#but yeah the tiktok algorithm the YouTube algorithm

[nerdy-hyperfixations]

It is genuinely a weird feeling to have been tracking AI development since 2014 and seeing all the people just find out about it in the past 4 years because the same people that will call you a horrible degenerate for going anywhere near AI are literally the same people who praise Tiktok for its algorithm and they don't even know. They don't even *know* what the algorithm is.

[thestaplerqueen]

always have to explain to people I’m not doom scrolling but numb scrolling. the internet is providing me with infinite hours of memes and videos that have nothing to do with the horrid state of the world and I am trapped in an addictive trance til I’m numb. I feel worse but it’s not because I’m amassing doom internally. It’s because I don’t put doom on my feed and my feed is mostly pictures of spiderman and I can’t look away and I can’t look away and I can’t and I need more pictures of spiderman.

[transgenbur]

i have so many thoughts about the tommy song/video and theyre a jumbled mess. i wouldnt call this an analysis this is just. most of my thoughts surrounding the video and what it shows about tommy

one of the things that stuck out to me (outside of how depressing and just like. is this guy okay) is something that ive always respected tommy for because he's always stuck with it and its his like. fervent conviction in people doing things theyre passionate about. thats always been one of the things he talks about all the time!!!

when AI started appearing he was talking about death of creativity, with the internet he's always talking about how the real tragedy is the algorithm killing people's passion by driving them with views and money, and even when he talks about youtube itself, and nowadays standup, its so full of passion.

and i think thats really important because it would be extremely easy for someone like tommy, who's in the process of maturing his online image from a very loud, immature and PASSIONATE persona, to make fun of it. it would be so easy to do like so many other creators and laugh at how "cringe" it was and make a quick cash/attention grab with a funny clip of him laughing at himself. but he never has. well don't get me wrong he's laughed at himself or old videos but it's always just. good natured taking the piss out of himself, it's never this like. mocking your younger self who was so excited to do what they did only because now its "cringe".

not only is he constantly giving that advice to other people (its been years of him replying, to any kid in his chat or donations asking advice on how to be a creator etc, "just go and do it if you love it!!"), he's coherent with how he applies it to himself. he realised he was making cash grab tiktok react vids and hated it so much he just stopped uploading for a while.

i dont know i just think there's something admirable about being able to still be sincere in a time where everything especially online has to be processed through a layer of irony. and its even funnier because he's more sincere THROUGH the irony i mean he's literally going into standup.

letting yourself create something that "means" something is fucking hard especially when half the internet still sees you as a kid who screams around. except the thing is that kid DID make stuff that mattered and that meant something because he was, in his own words, having fun.

i think thats what the format of the video was about too. i mean i think it was pretty clearly not a song thats meant to be streamed, its not purely music, its also a video because tommy is also first and foremost an editor who went to film college. its also not a "comedy" song like he's made some before, because those were all intentionally created to land as many jokes and make a big buzz— which doesnt mean they were bad! im philza is a contemporary lyrical masterpiece. but they had a specific purpose and it was to make people laugh and i think this video was completely like. opposite of what peoples expectations are of tommy. the "wow hes not a child anymore hes being mature🤓" reactions are the most obvious aspect of this (which, like, its been a while, get with the program).

i think the point of this was to make something that genuinely meant something but that was also like. as unpalatable to the algorithm and to the TommyInnit Viewer as possible. even now that he's gone into making quieter, more reflective videos, we've never had the flashing texts and the projector images and just all of that. hes always talking about how he hates the way the "youtube formula" has dictated the course of content and stolen all creativity for youtubers. its not meant to be a YouTube Video tm. its just meant to mean something to someone, and obviously process some sort of personal emotions, and i just think thats. yeah. yeah

i mean he even says so outright. "this needless, self indulgent spiral of self gratification" is pretty damn explicit. its not meant to be funny content its really a cry for help or for just. anything at all really

it was also a lot about perception, yknow the "entertainer" dilemma, "its all attention porn"... theres a layer of this point thats universal, everyone struggles with how they're perceived and i think any "artist" or "entertainer" figure can see themselves in it, but there's also a layer thats completely impermeable to most of us because it touches upon the sheer absurdity of a "youtuber". especially one of tommy's popularity. especially one who blew up so so fast so young. i honestly think its IMPOSSIBLE to process that. its about the ethics of having millions of people's time so readily available to you if you just press the right buttons to make the algorithm happy and then you've got them. im like 75% sure i remember him saying this on stream once, something like "your time is valuable" and if a fan didnt value him as an entertainer they should drop him.

and even here^ thats the saddest "lmao" ive seen in my life SORRY LOL but its really just. yeah im not gonna repeat myself it speaks for itself. perception and internet expectations and all that

one of the other images that stuck out to me was also this:

"yeah i know its too much like bo burnham but it wont be in a year though. in a year it will be like tom simons. just let me figure out what that means, ok?"

a lot of the video is about. influences and inspirations. the bo burnham references are so obvious he's poking at them, but i think he's raising a good point about the creativity that he's constantly praising. its never something that springs up on its own, its all about looking at others work and making it your own and feeding yourself with all those experiences and slowly, surely building your own way of doing things (tommyinnit "minecraft talent show" and "a tribute to dream smp" serial quackity + schlatt impersonator would know all about that) ->

and its daunting! its fucking scary to move away from that! which is also the main vibe i got from the video which, outside of his own issues with how he's perceived online, was the sort of existential dread that comes with actually creating. its one thing to preach you need to be passionate and create, its another to sit down and create something thats BY you. its a part of growing up! and we're literally seeing him do it live (well the bits that he chooses to show obviously)! thats also part of why i think tommy's so relatable to so many people is that he's so like. honest and real about what it's like to grow up, simple as that, and growing into yourself.

"this was everything to me" and using the picture of his younger self... man. theres obviously so much sadness underlying the whole thing but i think the nostalgia and melancholy in mourning being someone who was only inspired/excited by your interests and role models is universal. and obviously for tommy a lot of those influences turned out. well i think it was pretty damn clear who/what he was referring to here. ->

i don't think i need to go too in detail about that, especially cause a lot of the video was clearly a way to process his own personal emotions. especially with those next few images. i just hope he's okay and that god doubles his pain and gives it to mr beast to quote my friend bronzetomatoes. man.

of course he had to end with a funny clip about a hot anime girl and i think that kinda. sums it all up in a way. if that makes sense. at the end of the day its about the fact that he has to use humour to make the thing work when its out in the open, even when he tries not to and to be actually honest, but theres also the fact that hes literally a comedian and creating something "honest" IS through humor. its kindof a double edged sword

right well that was my jumbled mess of psychoanalysing tommyinnit i hope he is alright and all that because well that was. something

[project-r1ver]

I think it’s kinda sad that games don’t really get fandoms anymore and are more treated like trends to hop on. If mouthwashing came out in say 2015 or something then it’s fandom would’ve lasted years and we could’ve had in depth conversations about it for a long time but for some reason fandoms just don’t have that kind of pull anymore. I get that not every game is gonna be as big as that kind of undertale-era of indie games, but it really did make me so incredibly heartbroken to see how fast people move on to the next game like it’s just another thing to make a video on. It just feels like fans aren’t treating their games like artworks anymore, and more like another TikTok dance to learn. I’m seeing it again with that blue cookie guy from that mobile game (I’m sorry I don’t what it is or what he’s from LOL) and I can just sense it you know? It’s just a passing fad. Something cool to make artwork of and maybe farm some likes but in my opinion most to maybe even all of the recently released game titles, updates, or whatever have you, have had this weird undertone or trendiness to them and honestly I’m really growing to resent it. I know fandoms come and go but it just doesn’t feel like their allowed to get BIG anymore you know? Yeah everyone agreed mouthwashing was GOOD. I mean it’s a total masterpiece to say the least, but it feels like everyone kinda just played it and moved on. Didn’t soak it in. maybe a moment of silence before going “wow good game!” And then onto the next one. No room to breathe. Dude once again (and this is just my observations so maybe I’m just crazy and my algorithms don’t show me any good content as they often tend to do.) I feel like if mouthwashing or any recent title (ultrakill, deltarune, hell I’m scared that even tomodachi life is gonna suffer from it at this point) were released during the big indie boom of the early 2010’s, they would’ve survived at least 5 YEARS. Not barely 2 months. Again not every game has to be this big spectacle that changes the gaming scene forever, but I really just hope yall get where I’m coming from. Games are an art form and I’m tired of half of the internet hopping off of these masterpieces after a few weeks with barely any discussion like they’re trends. Oh yeah and of course I blame TikTok. So if you’re an artist or YouTuber or just like ranting, it’s ok to still discuss and make fan content of games that people aren’t talking about anymore. I really hate the TikTok-ification of fandom. It’s gross. This isn’t how the internet is supposed to be.

[olderthannetfic]

IDK how to tell you guys, but from what I'm seeing here, none of you know how to use TikTok.

I keep seeing people complain that all you see on that app is content made by antis or stolen or whatever, but I've been using TikTok for fandom content for a couple of months, and I've been having a great time.

Sure, we're mostly talking about fan edits, but they're fun and good quality, and the kids behind them are extremely creative and inventive (and skilled. Like, amazingly skilled. Remember those Evanescence vids we were all drooling over, back in the good ole days of early YouTube, thinking they were the coolest shit on Earth? Yeah, these kids eat those videos up for breakfast and don't leave a single crumb).

Yes, it's not a perfect place to be, the algorithm sometimes fucks up and you end up seeing content you're not interested in, but... it's kinda like Ao3's rule: if don't like it, don't interact with it; if like it, and interact with it (leave a like or a comment, save the video, etc, and the app will automatically suggest you more of that kind of stuff).

I've been going down a Twilight rabbit hole, for the past few days (it's autumn, it's Twilight season, don't @ me. You know you're booing me because I'm right), and at this point my homepage is nothing but people discussing the contents of the books, thirst traps for Bella's dad, and people making memes. It's fun.

--

LOL.

[transmasculinizing]

we need to like actually have a conversation about young trans ppl being radicalized right. since were so under attack in the us ppl get the false assumption that we couldnt possibly be anything but left leaning but keep in mind americans r fucking stupid so yeah there r like.fascist trans ppl out there and if u think thats hard to believe remember the largest trans youtuber is literally blaire white (philosophy tube technically has more subs on youtube but she uploads once a month so youtube is more likely to recommend blaires bs and it gets seen by way more ppl so yeah im gonna consider her the biggest trans influencer) she is the number 1 trans youtuber. and u can say only cis transphobes watch her but its objectively false. young trans ppl who r trying to learn more about themselves r searching up trans related topics and her slop is the first thing that shows up what can i say? support trans ppl who r good role models and arent pieces of shit. leave a like and a comment on their videos cause u really underestimate how much it boost their stuff in the algorithm. do this on other platforms to ofc. give these kids good role models that dont build their careers off cyberbullying autistic teens on tiktok

[elbdot]

PSST... Sorry that I was so quiet here lately y'all probably saw the latest post already (or maybe not) but yEAh I was SUPER BUSY with the Tournament I held on Patreon, it COMPLETELY occupied me for an entire month so I couldn't post on any socials in the meantime except for Patreon itself :'D That being said, I'm working with full force on a new comic update! I have to say I did enjoy not posting online for a while - with that I mean taking care of 7 accounts (2x Insta, tumblr, twitter, youtube, tiktok ,bluesky...oH WAIT, WEBTOONS) that I couldn't keep up with in the FIRST place...

That being said, tumblr is no doubt still my favorite platform, you guys RULE 🥰💖💕💖💕 I hope you're still looking forward to new EAA updates ;w; I have some original art to share first next week, not what you'd usually expect from me but I hope you'll enjoy it as well!! ;w; Otherwise I'm working on commissions and am taking good care of my health. I want to continue not stressing out about social media and post whenever there's something to post, no pressure about feeding the algorithm. Just doing my job and doing what I love at a healthy pace.

See you guys soon enough! Thanks for always being so patient of me and thanks for all of your support! ☺️🥰💖

[navnavprime]

Heyo, small update on places to find me.

It's been a very big while since I've posted anything of note here. Part of it is that life is been hitting its hardest, the other part is losing track of what's going on in Tumblr. I would like to fix that, but steady as it goes. Voice acting wise: I still don't like that we don't have a website outside of Tumblr where I can just upload a soundbyte for people to listen to, but then again I haven't really dipped back into making audio dramas in a very long time. Part of that has been other websites needing a visual accompaniment to go with the audio. I can do that, but at that point, I'm just making videos (which is a lot of work for me to do by myself and takes up a lot of my days). Art wise, we'll get to that past the read more. I'm hoping to get to that eventual balance of "doing things I love" with "doing things that give me money to survive". I'm getting closer, but it's gonna be a long trail. Anyway, where you can find me:

I've been posting a lot on Bluesky! I've been finding some of you on there, and so far it's been chill. I think some people don't like how there's no algorithm forcing other people to see posts (on the main page), but I kinda like it. I may do a lot of reposts there; that's the tumblr brain doing that, but my profile on there will have my art tag if you'd like to see what drawings I've done. I've also just finished setting up my VGen! That is a website that I've always sorta wanted; a sort of online shop that sorta details what a commission from me is like. Making commission posts that give all my services is nice, but they don't have all my terms and conditions, they don't have a visible queue. VGen kinda handles that and I think it's nice. ...and yeah those are the two main sites I see myself on for a bit. Maybe I can make room for tumblr. I know I have a Pillowfort over here, but I have had a hard time checking that out lately. (Also, please toggle your NSFW filters for that site cause I forgot I reblogged a bunch of WOOHOO last I was there) Anyway, for sites I'm NOT on. If there were Youtube videos or Soundcloud links of my old stuff you remember seeing back then, they should still be hosted there, but I don't see any updates from them happening for a very long time. You cannot find me anymore on Twitter because that's my personal choice to not be in a pool of assholes just to get myself out there. Admittedly, I was never "out there" to begin with, so that was a very easy choice. I'm not on TikTok. I have a grandma brain and I just don't wanna film videos on vertical. Anyway, that was just an update for old followers of mine! Thank you for reading if you read through this, I can only hope I can continue making stuff that is cool and maybe funny. Hopefully I'll see you around!

[pasteltheblerd]

So I did a little test today I put this video on Bluesky, Tiktok, and YouTube simultaneously. Same tags. Yeah, I think they did something to the Tiktok algorithm because YouTube sent a Dead **zi joke to 1000 ppl and Tiktok killed it. Very Sus

[hyunpic]

i don't keep up with skz as much but i agree with you that chan could benefit from just... staying away from twitter. a LOT of people there are completely insane (that goes for literally all fandoms) and he shouldn't let it get under his skin as much as he does. it can't be good for his mental health to be constantly trying to fight rumors and allegations and other stuff that mostly only go around on twitter (and sometimes tiktok, but they usually start on twitter) 😭 sometimes i genuinely worry that he's stressing himself out too often bc he cares too much about these things and i just wish he could get some rest tbh he deserves to relax and not worry about people's theories

yeah and i don’t think all stays are bad, it’s just that usually the negative part of the fandom tends to be the most loud and because the fandom is so big, things escalate really fast.

i don’t know how much time he spends on twt to every time clock the drama so fast but i would guess he spends time reading stuff fairly lot if the algorithm recognises he consumes this kind of content and recommends it to him. he’s always been interested in with what stays post online like he has been enjoying watching youtubers react to their music and watching fan edits on whatever platform and i hope he could see more of that kind of content instead of the stuff people write on twt which clearly triggers him a lot ☹️

[lesbianeddiesdiaz]

Making my worlds collide for a sec, okay?

It starts on accident. Buck blames the YouTube algorithm, really. He clicks on one deep dive video on some stupid celebrity drama to fall asleep to one night after a particularly exhausting shift when Eddie was still in Texas. He honestly couldn’t care less about it, but it’s good white noise. And then he wakes up to two women yapping about someone they keep calling rug lady. He’s confused, and then he’s hooked. He goes down a rabbit hole of every video. Tells Eddie one night on FaceTime “ask Chris if he knows who rug lady is.” “Is that code for something, or?” But of course Eddie asks him, and the next day he comes back with “Chris says that’s old news.” “Well excuse me for getting invested!” And that’s how he starts updating Eddie on everything he learns from the podcast. And Eddie, for his part, just smiles fondly and pretends to only be mildly invested, but really he kind of loves it. And now that he’s back he “doesn’t watch” every new episode with buck. For sure doesn’t listen along as they’re getting ready for a shift. Doesn’t casually reference some obscure TikTok drama one day at the house, everyone looking confused while buck beams. Yeah.

[charmac]

hi sorry going off ur tags i wanna contribute w some maybe interesting info as someone who got sucked into iasip by youtube compilations this year: the algorithm doesnt actually rly feed you macden when you start watching those. not even as someone who has a very gay youtube suggestions algorithm. and if they DO feed u gay stuff, its somehow usually dennis or the whole gang? like you can even search for 'mac gay compilation' and it'll give you videos of dennis instead. which is insane considering mac like IS gay canonically. my specific iasip pipeline was blooper reels bc i like watching the blooper reels of random tv shows but yeah prior to watching the show i was vaguely aware of macdennis as a ship but it wasnt massively pushed on youtube. .....and then i watched the pilot

I am not someone who uses Tiktok/Instagram Reels or really uses Youtube to "just watch things" at all, so it's fascinating to me that a chunk of people will watch compilations or bloopers of a show before they've ever actually watched the show, lmfao.

In some ways I'm almost not surprised that the algorithm doesn't push ship content for Sunny, because so much of their audience just watches it as a drunk/high sitcom (and I'm sure the views on compilations fall into that demo) but the fact that Gay Mac brings up Dennis instead is hilarious...

[free-luigi-mangione]

yt algorithm is sometimes weird, BUT, this whole case has been shadowbanned (if u search for #luigimangione on tiktok there’s like a warning and it’s just like weird) so probably if u searched “luigi mangione hostel” on yt u would get lots of media propaganda instead of that hostel cctv. also its a very very small channel, i believe it had like 15 subscribers before the video went viral (when i saw the video it only had 2 comments)

def someone on reddit got tipped off but i don’t find it weird or eerie that it didn’t go viral before, there’s probably some other stuff out there that we haven’t seen yet lol

the fact that this whole case is shadowbanned on all social sites and searching by his name only yields fox news and ny post and some copaganda shit as results is enough to convince me that either the person who posted the video or somebody who knew that the video had been posted personally tipped off the redditor

i don't find it weird or eerie that it didn't go viral before either but i do find it eerie that somebody randomly found the video scrolling through youtube and sent in the tip, i think the tipping was suspicious and it was intentionally done by people releasing the footage

also yeah i'm pretty sure we'll have more stuff leaked, we've already had the alleged manifesto being leaked, then edited with voiceover cctv footage of altoona motel, atp i'm just waiting for more stuff to be deliberately leaked to sway public perception into thinking he's guilty and not giving him the constitutional right to presumption of innocence until he is proven guilty in a court of law by his peers

[bookinit02]

TikTok is back (it’s not good anymore) and I’d love to hear your thoughts on the whole situation. It’s clear that it has been bought out and something much more sinister is going on.

well yeah, i’m not surprised at all. i did say in my original post that i fully believed tiktok would be brought back and wouldn’t be the same afterwards. i’m not sure if i believe that it’s already gone downhill in the last day—my fyp looks the exact same, so i think there may be a bit of conspiracy surrounding that. HOWEVER. i have fully believed for a long while that tiktok will eventually be sold out to american companies and information will start being suppressed. i’ve believed this since the first congress hearings a few years ago—and in fact, i do believe that tiktok began to change after those hearings. the algorithm changed to become more of an echo chamber, ads became more prominent, censorship ramped up, etc. for anyone with pattern recognition that’s been paying attention to the state of social media/the internet in general the last few years, i don’t think this is surprising in the slightest. this slow decline due to capitalizing online spaces has happened to youtube, instagram, etc.—apps that began as valuable community spaces and became overran with ads and hate speech. even tumblr, to some degree.

specifically going back to tiktok, i think it’s very clear that trump is trying (poorly) to orchestrate a move where he looks like the hero of free speech and make himself popular with young people at the same time. i say poorly, but it does still concern me, because apparently #thankyoutrump was trending on twitter today (though twitter is a cesspool anyway). i can only hope that anyone who already opposed trump wouldn’t be swayed by a move this flimsy. facebook has created their own tiktok page, so i think meta will be co-owning tiktok to some degree going forward, which will no doubt lead to a sharp decline in the app’s functionality and usability. i’m going to continue using it for now, but i do think we’ll have to move to a different platform going forward—likely not rednote, because i very strongly suspect that will be banned or bought out as well. a new app will pop up, and the cycle will start over again, like it always does, until something breaks or changes.

really, i am not the most apt political commentator—i just go by what i see and hear, and there are many more knowledgeable people than me. still, this is incredibly predictable and unsurprising. the only thing i’m really surprised by is that the ban didn’t even last a full day. but yeah, essentially, we’re going to have to move somewhere else eventually, or just use the app as best we can. keep the faith, stay hopeful🫡

[dj-of-the-coven]

Thanks for asking @vivi-mire and @goldensunset! To answer your questions, I'll preface this by saying I don't actively seek out character playlists that often, but I like making them. Unfortunately this leads me down some dismal fucking roads while looking for other people's thoughts on the subject.

Possibly to the surprise of some, offline I am known mostly for 2 things: anarchy and music. Music is my life. I have one million other hobbies, and in online spaces I mostly talk about video games, but my true essence is music--particularly rock and punk. My collection spans over several mediums. I have a 2018 Victrola record player that I've repaired by hand, a 2004 CD-radio player, a 2021 cassette-CD-radio player, and a 2007 Insignia MP3 player. Most people around my age ditched CD players by the time they were in high school (no judgement there), but I used mine this morning. I have two books in my bag on cassettes right now. I play two string instruments and have considered picking up a third! I don't say any of this to brag--it's just what I choose to do with my time and money, same as anybody else. The reason why I bring it up is to emphasize that I both know and care a lot about this particular subject. And let me tell you. What I feel when I see the same 6 artists over and over again in every character playlist is not simple haterism... it's pity with a dose of concern.

What bothers me more than the music being ill-fitting for some fictional character is the tangible evidence that most people do not have the means to discover new artists; also, to some degree, the foreboding conclusion that we are losing a diversity of taste. There used to be magazines and independent radio shows, local performances, older kids in the neighborhood you could talk to to find new bands, but the rise of streaming as the primary distribution method has severely limited the ways through which interested parties can discover music. Ask someone you know how they discovered their favorite artists--for real!! Most of the time, they'll answer, TikTok, Youtube, or Spotify. Algorithms. Mathematical processes designed to funnel people into profitable avenues of advertising. These are the things determining the music taste of today's listeners, and it's powerful fucking stuff, to the point that even radio stations have been affected by the algorithms of these unrelated websites. When I was living in Los Angeles, I had to watch the station 106.7 KROQ slowly go from playing 90s grunge and nu metal to running the Arcane theme song by Imagine Dragons 27 times daily, because it was being played to market the show. Everything is morphing into profit sludge! An equation on somebody's computer somewhere determined that this specific pool of artists would be able to turn a bunch of queer 16-24 year olds into a marketable demographic, and thus Tumblr is overrun by the same 8 or so bands in every poll, every uquiz, every embedded spotify playlist. You guys ever heard of Hozier? I've been listening to a rad new artist lately, yeah! It's Cavetown. You should listen to Mitski! Did you hear about Mitski? I think you should listen to Mitski. What about Mitski guys. What about Mitski.

Again, it really doesn't have anything to do with the quality of any of these artists (except for Imagine Dragons, which I'll never hesitate to shit on). I just think it's... odd, and upsetting, that so many people are trapped inside this tiny little bubble of music that has been algorithmically determined for them as the genre they can be arbitrarily sorted into for marketing appeal reasons. It's like hearing someone say they've never seen it rain before. I discovered many of my current favorite artists by browsing through secondhand stores, talking to older punks in my community, renting CDs from the library, reading magazines (I recommend Razorcake), and going to local $5 cover shows held in the basement of a record shop. It physically pains me that this method of discovery is dying. It hurts to think of how few people are engaging seriously with the music scene in the places they live. It devastates me to see so many people being restricted by their circumstances from finding the music that will speak to them, specifically, not every single young, white, very online gay person living in the United States.

Basically--this is not okay. Something has to change.

[ophernelia]

Hi. Do you have any tips on how to grow your sims platforms? I keep tryig and posting and I hardly get any interactions or followers. Idk what to do. I wish bigger creators would help out smaller ones more by reposting the content so it gets more views. Its so hard starting out

Hey! Yeah, I have a few tips I can share! This is gonna be long so beware!

I keep seeing this sentiment reiterated about larger creators. I get it, but I think everyone's missing one thing in regards to it: you already have access to the same audience they have. Just like you they grew their platform. Maybe it was a stroke of luck from a viral post or something, but they still had to start somewhere. What it takes is getting your content to hit the algorithm. That's all! So even if a larger creator never looks your way, you can still grow and curate an audience without their help. Small accounts are what make up big accounts after all.

You NEED good SEO. I'll talk about TikTok specifically. If you want a boost in visibility then get on Tik Tok. Properly tagging your content is the key to working the algorithm in your favor. I think people believe the more tags the better. No. The more accurately tagged, the better. The hashtags "TS4", "The Sims", and "The Sims 4" are always trending. You should always use those tags. The rest depends on the kind of content you're posting. I'll use my most viral video as an example. My Stormveil Chateau post on Tik Tok got 141.6K views, 22.3K likes. Since it was for a maxis match build I used the following tags: #thesims4 #sims4 #ts4 #simstok #ts4cc #fyp #sim #sims4tok #sims4maxismatch #sims4build #sims4builds #ts4build #ts4gameplay. Most of the tags are related to TS4 and TS4 builds. I wouldn't include anything about CAS, mods, etc. It wouldn't fit the post. Don't flood other tags in hopes of getting more views. It'll just bury your post under a bunch of random content. People have to be able to find your content.

Visually appealing content performs better, period. Y'all give the aesthetic girls hell but they know a thing or two about working the algorithm. I'll give them that! People like things that look nice. Now, that's not to say you need to purge all the color or character from your game. You don't have to follow a certain style trend. Curate your own personal style. Do what you do to the best of your ability. Whatever you post, just make sure it's good quality. Focus on sharpness, clarity, etc. If you wanna curate a particular look then go for it! But most importantly, having clear clean images or videos is the main thing you need. And you don't need a beast of a PC to do it. Sharpen your images and videos before you upload them using Capcut or something. Make sure the lighting is nice. Make sure it's a good resolution for the platform you're posting on. A quick tip: Adding dof to lower quality images makes it look better! See how the left photo looks more clear than the right? A little bit of depth of field helps so the pictures don't fall flat.

Pick a primary social to promote your secondary ones. Usually your primary social may be the one where you have your largest audience. For me, it was Tik Tok. On there I'd promote my Patreon, YouTube, and Tumblr. You just released some cc? Post something about it on Tik Tok, let your audience know they can find it on your Tumblr. Use one to promote the others.

Slow organic growth is STILL growth. Growing your audience is one beast, but maintaining it is a whole other thing. As someone who has gotten shout outs from larger creators, that initial boost ALWAYS dies down. And socials like YouTube will not hesitate to tell you "Hey boo, your shit's failing now. You kinda suck." Been there, felt that. Boosts from other creators and giveaways don't have much longevity. Most times that audience will leave. On occasion you may get a few who stick around, but most won't. That's why it's important to build your audience organically. Yes, it may take longer but they won't just dip out after a few weeks. Things take time to grow. Things take time to curate. Understand you are BUILDING something. It takes time!

And lastly- if you just really want the numbers and it doesn't matter what content you post, then here's what you do: Sell. Still use good SEO, still try to have high quality photos, but give people something to consume. People like to see what they can get. Post some builds, cc, whatever. If you're not a cc creator, then do cc finds, mod reviews, tutorials, build recommendations, lookbooks. People love a good cc haul. They wanna see what they can get. And that's not to say people that make this sort of content don't care about their content. I know they do and it's a lot of work! It still takes time and effort to curate. It's just HOT right now! Especially maxis match content. It ruffles less feathers because a wide array of the Sims community has a vicious vendetta against alpha cc. (Yeah ion know. They will "uncanny valley" and "just play IMVU' you to death. If I say what I think it is.. My people know.) But if you really just want thousands of followers, then there's a way to do it.

With all that said, I know how annoying it is to constantly hear to not focus on numbers but don't. CREATE FOR CREATION'S SAKE. Do it only because you enjoy it. Growth for me has come as a byproduct of me doing whatever the hell I wanted. I make Lykaia because I want to make Lykaia. I love that people love it but it is for me. Not to be an influencer, or to inspire, or to receive praise and accolades. I love everything about the process. Hell, I love the stress that comes with it! I have four scenes to film and I'm still not done editing the ones I have filmed. The episode is supposed to air on MONDAY. I fucking love working down to wire. It's stressful as hell but it feels good! If it's out there, the audience will soon follow. Always. Take your time. Be grateful for where you're at every step of the way. Enjoy the process! And remember that all it takes is one post to take off.