My [F20] new way of dealing with my friends [M20] unequal treatment towards me

Reddit, I would love your honest opinion on this!

Basically, I have this friend who I’m really close with. He has two other friends as well, and
I don’t think he is as close with them as he is with me.

Either way, he is always commenting on their photos on Insta, or reposting their pictures with music and cute gifs over it with little text about how they look soooo good. But he never does that with me, ever.

I mentioned it to him once and he just said he only reposts them if they’re cute pictures, then said he was joking. He never really gave me a straight answer as to why he treats them like that but not me. Which, especially doesn’t make sense to me because I’m closer to him than they are.

Tonight he reposted a picture of a selfie his friend took on his story. He added music to it, a cute little gif, and said something like, “looking good as hell”. I was honestly upset by it, just because it was a reminder he never does that for me. It just feels like I’m an odd one out or that he doesn’t think I’m pretty too etc.

I told my mom, and ranted to her about it. I told her that I wanted to tell him off or respond with something sarcastic because I was upset and just over it. She understood, and we laughed as she told me I should change things up. Usually, I either ignore it completely or let him know I’m upset (which, if I let him know he’ll just turn it around on me somehow). My mom said that I should do something different, and this time to respond to his repost hyping his friend up. So I agreed and decided to write the fakest, most sarcastic, thing ever and reply to his story with it, “Yeah she does look good as hell😍🔥”

My mom and I laughed about it, and agreed that I should start doing that from now on and then never compliment his photos (I guess giving him a taste of his own medicine in a way). Kinda like I’m just being a big sarcastic troll, but making it seem like I’m being genuine just so he can maybe understand how I feel a little bit, or get jealous in some way that I’m complimenting his friends and not him.

I know this may seem childish. But I’m really tired of the unequal treatment that I get from him. Especially when I’ve told him how I feel and he doesn’t care to at least try to change a little. I’d love if he posted me or commented on my posts hyping me up hella. Instead he never does, and the only time I get a compliment from him is in our private texts. It’s never publicly said or shown off, like with his other friends.

So… I guess I’m just asking for an opinion on it. I took that root cause being unbothered and/or confronting him both don’t work. I thought maybe that new approach would be a better idea than completely ignoring it or saying how I feel about it to him. So, what is your opinion on it? And do you have any advice that might help?