Tag: algorithm hell

  • Meta Is Making Me Sick of the Stuff I Like

    Screencap of Instagram For You feed with Madonna clips
    Remnants of the Madonna loop on my For You page, June 2026

    Fontaines D.C. dropped a new song last week. “Marianne” is the lead single off the Irish band’s forthcoming album, Dopamine Chamber, and it’s a good one with a sinewy groove that’s similar to ‘90s Depeche Mode. The band, whose last album, Romance, is one of my favorites in recent years, only dominated my Instagram feed for a couple days. It was just long enough to convince me to sign up for the Hollywood Forever ticket pre-sale, which I don’t even know if I’m going to do because I’m not in the mood to fight with bots over tickets that probably cost more than I should spend. I guess I was supposed to pre-order Dopamine Chamber, which is out in October, too. I could take my pick between the $47.58 deluxe gatefold, the $28.03 blue vinyl and the $25.48 regular vinyl on Bandcamp, but, nah, I would rather wait until the record is out and support my local brick-and-mortar indie record store. 

    In the lifespan of today’s clip loops, this Fontaines D.C. one was pretty short. It was quickly supplanted by Slayyyter’s cover of Hole’s song “Violet,” which popped up on my feed through most of the weekend. I don’t think I’ve heard the whole song yet, but the chorus is good, I guess. I don’t know. I had the sound off most of the times it appeared.  All I can tell you is that MTV was never this bad about repetition. Instagram, though, has no chill. Like one song and, all of a sudden, the artist usurps your timeline.

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  • Stuck in the Madonna Loop

    Screencap of Instagram For You feed with Madonna clips
    Remnants of the Madonna loop on my For You page, Sunday evening.

    Last Thursday, Madonna played a free show in Times Square. From the onslaught of clips that dominated my Instagram feed that night, I could tell you that it looked like a Pride kickoff, sponsored by Grindr, and a preview of Confessions II, set for release in July, with a couple Confessions on a Dance Floor songs (“Hung Up” and “I Love New York,” obviously) thrown in to hype the crowd. The clipshow came courtesy of influencers, legacy media and fan accounts whose posts quickly overthrew the Euphoria loop that had eclipsed election news earlier in the week. 

    The Madonna loop was a particularly relentless one, filled with virtually identical videos that bombarded my feed for no less than 24 hours. Even after it subsided, the remnants of Madonna Mania lingered on my For You page as I finished writing this post on Sunday evening. It was overkill, and that’s coming from someone who grew up listening to Madonna, cites Confessions as her best album and intends to get Confessions II on release day. 

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