Usually do not ask me why. However, whenever i seated back at my rooms floor, ears ringing for the echoes of my personal now-ex-boyfriend’s shaky sound advising me the guy wished to split something from, I decreased my personal mobile phone and you can, after timely purging it of the many evidence of my defunct relationships, open TikTok.
Immediately the For You Page, blissfully unaware of what had just happened, served me with a video regarding a few lovable gays filming an adorable skit for its adorable people page. Clearly, despite the thought omniscience, TikTok’s algorithm had not been listening in on my calls, nor had it been reading my texts.
When I next braved the app three weeks later, nothing had changed. There they were, taunting me again: boyfriend memes, couples’ skits, soppy compilations of Ian and you may Mickey off Shameless. The FYP had been there for me in the darkest depths of the pandemic, but now it had forsaken me; left adrift and single in the depressing sea of #relationship TikTok. Well, I thought, if it isn’t the consequences of my own actions? Up until a few weeks prior I’d been in a (seemingly) happy relationship, so videos that spoke to that experience were exactly the sort of stuff I’d eagerly engaged with. TikTok was only doing its job, but for obvious reasons I desperately wanted out of this nightmarish pit of romantic content.
I began to ponder how much time it would make the formula so you’re able to suss out what got taken place on the other hand out-of the new display (tl;dr boyfriend: gone, heart: broken) and you may punt me personally to #SingleTok where We belonged. Thus i put up a straightforward try: Daily I would personally continue TikTok and you will browse the latest FYP for about thirty minutes, ignoring relationships-themed content and you may double-tapping anything to manage which have breakups or being unmarried. In the process I would personally try added ways to push brand new app on the proper guidance. With a bit of luck, I would personally manage to return my feed to help you a place in which I won’t need to hurl my cell phone along side place. I will deal with losing the fresh new date, however, We wasn’t about to let TikTok go without a combat.
Go out One to
My first proper reunion with the For You Page was rough. During the 30 minutes I spent scrolling, I came across a nauseating 19 videos about relationships – including at least three couples’ accounts. Only one (a melancholy Brokeback Slope clip) seemed to capture anything resembling my current mood. As I waded through the thick sludge of content I noted down details of offending videos for later reference – we’re talking five skits with captions containing the phrase “in the event your boyfriend,” three couples bragging about their intercourse lives, and not one but two Mickey and Ian slideshows. As a result of my thorough note-taking I was perhaps guilty of letting those TikToks play all the way through, and the app possibly misread the watch time as a massive thumbs-up, curating even more scenes of romantic idyll I didn’t want. Needless to say I came away from the experience feeling emotionally drained, but unsurprised. This was not going to happen https://datingranking.net/fr/rencontres-divorcees/ overnight.
Date Two
For my second dive into the murky waters of the FYP, I needed a change of tack, so I resolved to mark a note on a piece of paper whenever any #relationship videos flashed up, and to swipe past them without hesitation. Once again I spent half an hour scrolling and once again I was made to feel worse for it. I’m unsure how many clips I got through in total, but 42 of them literally had the word ‘boyfriend’ in the goddamn caption. I fell back on the sofa, groaning. Try as I might to steer the algorithm towards memes throughout the being provided toward and away from skits about spooning, TikTok wasn’t hearing me.