[wutbrodo]

The novel element is combining the passive medium with infinite content. In my circles, sitting slack-jawed in front of the TV for hours was something that only those with little mental energy or drive did[1]. By contrast, probably 75% have some non-trivial degree of slack-jawed passive social media consumption, even more so since IG and Tiktok.

To wit, I think what's interesting about this Era of media relative to the TV Era is the vanishing proportion of the population that's able to escape the habit.

[1] Not a value judgment: my sister and her husband consume massive amounts of TV but they're also both early-career doctors. I would be braindead at the end of the day too.

[650]

Idk how people do this, its just so boring. I tried tiktok and the first 200-300 scrolls were interesting, but then its just people regurgitating the same comedy/meme. Sure you can find a niche subject you're into like cooking, but most topics do get kind of dry after a while. I do think I'm in a minority though and know quite a few who spend hours a day on tiktok/insta.

[EricMausler]

It's enjoyable for 20 minutes a day, especially when waiting on something.

The key things are:

1) time offline is on your side. you can saturate yourself with current trends that interest you pretty quickly. You need to allow actual real world time to pass for those trends to update.

2) scroll with purpose and intent. aggressively dismiss things that don't immediately get your attention from any unknown source. (Helps the algorithm actually cater to your interests)

3) tell the algorithm when you don't like something. There's usually a "don't show me content like this" option somewhere. I felt dramatic about it at first, but it's the only tool you have to keep the algorithm from incorrectly assuming you enjoyed the content when you did watch the entire thing (out of sheer curiosity / hope / general inaction).

I noticed I now get a lot of low profile things in my feed that are actually pretty cool and fit the medium nicely. Lots of trade work stuff, before / afters, machines doing stuff, stand up comedy bits, etc. Those personalized things do not have room to flourish if I am giving too many things a chance.

[650]

One idea I had was being able to share your curated algorithm to others. ie. Your instagram explore page, or your specific tiktok recommends. People could subscribe to x person's recommends and see what they see.

[che_shirecat]

In this spirit, I think Tiktok would actually be a tremendously good matchmaker for finding either friends or romantic partners. I think a lot of their recommendation AI actually figures out what you might like ahead of actually showing it to you, by trying to sort you into a cohort of people with very similar tastes. Which is why as a new user its sometimes scary how Tiktok can almost predict what you might like. E.g. people into cars, 30-40 yrs old, rural probably also like DIY.

[Breza]

That's a good point. A simple k nearest neighbors search of users would likely turn up very similar people to you even if you don't explicitly include any demographics.

[EricMausler]

What a coincidence, me too. I think there should be a marketplace for them. Ability to lock changes, or go back to an earlier version of your algorithm. Power user tools for curating it better.

That's the next influencer game imo. Having people want to see your feed(s)