Why do you like celebrity photos on Instagram?

Why'd You Push That Button?

Vox Media Podcast Network

Society & Culture, Arts, Technology, Design

4.4 • 683 Ratings

🗓️ 31 October 2017

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We aren't stopping here at Why'd You Push That Button? HQ, aka The Verge's offices. We've still got more episodes, and this week, we're asking: why do you like celebrity photos on Instagram? This question might sound familiar if you're a Verge reader. I asked it months ago in this iconic post: "Why did my boyfriend like Emily Ratajkowski's butt on Instagram?" We now have the definitive, audio version of the article. We're going to get through it together as a family. For this episode, Kaitlyn and I talk to my boyfriend Chris to get a final answer about his butt-liking behavior. We also chat with a certified Instagram influencer named Lisa Ramos, our dear friend and Verge collaborator Lizzie Plaugic, and Verge editorial director Helen Havlak. (I've taken to calling her the algorithm whisperer, though, so maybe she should consider that as an alternate title.) By the end of this episode, you should understand why you double tapped that photo of Kim Kardashian and why you keep seeing content tangentially related to Kim. You should have a clearer understanding of what a like means, in a philosophical sense, and how to feel about your boyfriend liking a model's butt. We grappled with these questions so you don't have to. (sent via text by Ashley Carman) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:30.0	Have ever liked a celebrity photo on Instagram?
0:33.3	I like celebrity photos on Instagram all the time, but I don't follow that many celebrities.
0:42.3	Sometimes it feels silly. It's like, okay, cool, here's another like, you have 40,000, here's another one.
0:43.3	There's no point to it.
0:46.9	It's just like a reflex. It's like, oh, hot girl, double tap, cool outfit, double tat.
0:57.0	It's like going to a concert. Like, you know, if you don't cheer, they're not going to notice, but like it feels good. Marilyn Manson. One of my friends liked one of his photos. And so then I just started following immediately and thought my friend was cooler.
1:04.8	Welcome to Why'd You Push That Button, a show where me, Ashley Carmen, and Caitlin Tiffany,
1:05.6	Hello. Talk about the choices technology forces us to make.
1:10.4	This week we're talking about the idea of liking
1:13.0	celebrity photos on Instagram. If you don't use Instagram, essentially just anyone can have
1:19.7	an account. Brands make accounts like your vacuum cleaner probably has an account. Celebrities have
1:24.5	accounts. So anyway, that's where this whole issue comes up is because if you like a photo, at least for me, it sort of indicates that you are acknowledging to this person, you saw their photo, you liked it. And Caitlin and I were talking about the idea of liking a celebrity photo because does the like still mean anything if you like a branded, technically a branded photo?
1:44.5	To be more specific, we were talking about this in the context of an article that Ashley wrote
1:49.1	that was extremely controversial, perhaps the most controversial article ever published on the verge,
1:54.2	but also got a lot of sweet, sweet views from all the hate tweets.
1:57.4	Yeah, so this piece that I wrote, this was back maybe in May or something,
	...

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