Hooked by the Instagram Algorithm: Why the Numbers Don’t Matter in 2025

Autumn in New Zealand, the lingering period between peak seasons, is draggingly slow. After finishing the summer season up North, saving money for a car and more road trips, I headed to the South Island to find a new job for winter. Admittedly, this transitional phase has lasted much longer than initially expected, and months went by with no replies to any of my applications. So, in order to feel at least a bit productive, I turned my attention to my photography Instagram page.

Hooked by Algorithm

Two years later, I’m still finding myself stuck in a pile of photos from Indonesia, and as I start posting them, I’m reminded of how very low the engagement on each photo is. Knowing the amount of time I spend editing them, I find it humorous (and sad) that the only people who get to see them are the same ones I could just show in person, such as my mum and my friends.

One night, a short-format video pops up on my feed saying, “Calling photographers who have under 10k followers. Do you want to get to 10k? This is what you have to do: comment ‘teamwork,’ and whoever likes your comment, follow them, and they will follow you back.”

I didn’t think much of it, but I participated regardless. I also liked quite a few comments before I went to bed. My account, which I created in 2022, had 115 followers at that time. The next day, I woke up and dozens of new followers popped up on my feed, alongside a flood of likes and comments under my posts, some of them even a year old.

I was hooked.

I followed all the new ones back, just as the video said, and started liking more “teamwork” comments. I did a reel, as the algorithmic boss told me to, since they get more engagement, and started interacting with my new followers. The boss seemed to be content with me, as all of a sudden, any post I put up got 60% more likes than before. I also joined other videos of a similar concept, some of them calling photographers under 500 followers, and some of them just asking you to comment where you’re from. My lonely days got filled with validation coming from people who don’t know me, and I don’t know them.

Funnily enough, I was always saying that I don’t care about how many likes my photos get, but didn’t it feel good to get that many positive reactions out of the blue? Yes, it did.

Bear in mind, I’ve still got a very small account under the 500-follower mark, and my posts never get more than 100 likes, even after this algorithmic charade. However, percentage-wise, my account gained 287% more followers compared to the previous month, and a reach jump of over 2,000%. That is pretty significant. I was riding this algorithmic surf wave confidently for about a week. Some days, I’d spend even up to four hours interacting.

I started learning more about the theory behind the 2025 tricks to make the algorithm fall for its user, and I was seeing all the practices displayed on other photography accounts. It's about reels and carousels now, not just single photos. Got it. Post stories every day. Got it. Comment on other profiles. Got it. Interact, interact, interact. Got it.

The reason I wasn’t making reels was simply because I couldn’t be bothered, but I decided to give it a try this time. One reel took me about the same amount of time as editing ten photos would. It was dreadful.

After a few days, I noticed that the actual pursuit of photography was disproportionately small compared to the time I spent playing the algorithmic game. Eventually, I had to focus on other things, hopped back into job seeking, and started living life outside that stupid screen again. As soon as my attention started falling off the platform, so did my numbers, likes, and followers. I’d say the algorithm noticed my absence almost instantly. I posted a photo about three weeks after this boom, and it got a total of 15 likes, even less than my photos from before. So, where did all those 270% more followers go?

The truth is, followers don’t mean anything in 2025, nor do likes. I’m pretty sure that if I wanted to, I could do this for a month and would eventually get to at least a couple of thousands new followers. But at what cost? Four hours (or more) in front of a screen, talking to strangers, and checking trends?

What’s the biggest takeaway from this experiment for me is that the algorithm is made to be addictive. Okay, I know, what a revolutionary idea. No one has ever thought of that before?? Honestly though, I had no idea how fast it works to recognise your addictive potential, which made me realise how much more sinister the whole thing is. Once you become the good, addicted user it wants you to be, it rewards you in the form of likes and a rise in followers. It gives you the sweet taste of external validation by complete strangers. On the other hand, if you don’t do your duties, if you fail to be glued to the screen every single day, you get “punishment.” Your profile won’t be shown outside your existing bubble, which means fewer followers and fewer likes.

One good thing that came out of this was that I got to engage with some incredible photographers who are hard to find otherwise. Some of them are award-winning professionals who fall under the bracket of less than 2000 followers and a handful of likes under their pieces of art, dedication, and passion. They intentionally failed to listen to the big boss, and did their own thing instead, and better than most. Another proof that numbers don't mean anything any more is that I encountered profiles who would either have no posts up, or a few terrible ones, but hundreds or even thousands of followers. One of those begged me to give them a follow just because it's their birthday or something. For real.

I think we could easily apply the old saying, "It’s better to have a few good friends than hundreds of fake ones," to social media today. Having a few hundred followers who either know you personally or genuinely follow you for your work is far more meaningful than having thousands of random strangers, where you're just a number to them, and they are to you. It makes much more sense to grow your network locally through events, workshops, and meaningful collaborations, and to follow people whose work you truly want to support or be inspired by.

Back in the day, Instagram was a social media platform for photographers. That was, of course, before Meta, before Zuckerberg, before the algorithm, before influencers and all that jazz. Now, up-and-coming photographers without an established following have to become influencers themselves just to bring viral attention to their craft. They have to make reels to keep up with the trend of short, fast-paced videos originating from TikTok, and now shovelled down users' throats by Meta's algorithm. They have to follow, like, and comment on other profiles just to get some attention back.

Or, they don’t have to do any of that. They can just keep doing what they love most, outside the algorithmic bubble.

One of the few genuinely good reasons I still find the Instagram photography account useful is that it motivates me to keep up with all the editing.

Even if it’s only my mum who likes it.