cap after 5 minutes. My friends rely on me to be the "TikTok" guy since none of them have it installed for various reasons, so I "save them up" by waiting to view my fyp for longer periods of time.
>The thing is, I'm pretty sure Instagram is "better" (in the sense of less bad) than TikTok and many other apps that are more popular.
Users judge these apps based on different criteria and at different stages of use. On Instagram I found someone I wanted to follow but had to be approved to follow their content, I immediately uninstalled the app.
I get tons of excellent content on TikTok about tech, science, programming because I've "shaped" my algorithm well. I find people judge these platforms, as I have with instagram, before they have cultivated their best possible platform experience.
TikTok skews younger on average; Instagram skews more egocentric. You can mostly avoid both negatives but it won't be your first experience on these platforms.
The problem became:
1. Ads, the ads are bad because they're well targeted and mostly for things which are unnecessary or scams/knockoffs. I found myself buying things I didn't need from dubious brands.
2. Thots. Maybe because I'm a male between 25-50 or something, but even though I subscribe to 0 people on Instagram that qualify as thots, my feed started getting filled with women using Instagram to advertise their OF/services. Usually these seem cross-recommended as related to comedy shorts, cosplay/gaming, or cars, but aren't really any of those things.
3. Notifications. Instagram generates unnecessary notifications which ends up driving you back into the app, especially if you are like me and require there to be no number badges on any apps on your phone to eliminate FOMO anxiety.
The net effect was that I talked with my wife and deleted the app. It was the only social media app I've attempted to use in the last 3 years, and it lasted about 30 days before I felt it was necessary to delete it once again. I had used Instagram from 2015-2017, but had deleted it in 2017 previously. It's gotten much worse, and even in 2017 I felt it was unhealthy.
The thing is, I'm pretty sure Instagram is "better" (in the sense of less bad) than TikTok and many other apps that are more popular.