Here's the Wild Stuff the Instagram Shopping Algo Is Serving Our Editors – VICE

Instagram has come a long way. Back in the early days, we were enthusiastically posting janky pictures of sunsets and non-aesthetic food photos with the worst photo editing skills possible. Valencia was the filter of choice, in all its high-saturation glory. Boy, times have changed. And, now posing with puckered lips has been deemed insanely cringe (thank god). The algo giveth—boosting your crush’s posts to the top of your feed the second you open the app—but it also taketh away (reverse chronological feed, we sure do miss ya). And there’s plenty of money exchanging hands, too; you can make a living being an influencer, even if you’re just promoting a protein powder, and even better, all users are offered a personal, tech-driven selection of products that you can shop right on Instagram—because you can never get enough of that, right? The Instagram shopping algorithm knows us better than our own moms, which is alarming, to say the least, but, also charming at the same time—it really shows it cares, what with it remembering that time we stared at a pair of clogs on SSENSE for 20 straight minutes before closing the window. So, to pay homage to the almighty e-commerce Eye…
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