InsideHook

By Kirk Miller One of the few upsides of the current crypto/NFT bubble bursting is the daily schadenfreude I receive involving each ridiculous Web3 debacle. Oh, the NFT you spent $2.9 million on is now worth $29? You can’t withdraw funds from your crypto exchange? What a shame. Putting all this bad news together in one fantastic doomscroll is Molly White, a software engineer who runs @web3isgreat, a cheekily monikered Twitter account (and corresponding website Web3 Is Going Just Great) with 95,000+ followers that chronicles “only some of the many disasters happening in crypto, defi, NFTs, and …

By Lindsay Rogers Long has Instagram reigned as the go-to source for travel inspo, thanks to the sheer number of travel influencers, writers and photographers pedaling their best (albeit filtered) snaps to the masses. A search for #travel on the platform today yields a whopping 629 million results. It’s even been criticized for creating “unrealistic travel expectations” and “sucking the spontaneity out of travel.” But investors are willing to bet that that’s about to change, as evidenced by the recent $10.3 million venture capital round just closed by Tripscout. Tripscout, as it stands now, is…

By Logan Mahan Speaking at SXSW this past March, Mark Zuckerberg announced non-fungible tokens (NFTs) would be coming to Instagram in the “near term.” Well, the near term is now-ish. This week, the social media platform that was once a simple photo-sharing app is beginning to test how the digital collectibles will function, allowing select creators to post or share or whatever the hell you’re supposed to do with an NFT on the app. Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced on Monday that there will be no fees associated with posting or sharing an NFT a user has created or bought. He also clarified …

By Tobias Carroll The announcement of Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter left a number of prominent figures associated with the company eyeing a substantial windfall — and prompted more than a few users to leave the service in protest. While there’s been some speculation that the deal could fall through at the last minute, let’s assume that the deal does go through. What would a privately-held Twitter with Musk as the owner look like? Based on some of the comments Musk made to banks about ways he might make the service profitable, it seems like a lot more user alienation could be in the works. Th…

By Tobias Carroll The latest episode of Real Time With Bill Maher began with a very Californian piece of news: the return of water restrictions. To the show’s host, that didn’t matter much; “The plants I care about grow mostly indoors,” Maher said. He then asked the audience if anyone was old enough to remember that this weekend was the 30th anniversary of the Los Angeles riots, and segued from there to jokes about Will Smith and Amber Heard. And yes, the topical humor continued, with a joke about Hunter Biden following quickly on from there. Maher then turned the subject to national politics….

By Kirk Miller We’ve been tracking what Facebook has been doing with all the personal data it’s been harvesting for a few years now. But instead of looking at the social media giant as something evil, perhaps we need to reassess: They aren’t even sure what they’re doing with all this information. That’s the conclusion reached by Motherboard after it published a leaked internal memo written by Facebook privacy engineers. Titled “ABP Privacy Infra, Long Range Investments,” the document shares several concerns faced by the company, particularly after the EU and India enacted regulatory changes. “…

By Tobias Carroll What inspires someone to like an Instagram post? There are countless reasons for it, some with the best of intentions and some with more than a few ulterior motives. The latter formed the premise of a new sketch on this week’s Saturday Night Live set on a fictional game show called Why’d You Like It? Part of the joke is that none of the three contestants — played by Jake Gyllenhaal, Chris Redd and Chloe Fineman — know what the premise of the show is going in. Kenan Thompson’s host, however, is more than willing to let them know — and ask some questions about very specific “li…

By Logan Mahan It feels like we shouldn’t have to tell you, a man, not to go and DM unsolicited nudes or hateful, harassing messages to women online, but unfortunately, that shit keeps happening. So here we go… A new report conducted by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) found that high-profile women on Instagram face “an epidemic of misogynist abuse,”after researchers analyzed thousands of direct messages sent to five well-known Instagram users according to The Guardian. After examining 8,717 messages sent to actress Amber Heard, British television presenter Rachel Riley, writer an…

By Tobias Carroll It’s hard to believe that there once was a time when Facebook was regarded as a relatively low-key space where one could go to wish friends a happy birthday and see photographs of dogs being adorable. But in online years, that might as well be a century ago; the social network that inspired The Social Network is more likely now to come up in conversations about online radicalization and frustrating designs. Facebook has taken some steps to address the problem of harmful or toxic content on its platform — but, as a recent article shows, a bug may well have made the issue worse…

By Kirk Miller Elon Musk went on Twitter recently to complain about Twitter — and later suggested it might be time for an alternative to the social media platform. On Friday, the Tesla founder posted a poll on Twitter. “Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy,” he wrote. “Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle?” He also suggested that “the consequences of the poll will be important,” and given his prior history, Musk may actually mean what he says — after all, it was a Twitter poll in November that convinced him to sell some Tesla shares. Unsurprisingly, his fa…

By Logan Mahan There are many, many, many problems with Instagram — most of which can be traced back to one Mark Zuckerberg. When Facebook purchased Instagram in 2012 for a cool $1 billion, the photo-sharing app I knew, loved and used quite frequently slowly ceased to exist. The first nail in the coffin came in 2016 when Instagram decided to remove the chronological feed, which would display photos starting with the most recently uploaded, and replaced it with an algorithm-based feed that shows posts it thinks you would be most interested in. You know, totally killing the whole “Insta”part of …

By Logan Mahan Since the New Year, Twitter has rolled out a deluge of new features. Among the considerable updates, many of us now have the ability to quote tweet with reaction videos, pin DMs and downvote replies. Honestly, it’s getting hard to keep up. The social media app’s latest roll-out, however, is one that actually caught my attention because it sorta sucks. As reported by The Verge, Twitter has now made it a tad more difficult to view your chronological feed — aka latest Tweets — on the app. In 2016, Twitter rolled out its algorithmic feed (much to the fervent dismay of most of its us…

By Logan Mahan Monday night’s Spurs-Grizzlies game broke a major record for the NBA’s official Instagram account. A clip of Memphis Grizzlies point guard Ja Morant hitting a buzzer-beater to end the second quarter received 42.1 million Instagram video views, the official Twitter account for NBA Communications revealed on Wednesday, making it the most-viewed NBA Instagram video ever. Morant dropped a career-high 52 points in a win over the San Antonio Spurs, and the social media engagement numbers prove the 22-year-old had a fire performance. Content of Morant from Monday’s game amassed over 80…

By Logan Mahan On Thursday, Twitter announced it would be expanding its experimental downvote feature to a global audience. Testing of the new feature began last year and was accessible to a select group of internet users. After receiving positive feedback on its decidedly negative new trick, Twitter is now extending the button to iOS and Android users worldwide. The button may remind you of a similar feature that’s been a part of Reddit since 2005. Upvotes and downvotes on the popular forum website are used to highlight relevant and favored replies and posts from users in a particular subredd…

By Tobias Carroll Over the course of his time in football, Dick Butkus earned a reputation for a fearless and relentless style of play. His time on the gridiron is still remembered fondly among fans of the University of Illinois and the Chicago Bears, and he was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1979. In January of 2022, Butkus received another storied honor — by which we mean that he became verified on Twitter. Since that time, he’s been making the most of his time on the social media service, including publicly wondering why he hasn’t automatically become a highly-paid influencer. …

By Chris Cotonou When asked about Charles Schulz, the influential cartoonist behind Peanuts, Matt Groening was quoted as saying, “Charles Schulz, he’s an interesting case … [Peanuts] is simply drawn but has some really deep emotions you don’t expect in a silly-looking comic strip.” For most people, the Simpsons creator might as well be speaking about his own work, which after three decades is still the most famous simply drawn, deeply emotional and silly-looking cartoon ever made. Now in its 34th season, the show continues to enchant — and subsequently lose — viewers with each generation. Ther…

By Logan Mahan Most of the time Twitter is a time suck that lends itself to fatuous discourse, nasty trolls and bad news. But every now and then, a post, meme or thread comes along to remind us that its best, Twitter is an unrivaled platform for verbal and visual comedy. So, if you’re looking for a little pick me up, consult this recent Twitter thread by user Sarah York (@thesarahyork) that’s been circulating the social media platform. On Sunday, York shared a list of some NFL quarterbacks and the kind of guy “they seem like.” The thread is not only immensely enjoyable but also impressively ac…

By Logan Mahan 2021 re-confirmed one thing we already knew: social media can be hella toxic. In September, a bombshell report from the Wall Street Journal found that Facebook (now Meta) was cognizant of how its app Instagram negatively impacts its young users’ mental health and worsens body image issues. Per internal research Facebook kept a secret for two years until it was acquired by the WSJ, the tech conglomerate admitted that social comparison is much worse on Instagram compared to other social media apps, and part of that is by design. TikTok — the most popular website of 2021 — has also…

By Logan Mahan Over the years, Instagram has transformed into a shopping mall. Its latest redesign put a “shop” button where the app’s main feature, the user activity page, used to be, after all. Instagram’s metamorphosis into Adstagram can certainly be frustrating. Sometimes I just want to see my friends’ photos or pictures of cute dogs (mainly cute dogs) without being bombarded by an ad every three to four posts (I’ve counted.) I won’t pretend, however, I haven’t found a lot of awesome and unique brands on the app, most of which tend to be chic jewelry brands. As we know, once you click on o…

By Tobias Carroll Can social media be used to raise awareness of flaws within social media’s ground rules? For years, a growing cohort of celebrities, activists and others have expressed their frustration with the way Instagram handles photos where nipples are visible. Earlier this year, in an article published at Hyperallergic, Emma Shapiro wrote about the decade-long history of the “Free the Nipple” movement, which — as Shapiro phrased it — described it as a “full-voiced campaign for change.” The latest high-profile figure to criticize Instagram’s policies is Madonna. As reported by The Guar…

By Logan Mahan This week Adam Mosseri, the head of everyone’s favorite self-esteem-depleting social app, announced that they company had released two new features to improve user experience, including something called “rage shake,” which is exactly what it sounds like. If you experience a problem on the social media app — say stories aren’t loading or audio isn’t working on a video — you can simply shake the living hell out of your phone and a support option will pop up and ask you, “Did something go wrong?” You’ll then be able to explain and report the issue. “You can explain exactly what hap…

By Emily Leibert A few months ago, I opened up Instagram to a slideshow of surprisingly pleasant photos of two friends who had recently gotten engaged. I say “surprisingly” not because they aren’t good-looking or photogenic individuals, but because the groom-to-be, in particular, is a little fussy when it comes to both photos and PDA. Squish those two irritating affairs together and you’ve more or less launched him directly into his own personal version of Edvard Munch’s The Scream. You can imagine my shock, then, when I saw photos of my friend whisking his fianéee into the air, gallivanting a…

By Kirk Miller The online hate against Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, was carried out by just a few Twitter accounts in a coordinated attack, according to to the Twitter analytics service Bot Sentinel. As reported by BuzzFeed News, just 83 Twitter accounts were responsible for approximately 70% of the negative content on the couple. Those 83 accounts, however, did have 187,631 followers. And overall, the report suggested the negative campaign by such few people could actually reach 17 million users. “There’s no motive,” as Bot Sentinel CEO Christopher Bouzy told BuzzFeed. “A…

By Emily Leibert Social media platforms have long been unwelcoming to sex workers and adult content creators trying to make a living online. Even OnlyFans, the subscription-based platform that became a billion-dollar company thanks largely to sex workers monetizing their content on the platform, announced a ban on nudity and sex that would have left sex workers out to dry (yet again) … had the company not backtracked following public outcry. The most recent attack on sexually explicit content comes from Instagram, where some accounts have lost their “link sticker” privileges for posting images…

By Logan Mahan A few weeks ago, the world went silent(ish). On Monday, October 4, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp went down for about six hours due to a change in Facebook’s server configuration, leaving millions of users locked out of their accounts for a significant period of time — a first since 2019. Of course, platforms like Twitter and Reddit were still up and running, so there was mindless scrolling and discourse to be had (much of it, of course, centered around the strange outage). Still, you might have felt lighter that day. You were barred from reading your uncle’s unintelligible co…

By Logan Mahan If you ever have the creepy urge to stalk the private account of someone you don’t follow on Instagram, one swift Google search will show you how to do it. There are a number of disconcerting articles circulating the web, detailing step-by-step how you can (easily!) invade someone’s privacy. The first recommendation is typically to try following the account first (duh) or create a fake account and request under the alias. But if all else fails, as these articles suggest, you could try using a third-party application, like IGLookup, to anonymously view a private account. If your …

By Tanner Garrity Bestselling author Laura McKowen published a personal essay in The New York Times recently about her struggles with quitting Instagram. It’s a refreshing read, written from the perspective of someone who A) intimately understands what addiction feels like — McKowen stopped drinking alcohol seven years ago and currently helms an online sobriety platform — and B) recognizes that social media is a dangerous addiction in its own right. McKowen describes building her entire life around Instagram. She accrued 80,000 followers, which helped her network, secure a book deal and promot…

By Logan Mahan A couple of weeks ago, Unicode launched version 14.0 of its language coding standard, which includes 37 new emojis for us to use next year. While the latest drop includes some interesting digital icons like a glistening disco ball and brown beans, one particular face emoji has seized the internet’s affection. The “Melting Face” emoji, as it is officially titled, has sparked many reactions, particularly on Twitter, where users are finding the liquefying smiley face to be a spot-on representation of the hellscape we’ve been living in for the past year and a half. Here is the offic…

By Kirk Miller Marc Maron, the podcaster, comedian and actor, had a brief social media dust-up with a Seattle-based guitar store on Wednesday — and that interaction suggests that celebrities should be more careful using their pulpit to criticize a local business. In a now-deleted post on Instagram, Maron took a selfie outside of Emerald City Guitars and wrote the equivalent of “went in looking at Strats, had cash, was treated very badly, would never buy anything here. If you go, make sure to make a ‘reservation’ and bring your tax returns.” (Note: This is not the exact wording.) The post garne…