In order to see less of what you’re not interested in, TikTok recommends long-pressing on videos and simply hitting the “not interested” button to remould your FYP. I briefly considered this approach but worried that by smacking the algorithm whenever it misbehaved I might end up getting bounced to some weird random corner of the app, like sheep-shearing TikTok. I decided this tactic would be cheating, but still resolved to take a more proactive approach the next day.
Go out Around three
Rather than trust the algorithm, I decided to take matters into my own hands and actively look for content more befitting the state of my love life, or lack thereof. As I ventured for the first time into the Explore section of the app, I clocked my suggested searches: “boyfriend gift ideas,” “cuddles with boyfriend,” “boyfriend appreciation.” For fuck’s sake. I had never searched for any of these things in my life yet TikTok was basically calling me a simp to my face. I ignored the slander and instead used the manual search option to find and furiously engage with every video I could under hashtags like #breakup, #heartbreak, and #dumped.
As it turned out, I was late to the party: separation TikTok is basically one of many app’s very productive subcultures (the #breakup hashtag alone has over 9 billion views). It was here I found weepy, snivvily solace among dozens of Gen Z-ers documenting their breakups day-by-day by shooting themselves sobbing, mulling more its shed couples, or doling out sobering advice.
Was this self care or self-destructive? I wondered. To answer that, I reached out to Gillian Myhill, a sex and relationship expert who once ran her own tech company. We agreed algorithms can be cruel things and she assured me it wasn’t unnatural to be annoyed by the couples polluting my FYP, rather 
, “you’re more in tune to it” when you’ve been through a breakup. “You have a different tint on your vision,” she said.
So is actually delving towards the #separation TikTok an excellent dealing system, up coming? “I do believe just like the individuals we find peace and quiet or information to learn we are not the actual only real of those, to learn we’re not alone – there are many some one going right through similar things,” Gillian informed me. “There clearly was sort of companionship there are from this. Both while you are sad just be up to individuals who see the aches or who are experiencing they. It’s a part of the fresh new healing up process the place you disappear and lick your wounds – and a method you might reflect on the connection should be to keep in touch with other humans concerning your serious pain and your event.”
Big date Five
My foray into the miserable world of breakup content seemed to have worked. Perhaps spurred on by the brand new re-discharge of Taylor Swift’s devastating breakup record album Reddish, 12 videos about the now painfully relatable “All Too Well” jumped up at me. In some of them, women joked throughout the splitting up due to their men for the sole purpose of fully immersing themselves in the song’s much anticipated 10-minute version (I mean. be careful what you wish for). Maybe TikTok was just reflecting the cultural moment as it should, or maybe it was finally reading the room. To keep the momentum going, I doubled back through my liked videos and forwarded all the sad ones onto my friends for good measure. In Taylor’s words, this was exhausting.
I was not the initial person to have this condition. Lydia Venn, 24, a fellow TikTok affiliate just who went through a break up this past seasons, mutual my personal aches. “As to what I remember it definitely felt like the latest formula is actually aiimed at video I might spotted during a love,” she recalled. “I had to switch my personal algorithm thus i would not be found him or her as it’s however not really what you want to pick in the course of a separation.”