PILK #3 | Facebook is absolutely cooked by

The first post was the latest xkcd (a page I follow). The next ten posts were not by friends or pages I follow. They were basically all thirst traps of young women, mostly AI-generated, with generic captions.

Not on Facebook, other than when I have to log in to get to the marketplace. I decided to scroll my feed after this. It is different from what this post talks about. Not heavy on AI generated slop, though IG is like that. Reels upon reels of AI generated story sort of things - of grandmas being eaten by tigers, that sort of thing.

The thing Zuck wants after all. And what Zuck wants, we all get one way or the other.

Instagram wants me to make content — I just want to post a photo by Allison Johnson

sharing app at one point, but that changed long ago. Today, it’s a platform for Content. Why post a photo when you can turn it into an opportunity for engagement? Instagram wants us all to imagine ourselves as the content creators of our own little lives, prompting our followers to like, comment, and subscribe. You want to post a picture of your kid at the beach and add a song to play alongside it? Fine, I love that for you. I’d rather not personally, but that hasn’t stopped Instagram from shoving its app full of these opportunities to adorn your photos in the name of engagement.

But Instagram has the critical mass. And so even though it is a mess of an app now, it’s very difficult to go somewhere else.