Don’t query me why. But when i sat to my room floors, ringing ears for the echoes out-of my personal today-ex-boyfriend’s shaky sound informing me he wished to break some thing of, We lower my phone and you can, immediately following promptly purging it of all of the proof my personal defunct relationships, launched TikTok.

Immediately the For You Page, blissfully unaware of what had just happened, served me with videos regarding a few adorable gays filming an adorable skit for its adorable lovers page. Clearly, despite their recognized 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: sweetheart memes, couples’ skits, soppy compilations of Ian and you can Mickey regarding 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 started to ask yourself just how long it might do the formula in order to suss aside what got took place on the reverse side of this new display (tl;dr date: gone, heart: broken) and punt me back again to #SingleTok where We belonged. And so i arranged a straightforward experiment: Every single day I would continue TikTok and scroll this new FYP for around thirty minutes, ignoring relationships-inspired blogs and double-scraping almost anything to create having breakups or being unmarried. Along the way I would personally try added how to push the new software throughout the correct guidance. With a bit of fortune, I’d manage to come back my personal provide to help you a time in which We would not need to hurl my cellular telephone along side room. I can deal with losing new date, however, I was not going to let TikTok go without a battle.

Go out You to definitely

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 Mountain 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 “should your date,” 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 overnight.

Day A couple

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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 in the becoming contributed on and away from skits regarding spooning, TikTok wasn’t hearing me.