Fighting against the platform for visibility is part of why users like Ada Wrong are moving away from posting memes and toward other digital projects-like preserving posts and accounts that have been banned by Instagram.“A sudden detour into single motherhood was a long way from the journey I thought I was on,” said Johnson Lane. Some previously big ones, like and avoid posting new memes or have scrubbed past images. Due to the pressure of posting constantly to stay on top of the algorithm, and the adverse incentives and abuse on the platform, many accounts have a short shelf life and leave altogether. I would not wanna be starting out right now.” Each account strike increasingly limits the spread of meme posts, and creators believe Instagram is more interested in promoting Reels-its TikTok competitor-instead of text-heavy images, anyway. “The algorithm is geared toward the accounts that are already big being able to promote their stuff,” said “I think it’s a much harsher environment for people who aren’t huge influencers.
Every creator I spoke to said it’s much harder these days for their memes to find audience. But that’s part of society in general, and the internet is anonymous.”Ī post shared by Phoebe Bridgers Utopian just as harrowing as getting Zucced? Instagram’s algorithm. “People are still arguing if women are funny or not. You get hate for not being a man, and it’s worse if you’re not white,” said who is Asian American. “If think a meme page is funny, they assume they’re a man, and they feel like it’s catfishing if it’s revealed it’s a woman. “ reported a selfie of mine and said it was sexual solicitation.” As a result of misogynistic users mass-reporting their posts, female users often get many more strikes on their accounts from Instagram. “When you’re a woman online and you show your face and make a ‘spectacle’ of yourself in any sense, it tends to bring a lot of attention, and you’re often targeted more, because incels online don’t like to see women in any way,” Ana, an art student who posts as me. Multiple creators told me that the environment can be hostile if it’s revealed a woman or trans admin is running a particular account. Instead of photos with jokey captions, these pages burst with shitposts clashing familiar photos and drawings with one another, text with zany typefaces, exaggerated color palettes, and messages speaking to the hazy lyrics of Cocteau Twins or the temptations of Super Mario 64.Ī post shared by kate bush 420 ♫♪ meme pages can be great outlets for users still figuring out their identities, Instagram itself hasn’t always been a safe space. Yet they’ve crafted an online subculture built on riffing on and combining existing meme formats to create something wholly new. Yet the most interesting meme pages are nothing like those glossy moneymakers: They aren’t verified, don’t post as consistently, and have far fewer followers (at most hundreds of thousands, but more often half that).
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Both the pages and their owners have scored online fame, profiles in major publications, ad sponsorship, and even TV recognition. The biggest and longest-lasting of such accounts- most notoriously, Fuckjerry-have spent years churning out text-based images, both stolen and original, to their millions of followers.
A post shared by ʙᴏɴɢ pages aren’t new, of course.