InstantGratification: Becoming A Victim to The Algorithm

My complicated relationship with social media goes back to my early teenage years. I originally wanted nothing to do with social media at all. I knew about MySpace and FaceBook, but I had no interest in joining those sites. After a little bit of peer pressure and a growing fear of missing out, I eventually gave in to the hype. I used social media the way you would expect an angsty teenager to use it; to vent and to escape from the real world. By the time I got to high school, my curiosity brought me to a site called Tumblr.

At the time, I considered Tumblr to be a hideout for outcasts. If you were nerdy or didn’t have that many friends in real life, Tumblr provided a community where you can connect with like-minded people. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was my first exposure to social media management. Tailoring my content towards a growing audience, I would spend hours searching for different hashtag feeds for pictures and quotes to share. As I was scrolling, a selfie of a woman posing in her underwear. Ironically, I mention this incident since Tumblr would eventually become a well-known place to consume adult content. But since it was still new to me, all I can remember was how surprised I was to see a picture like this on a feed about a rapper I enjoyed listening to.