#to my regular followers: i have no explanation for this. please don't unfollow me for posting hp on main in 2021.
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Tried redownloading Instagram recently and I have some thoughts....
I originally deleted it because of the endless void of pointless, time-wasting, brain-rotting Reels. I finally realized it was actively harming my (admittedly, already terrible) mental health. It's the same reason I don't have, and never will have Tik Tok. If I have endless content to scroll through in my free time, I'm going to. I'm bored easily and full of Mental Illness™️. Yes Tumblr is my home and I have dedicated far more years to this hellsite (affectionate) than any human should. Look at the way I type, for fuck's sake. But I have curated this hellsite over the span of quite a few years to cater to me: Blacklisting/filtering tags and content I don't want to see. Unfollowing and blocking people LIBERALLY, and without the burden of knowing them in real life. Only following juuuust enough blogs to make it so I can scroll and catch up to where I had last left off without wasting too much time. There is no """"algorithm"""" to speak of.
In less than an hour, I had inadvertently turned my Instagram "Explore" page into an infinite, hate-spewing, emotionally distressing flood of Reels.
It started off innocently enough. I was watching a video of a woman with a service dog listening to a mother teach her young daughter about why she couldn't pet the dog ("he's working, sweetie; his vest says 'Please Don't Touch'"). Then it started showing me videos of some not-as-friendly people interacting with service dogs; harassing, petting, disregarding the owner's pleas and nervous explanations about why their dog can't be distracted on duty. This progressed further, to videos of "Emotional Support Animals" who were CLEARLY not trained in any professional capacity, barking at/attacking actual service dogs. And if this wasn't upsetting enough, the videos then began to depict rude strangers harassing people in public about anything and everything. In roughly 43 minutes, I had a brand new, clean-slate algorithm actually PROMOTE TO ME a video of a self-titled TERF verbally assaulting a trans woman in a restaurant.
Many people have said it before me in a far more eloquent manner than my current brain can muster, but this is why people are able to transition so quickly into hateful individuals. It is APPALLING how little time it took for me to want to throw my whole phone in the garbage. I've worked so hard to truly curate my online experience into something I enjoy, and can handle on a regular basis. I tell everyone I know: "Use the Block button FREELY!!!! Filter out content you don't like!!! Blacklist tags you don't want to see, even if it's because you don't like spoilers, or you don't know your mutual's current hyperfixation Blorbo of the Week!!!" It should be NATURAL and EASY to unfollow content you aren't comfortable with! Even if I erase my history on Instagram, or delete and then redownload the app, it doesn't mean this won't happen again!! It happens all the time, all around the world, to the MILLIONS of people using Instagram, or Tik Tok, or Twitter, or ANY social media site without proper community guidelines.
It makes me really upset to think about how easy it is to turn someone into a cruel, uncaring person, and how hard it is to turn them towards kindness instead.
#to clarify: the videos were mostly from the people who were being harassed and NOT the rude people#Kayleigh rants#sorry y'all I'm high as hell and overly-caffeinated I needed to get that out of my brain#apologies too if the formatting is weird#i exclusively use mobile#obviously these videos are good to inform the public what disabled/LBGT+/ minority individuals go through#but I've tried to filter my content so I DONT see upsetting things#I'm small and easily saddened.#idk man sometimes people just suck real bad#long post#tw: terf mention
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