Cannot ask myself as to the reasons. However, as i sat on my rooms floors, ringing ears on echoes off my personal today-ex-boyfriend's shaky voice advising me personally the guy wished to split one thing from, I decreased my cellular telephone and you will, immediately after on time purging it of all of the evidence of my defunct matchmaking, unwrapped TikTok.
Immediately the For You Page, blissfully unaware of what had just happened, served me with a video video out of a couple lovable gays filming an adorable skit for the lovable partners page. Clearly, despite the detected 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 Mickey away from 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.
We started to inquire the length of time it can take the formula to help you suss aside just what got happened on the reverse side off the display (tl;dr sweetheart: went, heart: broken) and you may punt me back again to #SingleTok in which We belonged. Therefore i put up a straightforward experiment: Daily I would personally continue TikTok and search the fresh FYP for approximately half an hour, ignoring dating-inspired content and you can twice-tapping almost anything to do that have breakups or becoming single. In the act I might try additional ways to push new application in the right guidance. With some chance, I might have the ability to come back my feed so you can a time in which I won't want to hurl my phone across the place. I'm able to manage shedding the newest boyfriend, but We was not about to help TikTok forgo a combat.
Time One
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 somber 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 "if your sweetheart," three couples bragging regarding their gender lifestyle, 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.
Time One or two
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 being provided to your and away from skits regarding the spooning, TikTok wasn't hearing me.