Okay, so the title already explains most of it. My boyfriend will get a lot of thirst traps on his tik tok feed that he doesn’t consider to be thirst traps because he is asexual. The thing is, they just keep popping up every
time he goes on there. When I use mine, hardly any pop up. My reasoning is that the algorithm is showing him more of what he already watches and he keeps saying that the algorithm doesn’t know what is in
the video itself.
I would just like to know if it is unreasonable to ask himto click “not interested” when they do pop up. The (one) time I have clicked it for him in the past he got
upset because “he doesn’t want to influence the algorithm” although it gets influenced regardless ofclicking that or not.
Usually the videos are of girls doing splits, or gym videos of just their ass in the frame. He says he doesn’t care about it but they come up so often.
I used to compare myself to those girls but stopped doing it as much because I have been working on reframing my insecure thoughts and focusing on myself more. I still
find that I feel uncomfortable even when I am reassuring myself.
When I have brought this up to him, he would just tell me that I am insecure and he wont let me control his social media use. He also mentioned that he is starting to think that I am stupid for thinking that he cares when he is asexual. Maybe he is right. I am wondering if I really am being crazy and controlling when I would like him to click “not interested”?
If so, then how can I stop letting this issue consume me?
Tl;dr
My asexual boyfriend gets a lot of thirst traps on his feed and it bothers me that he wont do anything about it. Am I being crazy and insecure?
4 comments
Sounds like someone isn’t as asexual as he claims
whenever i’m worried about something and wanting to know if it’s reasonable or not in my relationship, i like to think about what the legitimate risks are. what do you think is a negative thing that could come of him having a gym or thirst trap video pop up on his tik tok?
you’re right, the algorithm does have a huge impact on what you continue to see and it refines itself pretty quickly once you stop engaging with content. in my experience, you don’t necessarily need to engage with those videos for them to pop they’re kind of the standard. when i first got the app, that was primarily what i saw until i started actively finding accounts with different content, commenting and liking posts, clicking not interested etc. it seems as though it automatically shows those until you cultivate your interests and engage with content you like. maybe then it’s not an indicator that he’s actively seeking it out but just an indicator that he’s not really engaging with the content enough to specify it to his preferences. it’s easy enough to click not interested but not having done that isn’t necessarily a malicious thing.
so again we loop back to is there any legitimate consequences to him seeing those videos in his feed? not really. if you can’t watch them because they have an impact on your self esteem, you’re entitled to self manage by not watching them. if they’re not causing any harm to him or your relationship, i don’t think you should be restricting his social media or demanding that he refines his feed in a certain way.
The problem here is one of perception. To you they are thirst traps. TO him what are they are? I don’t see you looking to understand his perspective. If he isn’t there for the thirst what is he there for?
I’m not sure how I’d react in this situation (my relationship doesn’t have this boundary) but if it helps: sometimes that app will goddamn insist on giving you content you don’t want. No matter how many times I click Not Interested, tiktok is HELLBENT on showing me teenage straight boy thirst traps, which, apologies to them, utterly disgust me 😩 nothing about my scrolling should suggest I want to see them, yet they continue to pop up.