During the internet culture meeting this week, our team was talking about the frustrations we've been having with social media. Posting doesn't always seem fun — whether it's because of the Instagram sexbots, which Ikran looked at this week or because it feels like you need to make your life more aesthetically pleasing in order to do it. BeReal has lost its initial excitement. Elon made Twitter messier. But we want to be on a fun internet again. Which apps or sites or online communities are bringing you joy in 2023? As Steffi realized, making a butter candle was a good start. Reply and tell us and give us some internet joy in this grey rainy January. Thanks, Amber |
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BuzzFeed News; Getty Images |
Bots on social media platforms are part and parcel of the online experience. Of course, Tumblr and TikTok have sexbots — meaning an account with a photo of a sexy semi-naked woman, with dodgy URLs in the bio linking to fake porn sites built to phish personal information — that follow you at random, as does Snapchat. But the sexbots on Instagram have recently evolved: Now they watch and like Instagram stories more than the guy you went on one date with. Toward the end of 2022, Instagram users with public accounts started to notice unfamiliar account names in their story likes. Upon closer inspection, those accounts were sexbots. Think: lindsay38302h.li or emmahart283204r. The existence of these accounts isn't new. For years, sexbots on Instagram have spammed the comments of posts or silently orbited in story views. The ability to "like" Instagram stories changed things. A fairly new feature, it is used by people to either literally like the story of your delicious dinner or as a cheeky way to get someone's attention, and the latter seems to be what the sexbot accounts are doing. Instagram allows minors, as young as 13, to make an account and be on the platform. One user claimed their 13-year-old sister had a sexbot in her likes too. However, most people on Instagram have seen the funny side of it and mostly appreciate the engagement the sexbots are bringing to their accounts. |
We asked Meta, Instagram's parent company, what the deal with the sexbots was and what they are doing to fix it. A spokesperson for Meta told us they block millions of spam accounts every day. "We continue to invest in anti-spam technology, and in our safety and security team of over 40,000 people, who are focused on keeping spam and other types of harmful content off our platforms," they said. We specifically named five accounts that had been in our likes. Three have been removed, and two of the accounts still remain online. There had been some online chatter that the presence of sexbots in your Instagram story views was due to someone discreetly using a website or an app to view your posts. We tried several websites to view our reporters' Insta stories, and this did not appear to be the case. The links in the sexbot bios lead to pages that look similar to spam ads. "A woman has sent you photos," read the text on one of the websites in Hungarian. Another attempt on clicking the link led to a website that has an R-rated cartoon with "Warning" written above it and says "This site has naked pics of women you may know" below it. Other links all ended up leading to websites with a similar interface. If you continue on to the website, it will eventually ask you for your personal information such as your email and phone number, and you're asked to enter a password for the supposed website to access the porn. Most likely, it is a phishing attempt to get your information, and you won't see any photos (alas we did not try and interact any more with the sexbots). If you don't want the sexbots viewing your stories, you can of course make your account private. Until next time, Ikran |
In Social Media Made Me Do It, we try a new trend, product, or tip from the feed. |
Candles made of butter are going viral on TikTok. Put it on a charcuterie board! Melt them down to the bone and sop up the liquid with a baguette! This fun way of presenting butter has garnered thousands of views on the app, spanning variations from garlic to salted. This stunt was one I knew we had to try. Essentially, you make a butter candle by putting room temperature or melted butter into a mold (like a cup), sticking a wick inside and putting it in the fridge, ideally overnight. Then you take it out, cut the wick, and voila. Butter candle. Seems simple enough, but you have to plan ahead to order wicks from a craft store — they are not sold in many stores. I couldn't figure out the hole in the cup, either, so I just propped up the wick between our model candle and a pen, hoping it would stay upright. I didn't get the chance to store it overnight. |
Steffi Cao for BuzzFeed News | This was a crucial mistake. Taking it out of the mold (read: cup) was disgusting. It seemed solid upon first glance, but once I started removing the cup, butter oozed everywhere and leaked onto the plate. Not only was it unappetizing to look at, the consistency had become weird, kind of chunky. I can't even eat dairy, so I invited friends to try it out. Some said it was giving recession-core, as we stood around a candle and wiped it with bread. I attempted to level up the vibes by bringing peach preserves into the mix, but the showiness of the butter candle outshone the preserves. Alexa Lee, our newsletter strategist, said the texture was unusual, almost like whipped butter. But as much as no one particularly enjoyed eating the candle, it still kept us talking for hours. While it might not be the star snack, it's definitely a fun activity to try. Do the butter candle! Just be prepared for subpar butter! —Steffi |
Welcome to where we discuss online community micro dramas — thoughts, feelings, suggestions for us? Email pleaselikeme@buzzfeed.com |
Fans have been reacting to Keke Palmer's Instagram livestream last night, as she played Sims 4 from her laptop. "This is the storyline," Palmer told her viewers on Tuesday. "Me and my homegirl, she was messing with her, and she gave her STDs. That's why she's glowing like that. So I'm going to fight Tina on behalf of my girl." Sims 4 is a social simulation game, in which players can develop their own worlds and create conversations and storylines between characters. The game has become a meme as people have created elaborate and wild stories around their Sims universes. Palmer has also become the main character of the internet for her hilarious storytelling, whether it be her guest appearance on Chicken Shop Date, her Vanity Fair lie detector test ("I don't know who this man is"), or this viral moment with Daniel Kaluuya. So of course many tuned into her livestream to hear the storyline in Palmer's Sims universe, in which she narrated a tale of two cheating lovers who broke up over flailing emotions, and a group of friends who banded together to fight the other woman in the park. |
"I like how everything is going with us," Palmer narrated as the protagonist's lover, Hakeem, using a lower voice to distinguish the characters. "That's the problem," Palmer responded as the protagonist. "I don't want to be in a polyamorous relationship." Fans responded excitedly to the livestream. "i get keke bc the best way to play sims is to create messy stories in your head and let your sims play it out," one wrote on Twitter. Others also pointed out Palmer's proficiency in the game, identifying several modification packs (mods) that she had used to expand her abilities in the universe. "keke palmer having wicked whims on her sims game ….she really is one of us," one viewer said. "I'm crying lmfaooo keke palmer is a sims 4 VETERAN," another said. "just found out that @KekePalmer plays Sims 4 and uses mods and cc [customer content], what a beautiful day," another wrote. Many left comments asking for Palmer to start a Twitch channel, hoping for more installments of the wild love triangle that Palmer created in her Sims universe. —Steffi |
The girlies from the internet culture team share what's been living in our heads. |
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