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That's a great summary of why social media is a dumpster fire. From buying fake likes down to plain old sleaziness, you seem to have covered all the bases.

Big dumpster fire.

A lot of people need the challenge of the dopamine hits, and become less interested once they know how to undermine it, or how fake or unfulfilling "success" is. High engagement can be used as a currency though, its common attribute being that you can trade it for goods and services in a predictable way.

I actually keep a very personal profile with maybe around 100 followers. I watch some of the women there - long time friends - chase fame and other guys with shiny things - and I have to laugh about it because its I always can present that way if I want to, but I watch to see if they ever mature to wanting more substance.

I have some criticisms for Facebook Inc about this though. They should really broker these transactions. There is a lot of sleeziness in the transactional side of growing these accounts. So instead of just ignoring it, they could really be getting a cut of this in so many ways.

A couple of quick questions if you don't mind, since I don't use ig but I'm trying to understand your post:

> Basically you get meme accounts to do a promotion of a profile that is currently private

Is this as crude as looking for large accounts on socialblade and sending them DMs? Or is there some kind of marketplace? Are there popular forums or something I should know about? What kind of pricing are you looking for?

> all the followers to a private profile get queued up, you can queue them up in the thousands or hundreds of thousands

Why would people follow a private profile anyway? I don't see what the user gains from that. Maybe this is an instagram culture thing that I'm out of the loop on?

> For myself I have used one of the popular quickly and cheaply grown accounts to slide into the DMs of local women.

What kind of content would your accounts post? Do you have some kind of feed of popular content (imgur maybe?) where you can copy content and repost? Do you automate that?

Think of it as an economy. The venues for communication are definitely all of the above, but there are also group chats in instagram where meme and large accounts hang out and like each other's post and reshare each other's content. So for getting started there are cold DMs, there are forums, there ARE marketplaces mostly for the buying and selling of accounts, and there are also DMs.

The otherside of this economy is the ROI of the account. If you paid money for the account, or for promos, or analytics tools, you should be able to know how fast you can break even doing your own promos. Can you account charge $10 or what.

When YOU want to do promos for other people, you should already be in a position to DM meme accounts and individuals directly.

The individual market has its own tiers, anyone under 10k followers is out of the loop, but is doing okay at the social popularity game which is the crux of instagram: A follower casino where few people actually win. Many will pay $10 for a promo. More will do a reciprocal promo for free.

Regarding private profiles, people want to know what they are missing. Is it explicit and erotic tantalizing content that will be short lived before it gets taken down!? Is it hilarious content that only the cool people get to know about!? Maybe there is a sneaker or consumer electronics promo happening on this secret page, maybe a secret society that conveys long lasting advantages if you happen to be there. Yes its an instagram culture thing.

Yeah what to actually post on the account is hard work. But you don't actually have to do it much if you just want a profile with authority and power in direct messaging or real world trading for free stuff (you promise exposure, real luxury businesses give you their service). But for active posting, there are various tools to automate it, but it is really hard work either way. If you want to create a very valuable account to generate cash flow from more expensive one-off promotions, to funnel many users to a real subscriber business of your own or something you partner with, or selling the account at a revenue multiple, then you have to figure this out. You have your niches and you can have original content or not. Being able to quantify 3% engagement is a gold mine. Higher? Palladium.

Fascinating stuff. If you wrote a series of blog posts detailing how you manipulate the world of instagram, you'd probably frontpage HN.

Last question: If I wanted to throw a few bucks at it and play in the sandbox, do you think there's any actual legal concerns? Do you use a burner phone number and proxy for dealing with your accounts, or is this all so normalized now that it's fine to tie your real identity to meme accounts? (from ig's point of view, not publicly, of course)

Yeah only reason you want a burner phone is because Facebook is obsessed with SMS 2-factor because they care more about aggregating user data than security. Do they allow OTP systems yet? People that know your phone number will try to steal your popular account with SS7 attacks if they find a way to put two and two together. I think you can still sign up with email.

OH you mean to use the instagram app. Yeah thats not a problem. Just create the account however you do it and login on your normal device.

No proxy necessary.

No legal concerns with the state. With private persons you are dealing with a lot of creatives and media people, so although reposting is a fun thing, if you ever brand a page to actually look like an actual business then people will threaten to sue you for copyright infringement for random unilateral reposting. Just asking is ok, but not a standard that anyone else has to think about.

Facebook slowly lets Instagram facilitate its economy as you can have as many instagram accounts as you want logged in at the same time, and it is easy to switch between them. They should really be brokering the promotion and account trading transactions too, maybe its not as big as I imagine? But it could be much bigger too if they added confidence to the market.

So IG won't care. If you mess up with objectionable content, only that one account will get sanctioned in isolation. Although it is still possible to get an IMEI banned.

> Fascinating stuff. If you wrote a series of blog posts detailing how you manipulate the world of instagram, you'd probably frontpage HN.

I'm working on more lucrative things right now, so I'm just answering questions because the comments have gone this direction!

I knew this edge would diminish if I ever wrote about it, and on HN specifically I just figured a bunch of Gen-X people would really miss the point and only see objectionable unrelatable social media stuff they don't want to think about, a "get of my lawn" attitude, with the idea of a social media economy they can't perceive being something they would just argue the semantics of. So I had imagined it was only downside.

Thanks for all your answers! I think a lot of us have just ignored social media and missed out on all the interesting hacks that have happened along the way. You've cleared up years of stuff in just a few posts, and it's much appreciated :)

So this is a strategy to meet women who value popularity first and foremost? Sounds like a lot of work to "skip the queue".

not to mention that you get what you deserve wrt. the outcomes / kind of people this attracts. honestly, seems like good matchmaking to me-- shallow meets shallow.

If it works for him, that's his business.

No one asked for your judgements.

agreed. i don't view people like him as competition at all, as their and my interests in the dating pool are nearly completely disjunct.

that said, no one ever asked for anyone's "judgements" ever-- not here, nor anywhere else. but yet they have this shiny "comment" button, and i guess i just can't help myself... welcome to an online forum, where people share judgments (among other things).

Well, by posting on HN I suspect he's seeking more social currency via upvotes. That is judgment in a sense.

EDIT: Forgot 'posting'

I'm glad the culture of Instagram has finally trickled up into HN

Would you say the same thing if a spammer posted here saying how they managed to make money off of email spam?

Even in that context it would be a weird comment: "I worry about what kind of people would fall for such spam, probably stupid attracts stupid"

It is an insult-like judgment coming from moral highness, both of the posters and of the women mentioned.

As an example, in both cases a comment like "this is a disgusting toxic way to use the platform" would have been less of an unwarranted insult that still communicates strong feelings.

Yes, I agree with that. I just found it odd that people jumped to defend the guy that clearly was doing something pretty unsavory, especially when the line of defense was "well it works for him" - spam and dark patterns also work, otherwise people wouldn't use them.

whats unsavory about sending messages from a popular profile and people finding that attention intriguing and less likely to ignore?

not "earning" the popularity the way anyone imagined? every form of valuable popularity requires capital and external help. it has the same affect with the populous. sycophants with romantic interest are predictable.

It's dishonest. You know you're not selling what they think they are buying.

Can you elaborate on what exactly you think is happening here?

Sounds like they were doing the work mostly as work, and the women were a side perk.

Women who value popularity on instagram tend to be pretty hot as well.

> Women who value popularity on instagram tend to be pretty hot as well.

hot, yes, and another important factor being: fun!

the combination is anomalous in SF since the demographics do not select for it, so the evolutionary pressures are non-existent.

but here and everywhere you see them on dating apps and they don't see you at all and won't respond to you at all on the gram as this is their way of passively increasing their follower count and engagement. But when you show up with a lot of the thing they value? It is disingenuous to find this perplexing. Its wealth, social proof, and ingenuity in a tough market all in one. This has been attractive to our species for a very long time.

The profiles can be about anything even scantily clad women (maybe not actual memes though, but maybe), and they don't even know what I look like and they come through at least to the cafe. No different than any other date, just all the exceptions you ever wished for, and with fun and hot people that otherwise ignored you. Its more about getting a response than anything and recognizing that you are incapable of being the strangest or most precarious circumstance that many women have ever been in, just offer and invite. You are already rich, in followers, and recognize that this is a currency, just like they do.

And what kind of fun hat do you wear for peacocking?

Goorin Brothers!

oh shoot! It was when I said social proof wasn't it! well the other term I was specifically avoiding was demonstrating higher value. Yes, gotta update those concepts to conform to things people actually value this decade, especially when wealth and education credentials are more ubiquitous and not unique (in SF/Bay Area) and both genders have it more often. I just don't want to be associated with the twisted and lost "red pill" crowd so I don't use the terms but try to describe similar concepts.

It’s all the same stuff. I’ll never understand the appeal.

The appeal is to remove the randomness from society and specifically regarding attraction and consensual intimate outcomes.

I didn't like having an average case success with average people an average amount of times. I was and still am very allured by having best case success with consensus attractive people an above average amount of times. Consensus attractive and whatever I specifically find to be extremes of attraction, of which there is significant overlap.

Most of the attraction things I would do are gender neutral and are useful outside of courtship contexts. More like sales. Live in a desirable neighborhood, enjoy certain experiences. If I would portray a certain accurate lifestyle in a client meeting where the business itself is in the back of our minds but relevant, I would portray it on a date where the "business itself" is in the back of our minds but relevant.

Yeah, I find sales and marketing to be distasteful in general, and casting human relationships into that mold turns something beautiful about life into a hollow commodity. I have strong desires for community, and personal meaning, so I am happy to have deeper relationships even if it means they are fewer in number. It also feels to me that the urge to pursue a large volume of experiences in this gamified way is an attempt at finding validation without being vulnerable, which is ultimately self-defeating. But hey, if it makes you happy then who am I to say anything. But that perspective is why I don’t understand the appeal.

It was an analogy about how benign it is and not exclusive to cisgender courtship. Things that make me attractive in one environment make me attractive in another environment as well, compared to putting on a hallow mask temporarily for women. Oddly enough, I don't mind their makeup.

> It also feels to me that the urge to pursue a large volume of experiences in this gamified way is an attempt at finding validation without being vulnerable

Or its exclusively an attempt to have sex with a variety of people that look like the people I always wanted to have sex with, and it is as fulfilling, entertaining and intriguing as I expected it to be? I was wondering if you considered that.

> Basically you get meme accounts to do a promotion of a profile that is currently private, and all the followers to a private profile get queued up, you can queue them up in the thousands or hundreds of thousands.

I'm confused, why is it easier to get people to line up to follow a private account based on...nothing?

Curiosity. Intrigue. Boredom - well not necessarily, it is a form of entertainment for the instagram culture.

There is also silly user experience on instagram where you can share photos from a private profile to your friend but your friend can't see it at all unless they request to follow the profile too. Some content types get this behavior, more like animals, tropical landscape photography. Sometimes women/models, but thats more of a personal fawning.

Based on an endorsement from a page they already follow. Private meme accounts with tens of thousands of followers or more are not uncommon, so it's not especially suspicious

Thanks for the information! Could you share how much does it cost to create "one of the popular quickly and cheaply grown accounts to slide into the DMs of local women"? E.g., let's say I wanna create another meme account with 5k followers, how much shall I pay for other meme accounts for a promotion on average? And I was always thinking that the engagement ratio is low for meme accounts, any information about it?

Buy the account and rebrand to similar content. Don't grow the account from scratch, let teenagers in eastern europe and malaysia do that. Try not to get scammed when buying the account.

Anything you do from then on is to offset the decline in followers.

De-risk and break even on doing promos for other people. (lets say you bought a $5k account for $50, do 5-10 promos for other people, done. Start with more capital and get a more compelling account, don't go too big though, 30k is a sweet spot.)

Engagement ratio of 1% is bad, 2% is ok, 3% is great. Not super important when talking with individuals. Only when trying to charge more for a promo, or selling the account.

Thank you so much! You seem to be a person who actually knows what they're talking about.

How do you source these accounts to buy?

Thats just for my patreon subscribers.

No I'm kidding, I don't have a patreon, but I don't want to give my favorite markets up.

Ebay has accounts and some rudimentary price discovery there.

You can also just message existing pages on IG. My primary procurement accounts are just anonymous blank accounts that just send out a direct message with an offer. Money talks.

Emailing is usually possible too.

The main thing you want is price discovery, understanding how things are priced or understanding value. Its some formula between followers and engagement. If I were to guess I'd say

(Followers/100) x (Engagement x 100 x 1.75)

Engagement is a percentage so it has to be by 100. Eh and the multiplier for engagement is probably nlogn. after 1, 2, and 3% engagement would have a large delta in prices between them, but 3+ wouldn't.

> For myself I have used one of the popular quickly and cheaply grown accounts to slide into the DMs of local women.

:|

This started as a great comment but I don't understand the non sequitur into casual mysoginy.

There was no dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women in that paragraph. Please don't dilute real issues with your general awkwardness and discomfort.

> In general on dating apps, women are funneling people to their instagram profile to ignore them. If you have a popular account its a night and day difference.

Can you elaborate on how you would acknowledge that valid reality? Is there a different wording you would use if it was indeed common and accurate outcome? From my perspective there is no contempt, only circumvention and the reason why.

Before claiming that group X does Y to cause outcome Z that is unpleasant to someone, it is worth considering:

1. Is Y really a behavior exclusive to group X?

2. Is behavior Y fair to generalize across members of group X?

3. Is outcome Z the intended purpose of behavior Y, or is a side-effect that someone might take painfully?

For example, the sentiment of “In general on dating apps, women are funneling people to their instagram profile to ignore them” might read like at best someone low-key thinks women owe others attention.

Using a dating profile to promote another social media profile is something any attractive person might reasonably consider, and (barring some extraordinary looks, etc.) reaching out to them from a social profile with a lot of clout could be a way to get attention—clout likely being what that person respects, as they themselves are purposefully trying to acquire it.

But this wasn't a quantitative analysis on what other combinations of people experience. It was acknowledging a shared cisgender experience with women. It doesn't matter if other combinations of people do or don't experience this, and I didn't suggest it was exclusive to any one group. It also happens, which I think is the most important thing here.

I have LinkedIn profile and ignore it. HRs may say it loud, sorry, most of the time I do not seek job offer. Would I respond if someone I value send me an email? Government: "Only you can save Earth from Aliens". Hell, yeah!

It is not language that hurts, it is what behind it. I see nothing wrong behind original sentence. In yours I feel lie - there is something shameful, something that can't be said.

Also you've changed "dating apps users" to "any attractive person" which is awful judgement. Population versus gamers of one particular style.

This style strongly reminds me of George Orwells "Politics and the English Language" (1946), I hope it will not live.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_the_English_Langu...

> I have LinkedIn profile and ignore it.

I also ignore my LinkedIn, but I would not mind it being popular just in case I lose all existing customers and need a gig for whatever reason.

With that in mind, imagine I link to my LinkedIn from my Instagram (let’s imagine my Instagram is very popular), and then see some tired headhunter tweeting “In general on Instagram, software engineers are funneling recruiters to their LinkedIn profile to ignore them”.

Whoever wrote that would come across as a needy, frustrated, and possibly as someone who thinks I’m obligated to respond to their messages; but until recruiters start to ambush us engineers in dark alleys I’m not going to worry much about that claim, even though it’s factually incorrect.

Now, that scenario becomes a bit more charged with a claim that plays to gender stereotypes and generalizes across a group with a history of discrimination and violence against.

> I see nothing wrong behind original sentence.

I will rephrase.

The original sentence, addressed to a group of supposedly mostly men, attributes scheming or malicious intent (“funnel to ignore”) to something that women do.

The wrongness of it is akin to the wrongness of a broke person saying that Apple with its ads “funnels people into stores to withhold shiny gadgets from them”. (Apple is not the only company that advertises; that’s not why it advertises; etc.)

The difference is, in our culture as it is now Apple can’t possibly take damage from such a statement, while women regularly suffer violence from men. Why add fuel to this fire if you can express the same idea without?

(EDIT: rephrased.)

Your profile would not be usual.

I don't understand what's going on with gender speech.

No matter how I want I can't give birth to baby. Not carry, not breastfeed. This results in different roles in hunter-gatherer society, optimized in genes throughout millennia.

We should have same rights but we can't expect same results. We have different stats, we have different brains (hormones whatever). Even children. Boys compete a lot and are in material science. Girls builds groups. It is awesome to watch. Like girls emotional intellect on average is much higher. And boys EQ is much dumber.

I believe I can say this. But for some reason in games based on EQ... no, we should be equal.

I dance salsa. It is very asymmetric social dance. Man and woman have very distinct roles and we enjoy it a lot. Woman waits for invitation, man can invite, woman can reject. Thus balance is formed. Each dance starts with mini game - invite the one who wants to dance with you. And it is all just for fun. Also men are not expected to reject. I've seen woman inviting men on each dance, that ends badly - exploitation of rules - loss of goodwill. A month later noone invites her, rejected by society. Hope it shows that "ignore" is not bad in some cultures.

We should grew respect to who we are and each other. Accept strong and weak sides. That is the best antidote against unreasonable expectations.

Sorry, but I think your understanding is just a reflection of yourself.

More accurate and neutral rewrite would be speech from personal experience:

> Woman I've contacted on dating apps overwhelmingly respond to popular account, otherwise ignore.

Like nothing changed at all. No excuses, no expectations just naked truth. That's how it should be read.

No need to apologize, we all tend to understand things in ways that reflect ourselves!

Look what I've done here. I've said "dumber" not "lower". You've said nothing. That's double standards.

> The difference is, in our culture as it is now Apple can’t possibly take damage from such a statement, while women regularly suffer violence from men.

So your counterfactual claim is that if statements about about women "scheming" didn't exist, violence against women would be lower? That seems like a pretty strong causal claim when all we have is correlative data.

It could simply be that the people who are violent against women start and perpetuate such statements, rather than that such statements causes people to be violent towards women.

TL;DR yes to your first sentence, pretty much?

I believe that (A) discovering what is considered normal in one’s community influences what one thinks, and (B) what one thinks is not disconnected from what one does.

The trap of entitlement is easy to fall into, and if a statement can be interpreted in a way that implies you are owed something and deprived of it by a group who can provide it (that group already having reasons to fear violence from your own group) then I oppose the wording.

The existence of such a statement in vacuum does not matter, the trouble starts when it is published in a community. Bonus points if it’s mentioned casually in passing, implying it’s nothing out of ordinary. Bonus points if it goes by unopposed by the community (thankfully, not on HN).

Someone in the community may have their existing line of thinking reinforced. Someone else, who does not have an established opinion on this matter but is going through a difficult period in life (which during formative years or early adulthood is not uncommonly associated with lack of intimate relationships), may start considering this idea for the first time.

Start feeling belonging to a group where this is normal, and a feedback loop may be formed with horrible publicized outcomes[0] and not unlikely many cases we don’t know about.

If you believe that there is no causal link between those outcomes and perpetrators being able to discover communities where relevant opinions were considered normal, then we disagree and I hope you eventually change your mind.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel#2010s

To be clear, this may not even be purposeful. We may not phrase things carefully at all times, and in some cases casual accidental phrasing can imply things we did not actively consider before. Being aware helps.

> I believe that (A) discovering what is considered normal in one’s community influences what one thinks, and (B) what one thinks is not disconnected from what one does.

It hasn't been considered "normal" to inflict violence on women for decades, so that's not really the context under discussion. The question is, under present circumstances in which domestic violence is a huge no-no, and everyone knows it's unacceptable, would the absence of comments about "scheming women" really prevent or reduce such violence?

Frankly, that's a tough sell.

There are communities in which it is considered normal and/or advocated. If you read the link, you would be astonished that such communities could be found as close as on Reddit until end of last year.

In many (most?) parts of the world, for a woman walking alone after dark to see a group of men approaching often means to fear for her safety or life; in domestic conflicts women take much, much more damage from men than the reverse, the statistics are readily available.

If you consider “I don’t think it’s normal, so I don’t care what others say or write” a viable position in this context, then we disagree and I hope you will change your mind.

Generalizations, misattribution of intent and other biases against a disadvantaged group may exist in someone’s head, but when vocally expressed in a community they have the power to exacerbate an already difficult situation; especially if the majority of said community belongs to the very group that historically caused the disadvantage of the former group. (This is not limited to men vs. women or gender in general.)

It is worth phrasing things in a neutral way, even if it takes more words.

Everything you've pointed out is common knowledge in the developed world, which is what we're talking about. These communities you speak of aren't created by the language to which you're objecting, they create that language.

You're confusing cause and effect, which was my initial point. If those objectionable statements did not previously exist, incels and others would create them. This is why policing language is stupid. It's a symptom not a cause, and focusing on the language as the problem also punishes people who would never abuse another person.

Comedians run into this wall all the time. No one's going to hear a racy joke and then think it's suddenly ok to go assault someone. Even if someone were contemplating assault, the joke wouldn't be some "final straw" that drives them to do it, and trying to classify it as such simply ignores the real underlying issues.

I don’t understand your point, or why you’re still making it.

The language one uses cannot influence the mindset of another person? Providing avenues to advocate for certain behavior should not be expected to increase the incidence of that behavior?

Then we have disagreed back here:

> I believe that (A) discovering what is considered normal in one’s community influences what one thinks, and (B) what one thinks is not disconnected from what one does.

and we will continue disagreeing.

I hope eventually you will change your mind, but I’m not prepared to (nor expecting to be able to) argue you into that.

It’s not a “valid reality”, it’s the anecdotal experience of someone who uses dating apps to collect attractive women. In general, this is not how women behave on dating apps. This is how models who are obviously self-promoting through dating apps behave; it’s only your general experience because this is clearly what you are drawn to.

This isn't the least bit true. Tinder and the like are filled with spamming "influencers" that are pretty much only using the platforms to funnel simps to their IG and other social accounts, in order to gain more followers. Modern day spam, essentially.

I don’t doubt that they exist, I’m saying that in no way do those accounts outweigh legitimate, non-spam accounts that stick out like a sore thing to anyone with a shred of common sense.

They do outweigh them, on Tinder. I've used Tinder in multiple cities and it has the same spammer problem as Craigslist now has.

its "anybody that puts their instagram profile in their dating app bio" not "models self-promoting that represent any meaningful amount of what I'm drawn to"

people passively grow their instagrams and don't have any interest in checking their messages

the behavior I actually navigate is completely outside of the dating apps

I see the billboard (on the dating app) and found a way to get to the top of their inbox for quality time (outside of the dating app). Never even attempting to "match with them" on the dating app. The other side of the control group is an experience of what happens when a normal bloke tries messaging them on instagram: absolutely nothing

Equating a desire for sex with women with misogyny is in itself discriminatory. I'm not sure if its discriminatory against women or against men, maybe just both, but its certainly one of them.

> Equating a desire for sex with women with misogyny is in itself discriminatory.

It fits the definition for misandry. Ironically. Equating courtship advantage things men do with contempt is inherently misandrist (or we're at an impasse). I hope people are able to reconcile their corrosive relationships and prior life experiences to be more collaborative.

That's not the mysoginistic part.

Please do not confuse misogyny with facts. If he said "I would to that and that would have worked because women are like this" that would be misogyny. But stating something he tried and did succeed is a fact.

What content category are these accounts posting in?

Travel & Lifestyle

Models / Scantily clad women

Celebrity Fanpages

Funny, Memes (quotes overlaying images)

Motivation (derivative of travel & lifestyle but with quotes overlaying the images)

Fitness (derivative of motivation)

Oh yeah, I run my own fanpages for my own pages. lol. Thats another technique. Fanpages are just downgraded main pages when another account grows up or is acquired in the similar category (and rebranded back to my brand, with the lesser account being rebranded - often as a fanpage - sometimes as a business providing non-social media goods and services).

That's down right amazing. I've been working on a software to get and repost images to a suite of IG accounts using InstaPy, but IG has too many account blocks and throttles.

You have shared some very insightful information here -- especially about buying accounts and engagement rates. And have definitely executed something that I have only thought of.

I'm working with a client right now to find influencers in 1m+ range to do 24h posts for their apps. Maybe I'll get to retry automation soon.

It's clear that you are trying to sell something here. Might as well be obvious about it. Direct marketing works best in some cases (and definitely yours going by your other posts).

Im not trying to sell anything, I'm done with growing Instagram accounts and am satisfied with the women in my life so I don't care if these industry techniques have diminishing usefulness when too many people start trying them, and which post, the Goorin Bros one?

I just vomited a little in my mouth

Please don't do this here.