Make the Algorithm, Don’t Let it Make You

TikTok has been trying my patience recently. Since television is in the summer doldrums and I blocked myself from YouTube, TikTok has become my main means of daily entertainment. And while I have enjoyed all of the quirky content on my For You Page and the similarities between how I view myself and the type of content that I was shown, over time it has become too much.

Now, when I open the TikTok app it feels like the algorithm has created a caricature of my interests and identity by only showing me content that reflects the most overblown representations of my online persona.

My For You Page is a constant barrage of caffeinated drinks, drag queens, and social injustice. And although I love sipping a cold brew over a performance piece about intersectionality, that’s not the entirety of who I am as a person. These videos do not encapsulate all that I want to see.

Therefore, I have been putting into practice my research and knowledge on social media platforms and recommendation systems in order to curate a better For You Page For Myself. So, for those who are tired of seeing the same old content online, I have included some methods below that you can use to push your algorithm towards not only reflecting who you are but what you want to see.

Understanding the Algorithm

Each social media platform has its own unique system and formula which determines what content to recommend to you. This formula is generally based on a combination of what content you like (on TikTok there are hearts), your social network (followers, friends, etc), what content creators you subscribe to and their demographic data, and the amount of time you spend watching (or re-watching) certain types of content, to name a few things.

Therefore, the algorithm learns from you through how you interact with the content on your feeds. In the case of TikTok there is a For You Page, which includes content that the app is recommending for you, and a Followers Page, which curates all of the content from people that you have followed. The app itself makes decisions about the content that you are shown on both feeds based on the decisions that you have made while using the app.

And this is one of the main reasons why content creators are encouraged to “find a niche” online before creating an account and then staying in that niche by only following, liking, commenting, and engaging with content that reflects the niche that they are a part of. Even one errant like of a video that doesn’t fit your brand or belief system can skew the data on your account and land you in a rabbit hole of people or pages that reflect the same type of content.

Identify Your Audience and Content Community

Therefore, the first thing that you should do if you want to change the content that you see online is identifying who you are as an audience member and the type of content community that you want to take part in. If you already have a social media page, one of the easiest ways to identify your audience is to look at the content that is already being recommended to you. Instead of mindlessly scrolling through your For You Page, take the time to consciously note the videos that you are seeing and imagine what type of person or group member would watch that content.

By analyzing the content on your feed, you will begin to notice that there are certain calls and content styles that resonate with your audience. Within Communication theory, we talk about the concept of interpellation and “hailing” to understand this phenomena. Hailing is the way that you are called in or addressed by an individual or media text.

Some hails are apparently addressing a specific community or group (like a video that begins with a creator calling out “Hey, If you’re not a girl, scroll up”) and some are more subtle (like videos where the content creator uses a lot of technical jargon).

As a content consumer it is also easy to identify your audience, because most content creators have already determined their audience when they create content. So, if you are confused about where you stand in a content community, look at markers such as hashtags or the profile descriptions and previous content of the creators that you commonly see online.

Once you understand your audience and the community that your content is reflecting, think about where you want to end up i.e. What is your imagined content community? If you want to get really serious about it, write down the specific communities that you would like to see more content from as well as the communities or types of content that you don’t want to see. After you have that established, it is now time to counter the platform in order to manipulate the algorithm into showing you more of the content that you want to see.

Counter-Platforming, or How to Manipulate the Algorithm

In the article “Participations: Dialogues on the Participatory Promise”, Christopher Kelty defines counter platforms:

As the type of resistance that takes place on the platform as object

Similar to the concept of counterpublic i.e. creating a separate community within or outside of another community

As being against platforms as such i.e. removing self/content

As a practice of creating other platforms

Counter-Platforming is a critical approach to engaging with platforms from creation to consumption. As users we can utilize these skills to create the experience of social media that we enjoy instead of what the algorithm wants us to see.

On the TikTok platform, counter-platforming can be done by making strategic choices in order to move yourself out of one content community into another. Through the practice of counter-platforming you can resist the recommendation system of the platform, in order to make the algorithm work for you. Specifically, I have used counter-platforming in order to shift the daily content that I see on my For You Page.

One of the many ways that I have learned to counter the Tik-Tok platform is being conscious about how I use my eyeballs. Within social media platforms, the value of users is their attention and what you give attention to will be reflected in the recommendations from the algorithm. Therefore, I have learned to actively not give my attention to content or communities that I don’t want to see. While many of us have gotten used to watching and liking all of the content that makes us laugh, in order to truly counter the platform you have to learn how to be more discerning in your content selection by only giving attention to what you want to see.

Another easy method for changing the content that you see on your feeds is by curating the creators that you follow. Instead of following anybody that interests you or individuals that reflect communities that don’t align with your current interests, think about actively and regularly purging your friends and followers lists. Although it takes a lot of conscious effort to counter the platforms and recommendation systems once you have trained them in a certain way, over time you will begin to shift yourself into the content communities you desire.

My Counter-Platforming Results

In putting into practice these simple tips, after a couple of weeks of concerted effort, I was able to move from doom and gloom TikTok to cats, dogs, and fashion/interior design vlogs. With that being said, in order to see results you do have to put in the time.

Especially if you have been using the app for a long time, the algorithm has a lot of data on you that reflects a particular type of content community already, so you will have to put in time to shift the feed. And I highly recommend that you increase your time spent online!

Moving forward, I plan to keep experimenting with my content feed in order to see whether I can trick the algorithm into reflecting a reality that is completely separate from my identity.

But, overall, I hope that you find these tips useful in making the algorithm work for you, instead of you working for it.