Hard To Get

Why some of Instagram’s most-followed meme accounts are going private

Some of Instagram’s biggest meme pages—like greatercomedy (5.2 million), Pubity (6.9 million), couplesnote (8.2 million followers)—have locked down their accounts, forcing non-followers to request access in order to view their content. While it may seem like an odd move, going private is a new way for professional and semi-professional meme admins to stay afloat on an increasingly crowded platform. 

Going private means only followers can see and share the content. If a friend drops a link to a funny meme from a private page into a group chat, only those who already follow the page will be able to see it. So anyone who wants to see it and can’t will be tempted to hit the “follow” button. “If you’re public, people just always see your stuff and they don’t feel the need to follow you,” said Reid Hailey, the founder of Doing Things, a media company that manages a network of IG pages with a collective 14 million followers. Around 75% of the accounts Hailey oversees are set to private. 

Some Instagrammers frown upon this practice. “It makes your account feel far less genuine,” said a meme account admin, “I see that way of growing your page as slightly selfish.” Ultimately, going private is a reaction to Instagram’s opaque and ever-changing internal algorithm for dispensing content to viewers. Some meme accounts flip-flop between public and private as a way to game both systems.

Source: The Atlantic | July 12, 2018