Instagram’s Reels are still pretty new, like molten lava that’s still warm and constantly moving. Because of that, Reels don’t really have their own culture or breakout native memes (although I’m sure that will happen eventually).
Things might look very different a month from now, but at this very moment, in the summer of 2024 … is it just me, or are Reels really, really weird?
Let me describe a video I recently saw: There’s a man with white hair — I’d guess about 65 years old — in glasses, wearing a white button-down shirt and tie. He has a beard and a thick mustache with hairs that improbably point upward into his nostrils. Based on the background, he looks to be inside a fairly normal American living room. He holds the phone, stares into the camera, and breathes heavily — audibly — for about 10 seconds. He says nothing during the entire video.
This man has only posted to Instagram eight times. He has only 37 followers. He by no means appears to be a professional content creator or someone who has intended for his content to go viral — and yet the video of him breathing deeply has more than 10,000 views and more than 400 comments. One of the comments, at the top: “That’s it I need to destroy my account. Algorithm’s ruined.”
Introducing the Instagram ‘Mythical Reel Pull’
A few other comments describe the man’s post as a “Mythical Pull.” A “Mythical Reel Pull” (or, on TikTok, “Mythical FYP Pull”) refers to when an algorithm serves up a weird and surprising video — something so strange you can’t believe you’re seeing it, as if you’re not supposed to see it.
Lately, my Instagram Reels feed has gone haywire, chock full of these Mythical Pulls to the point they’ve become the rule rather than the exception. I think I have a theory as to why.
Sometime this spring, I started seeing more and more videos like this — weird stuff, stuff that felt unintentional, from people who maybe didn’t expect their videos to go (minorly) viral. Older people, tween boys, people who seem to be on drugs or unwell, or people who talk about sex in a way that would make you want to move to the other side of the subway car. These people didn’t seem to be trying to be creators. Their videos weren’t polished or professional; they didn’t have lots of followers.
It seemed more like they just happened to post a video to Instagram, and my algorithm “pulled” it from the spinning wheel of content.
My first theory of why this is happening? More weird stuff is floating to the top because of a very specific and big change in the way Reels work.
In May, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said the app was trying to surface smaller creators: “One of the changes we’re making to how ranking works we’re doing is going to try to amplify small creators, specifically through recommendations,” he said in a video. “What we’re trying to do now is give every piece of content on Instagram a chance to be recommended to people who don’t follow you.”
In practical terms, this means that previously, a post would first only be shown to your followers. If the post performed well (getting above-average likes/shares/comments), then it would kick over into the “recommendations” engine, where it could go viral. This way, only top-performing content would blow up, giving an advantage to big creators with huge followings.
Now, every video can be recommended as soon as it’s posted.
Meta says the big change hasn’t been rolled out to everyone
A representative for Meta said my theory about the new recommendations rule couldn’t be the correct explanation for why I’m seeing such weird stuff because the new rule hasn’t been rolled out to everyone yet. But that doesn’t quite make sense because even a partial rollout could explain this. The spokesperson didn’t answer any other questions about why it might be that I see such strange stuff compared to TikTok, where my feed is more tailored to my interests like makeup, parenting, or celebrities.
The tweak to Instagram’s recommendation engine would explain why I was shown a Reel that was simply one still photo of a steakhouse in Wyoming. It had zero likes or shares and only 61 views (so far). This is probably great for the steakhouse, which wants new people to see its content (even if I don’t live in Wyoming). It’s probably great for small creators who are trying to get more reach.
But it creates an odd situation for people who don’t necessarily want— or might not even be uncomfortable with — a sudden deluge of strangers looking at their content.
There’s a wide middle ground of people who don’t want to make their Instagram private but aren’t looking or expecting to court attention from strangers. In fact, I’d guess that’s a majority of users.
Going viral or having a post suddenly get a lot of attention can be exciting, but it also can be a pretty unpleasant experience. Posting what you think is a friendly video and getting a bunch of comments like “pulling reels at a level that scares even myself” and “Godly reel pull” probably is not a great experience.
The old man staring blankly into the camera who I described earlier? He deleted the video. I contacted him to ask about it but didn’t hear back.
My second theory as to why I see more of this kind of content on Reels instead of TikTok is a historical difference between the two apps. On TikTok, you expect to see videos from strangers, and you’d expect strangers to see yours. For a decade on Instagram, you mainly saw photos and videos from people you knew in real life — and you wouldn’t expect strangers to see your videos. Unless you were aggressively hashtagging your photos, it would be rare for a stranger to come across your posts at all, even on a public account.
But on Instagram, a person might only ever look at their friends’ posts or Stories, and then post a video and find themselves sucked into the world of the Reels algorithm.
It’s worth noting that the most frequent and loud complaint you’ve probably heard about this change in Instagram is from professional content creators, who are suddenly annoyed that it’s harder for them to get the eyeballs they used to get, either because they are now forced to post videos to Reels instead of still images or because the algorithm doesn’t seem to work like it used to.
What you don’t hear is people who didn’t really want strangers viewing their stuff suddenly upset that a bunch of strangers are now watching it. But I believe these people exist.
‘Mythical Reel Pulls’ aren’t always positive for the posters
I know that some of the people posting the Mythical Reel Pulls are not having a positive experience. I can tell that because when I look at the comments from people who have been shown some of this random content, they’re often not very nice.
I end up seeing a ton of Reels videos from children, more specifically boys around ages 9 to 13, who are technically not supposed to be allowed to have an Instagram account. These videos are often kind of cringey in an 11-year-old-talking-trash-about-Fortnite kind of way. And the cringiness brings really brutal comments.
It is a common meme to comment “try fentanyl” on the videos of these children. I see the “try fentanyl” or “this kid sold me fentanyl” comments so much that on one apparent child’s account, I saw that he had written “I AM NOT GONNA DO FENT” in his bio.
(I do try to remember that, almost certainly, the commenters are probably teenagers themselves. A lot of the Mythical Pull realm feels very Reddit/4chan/gamer/teenage boy. For some reason, which I have yet to come up with a suitable explanation for, Instagram comments are far, far meaner than TikTok comments.)
P.E. Moskowitz recently wrote about how the WTF-ness of Mythical Reel Pulls is a kind of zen koan. And these odd videos with low views aren’t all just old men or children. The phrase also extends to just strange and delightful stuff that you simply didn’t expect to find — getting to peek into some other slice of life for a few seconds. That’s the beauty and serendipity of the utopian promise of social media.
I suspect that whatever’s happening with Reels right now is sort of an aberration, a bump along the way to Meta smoothing out the rough edges of its plans. I’ll miss it when it’s gone.
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