Twitter is abuzz with complaints of too much content from gimmick accounts — uncredited viral videos, high-volume meme reposts accounts, and hyperspecific themed accounts that nobody asked for. It’s all “crazy ass moments that go hard with threatening auras posting their Ls out of context” out there, and it’s not clear what Twitter tweaked to boost all these Reddit-like accounts’ visibility.
A deluge of gimmick accounts is probably just a quirk in the algorithm, but it fits with the broader trend of people growing frustrated with algo-generated feeds. Instagram is betting the farm on Reels even though it knows people don’t like them — and even Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner have publicly spoken out this week about videos clogging their Instagram scrolls.
Input has reached out to Twitter for comment regarding the uptick in visibility and will update this post accordingly.
As major social media platforms continue the modus operandi they’ve established in the past decade (copying each other), all eyes have been on TikTok, which presents its users with an algorithmic feed full of videos from strangers. Perhaps, as the other platforms try to mimic the secret sauce that makes TikTok’s suggested videos so addicting, they’re making some mistakes — for example, shoving posts from novelty accounts like “No Context Brits” down our throats.
I need to disclose that I am something of a gimmick account admin myself: I post Wikipedia screenshots to the nearly 590,000 people who follow @depthsofwiki on Twitter — goat towers, and ungovernable birds, and people who have lived in airports. I’ve met a handful of other admins and I think it’s safe to report that many of my favorites are run by former Tumblr girls who are now in their early twenties.
And while some people certainly profit off of their gimmick accounts, like the “shirts that go hard” guy who sells drop-shipped prints of the aforementioned shirts that go hard — or the people who use their highly-followed accounts to post paid promos — not all of us are making money. Some of us are just here to have fun.
You can always press “mute” on the accounts you hate. You can also — believe it or not — log off. But for now, expect to see loads of novelty accounts filling Twitter with crazy ass moments, and things that go hard, and an infinite scroll of other digital detritus.
