Male. 31. Obsessed with exercise. Chronic procrastinator. Fends off existential dread with music, alcohol and gadgets.
That’s how I imagine Instagram’s advertising profile on me reads, cobbled together from my activity on its own platform and whatever data brokers it uses.
According to the constant barrage of ads in my Instagram feed in any case, I am the person above. Rather than testing these targeting algorithms with deep self-reflection, though, I decided instead to buy (and beg) as many of the advertised products as possible in a month-long experiment - partly in lockdown - to answer the questions: How well does Instagram know me? Is it all tat? And do I need any of this?
Pumping iron
Before we dive in, let’s look at the motivation powering this stunt. I’ve lived my whole life believing myself to be a free-thinker that’s immune to the seductive efforts of the advertising and marketing gods. When Instagram first introduced ads in late 2013, I effortlessly ignored every ad in my feed.
As time passed however, they became more polished than any other online ads, disguising themselves as posts, with targeting that is now scarily accurate. After years of interacting with Instagram adverts, I’d estimate that 95 per cent of my ads are tech or health related; almost every single one manages to lure me in, piquing my interest as I scroll. The sheer number of fitness ads in my feed, in fact, suggests that I’m either an elite athlete, or aspire to be one. It’s not the former.
Take the first product that I saw on Instagram once the clock started ticking: the WHOOP strap (€150 with six month membership; €25 per month). It’s a connected wearable designed to constantly monitor your heart rate, using data to calculate strain levels, letting you know how much you can expect to push yourself on a given day. It can also tell you how much sleep you need for optimum performance, while monitoring the quality of rest to boot. So far, so respectable: WHOOP is used by pro sports teams like the NBA.
In these times of self isolation and social distancing, it turns out that a daily walk and thrice a week weightlifting sessions aren’t, according to WHOOP, enough to strain me. Coupled with getting more than the optimum levels of sleep, I apparently need to break more of a sweat if I want to survive self-quarantine without becoming Jabba the Hut. Ignorance, in this case, would be bliss.
Next up, ads for a contraption called the Iron Neck (from £295) - an insane, halo-like device that you strap onto your head, and attach to a door frame with a bungee cord.
Its Instagram ad immediately hooked me with a clip of Joe Rogan talking about how great it was on his podcast. I don’t listen to the man myself, but Rogan does, of course, have something like a 100m+ audience. My extensive meme knowledge also informs me that he’s famous for talking about the benefits of the incredibly powerful psychedelic DMT and the strength and ferocity of chimpanzees, as well as all things fitness.
As for the Iron Neck, I look utterly ridiculous in it, but I’ve persevered, out of my respect for the scientific method. As crazy as it seems, and as absurdly priced as it is (you can pay up to around £432), it may have actually helped to alleviate my laptop-induced neck pain and inflexibility, after using it every other day for two weeks. Though I’m still not straining myself hard enough to please WHOOP. Typical.
The final Insta fitness gadget I subjected myself to, was the PowerDot (£185) - a smart, app-controlled device that electrically stimulates different parts of your body, claiming to help with recovery, or increase the intensity of training.
Having pulled a muscle in my arm after my first overly-optimistic isolation dumbbell session in the first week of isolation, I attached the pads, and proceeded to electrocute myself. Trying to write tech reviews while your arm is spasming from electrical stimulation is distracting to say the least.
This, incidentally, was the first and only time I fired up the PowerDot. Now I’m sure Olympic athletes that train six days a week find this kind of tech useful but when someone like me sees the ad, it’s an impulse, aspirational purchase that ends up gathering dust, like the exercise bike I dump my clothes on.
I haven’t felt a need to use it since, further cementing the depressing reality that I’m not an athlete pushing themselves to their limit. Elite, influencer-friendly fitness technology is clearly wasted on me.
Health freak
Beyond subjecting my body to experimentation, I also took a Thriva health test (from £24), which involved sending some of my blood in the post to a lab. Rather than bleed into a tupperware container and hope for the best, the process was, thankfully, more professional.
I had to pierce my little finger with a sterile metal lancet, and squeeze drops of blood into a couple of pre-prepared containers containing stabilising gel. These implements are all included in the Thriva kit, alongside pre-paid biohazard packaging and plasters with smiley faces. My blood then made its way to an accredited UK-based private pathology lab for analysis, before a doctor shared the findings with me online.
Everything, it turns out, was okay, bar low vitamin D levels, higher triglycerides and a mildly fatty liver. A bit of a wake up call, I guess. Doctor’s advice? Drink less booze, eat less sugar. As a result, I’ve gone back to a low carb/sugar diet over the past few weeks, and am taking vitamin D supplements. Cutting back on drinking has been more challenging though, especially with an exponential increase in virtual Cards Against Humanity sessions - not to mention the arrival of another product in my Instagram feed - a pair of Norlan whisky glasses (£45).
Nourished (£40 per month) is another product that popped up in my Instagram feed early on, promising to give my body everything it needed to be healthy. It’s essentially a 3D-printed fruit pastille, with various vegan gel layers providing different vitamins and minerals, based on your personal preferences, with a reported higher absorption rate than regular pill-based supplements.
My bespoke blend, for example, has things like milk thistle (good for the liver), and beta glucan (boosts the immune system). Based on my armchair research and scraps of knowledge left over from my Biomed degree, there is some scientific evidence to support the beneficial effects of Nourished’s ingredients. However, as with the other vitamins I already take (tumeric, vitamin c, lions mane mushroom, to name a few), you’re more than likely to be better off saving your money if you already have a balanced diet. I don’t as I’m currently on a low-carb keto diet, which limits my vegetable and fruit intake, which is why I’m cramming down so many supplements.
As for the Nourished servings themselves - have they worked? As with my other supplements, it’s impossible to tell without a dedicated lab report. I do know that I haven’t gotten ill after taking them for a whole month, but that could just be a coincidence. They did become a tasty daily treat, though not one that I can continue to sustain at £40 a month.
While we’re on the subject of ingestion, the FoodMarble AIRE (£149) is another gadget pushed on me by the IG ad gods. It’s a pocketable breathalyser that claims to detect which foods are less compatible with your digestive system, using the same principle as hydrogen breath tests used in hospitals. In theory the more hydrogen detected, the less you’re able to digest the food in question.
It looks like a miniature vape pod. Eat something, breathe into it for around five seconds regularly in the hours following your meal, and you’ll find out what doesn’t agree with you. Apparently I’m not particularly suited to the natural carbohydrate inulin found in onions and garlic.
I stopped using it after a few days, as I’ve never had any disruptive digestive problems. (Perhaps Instagram knows something I don’t?) In that regard it’s a waste of money for me, but for those with actual health issues, it could be a useful tool - it’s been clinically validated by the University of Auckland, with interest from King’s College Hospital; not quite as bonkers as it seems.
Extremely miscellaneous
I’ve been a gadget hoarder my whole life, and Instagram somehow managed to exploit this weakness by bombarding me with a whole host of things that I arguably don’t actually need.
Take Slow Dance (€349) - a frame which lets you mount items such as feathers and flowers into its centre, and makes them sway in slow motion. It’s made possible by an electromagnetic vibrating platform, and synchronised LED lights that blink faster than the eye can see. It’s actually quite mesmerising IRL, and a wallet-busting €349. It’s the ultimate executive toy, and a perfect example of something that I can absolutely, absolutely live without.
In a similar vein, we have LARQ (from £95) - a water bottle with a built-in UV light that promises to eliminate 99.9% of bacteria in the water it holds. It sounds like overkill, though I suppose it’s given me some extra reassurance in these scary COVID-19 times. Having said that, having a bottle that I need to charge is extra hassle. Despite all this though, I’ve used it every day for more than a month, dutifully blasting each refill with UV light, because why not? What’s next, a rechargeable portable blender? Well actually, yes.
It’s called BlendJet (£33), and it’s a miniature, battery-operated blender which lets you make smoothies and drinks wherever you are - the top of a mountain, your hot yoga class, or behind Dave from accounting’s desk. These are all things that I absolutely would never do, you understand, and so I thought I’d never use it, but soon discovered that it’s by far the best contraption I’ve ever used for properly mixing protein shakes smoothly with zero hassle. For that reason alone, I’ve become very attached to it, and have used it every day over the past six weeks.
Other gadgets in my Instagram feed have personally attacked my character, and Timeular (£89) is a prime example. Dubbed ‘time in a box’, it resembles an oversized eight-sided Dungeons and Dragons dice. It’s a time-management sensor that lets you track activities, each one of which is assigned to a specific side. Advertised to me as being the ultimate solution for time management, I feel ashamed to admit that I’m a prime candidate for such a device.
Thanks to its incessant tracking, I’ve discovered that there’s no such thing as a five-minute email session, and that browsing YouTube is the absolutely worst thing one can do on a work break. Before you know it, you’ve watched seven videos on how to forge knives and bind books from scratch, while forgetting what you were supposed to be doing in the first place. It’s made me more aware of how I spend my time, but I’m definitely not going to fork out an extra subscription fee to unlock more tracking options. I’m disappointed enough in myself already.
On a far simpler note, a product called Wi-Fi Porter (£38) is a glorious bit of kit that I discovered around two weeks into this ad-riddled rabbit hole. A piece of wood with an NFC chip inside, it lets anyone instantly connect to your WI-Fi network with a mere tap or QR code scan. For someone that reviews smartphones on a regular basis, it’s a godsend. Less useful now while we’re stuck in isolation, sure, but this will be genuinely useful when I start having my friends to the house again.
The final two miscellaneous gadgets in my feed are both headphones, albeit ones with very different purposes. The Nuraphone (£344) has made the rounds on my Instagram feed for a couple of years. A hybrid combination between in-ear buds and over-ear cups, it isolates the outside world while scanning your internal ear structure, tailoring the equaliser settings to your specific ears. It sounds like nonsense, but I legitimately prefer my own settings to others; it’s been my go-to pair of headphones since I tried them.
The **Kokoon headphones (£315)**are a different beast entirely. They’re the most comfortable pair of headphones I’ve ever worn, which is ideal, as you’re meant to sleep in them. They’ve got sensors inside to help track your sleep, and the Kokoon app features a library of soothing sounds, though I prefer the options available in other third-party apps. One month in and I only occasionally slip them on when I really can’t sleep. A cheaper model, without the sleep tracking and active NC, that focuses on comfort would be ideal.
A carefully cultivated image
When it comes to fashion and style, Instagram’s algorithm has read me completely wrong.
To start with, it’s constantly advertising a particular piece of jewellery to me - the Mara Paris Dina ear cuff (£200) - a piece of metal shaped into the side profile of a face that hooks over your ear. It’s a fine design, at least to my inexperienced eye, and I like its creativity, but it’s just not for me. I know this, because I worked up the courage to wear it to Waitrose a couple of times, and could read it in people’s eyes. Fail.
From refined and elegant, to bold and insane, we have the nopeet sunglasses (€69) - a brazen, unapologetic, straight-out-of-the-80s pair of shades that are a million miles away from the classic aviators I’d normally go for. The thank you note inside the box starts off with ‘Dear motherf**ker’, which reaffirms the fact that I’m too old for them.
On a far tamer note, is Boldking, a £16.50 per month razor subscription service. Given that I haven’t shaved for the past five years, this was another complete miss on Instagram’s part. I’ve since discovered that it provides a slightly smoother head shave than an electric beard trimmer - albeit with more hassle.
The elusive snake oil
During this experiment, I came across many other products that I left well alone. I refrained from ordering them - partly because past experiences have seen me waste my money with no end product, and partly because I’d be paying for overpriced, rebranded products from China.
The best example of this are the Indestructible Shoes. I’ve seen these things on my Instagram feed for years - a pair of trainers with steel toe caps that promise to be invulnerable. Car running over your foot? No problem. Walking across a sea of upturned nails? A minor inconvenience.
A little digging online though, reveals the true nature of products like these. Countless YouTubers have shown how easily they rip, and the ease with which nails can penetrate the sole. Available for £63 on their official website, they’re not cheap either. Pop over to Ali Express though, and you can snap up the exact same pair for £18.
The main site is powered by Shopify - a popular platform for dropshippers who sell products that are made and shipped directly from China, around the world. It’s the same story for Mountid (€22) too - a snazzy-looking dashboard smartphone holder with terrible online reviews, sold on a site also powered by Shopify. After a while you’ll be able to spot the cheap quality products a mile away. Buyer beware.
Should you buy everything you see on Instagram?
Short answer? No.
Instagram’s feed is teeming with ads for poor quality products that promise the world for crazy low prices. I managed to avoid any disasters by researching each product before it was called in. The closest I came to a no-show was the inCharge 6 - a magnetic keyring which crams in a USB, USB-C and Lightning cable. It was an Indiegogo purchase that took nearly two months to make its way over from the US, but it’s made well, and works. Not bad for around £15.
One key takeaway, then, is to spend just a few minutes doing some research if you do see a product you’re thinking of snapping up. There are bonafide companies operating on the platform. If it sounds too good to be true, though, has a month+ delivery time, and every product has a supposedly slashed RRP price, it’s probably going to let you down.
If there’s one thing I’m taking away from my month of Instagram shopping, and self isolation, it’s the fact there’s simply far too much stuff out there.
In more disciplined hands, perhaps, some of these products would be more useful. For me though, they’re almost all aspirational - a beautifully shot video, an attractive still shot, embedded in my Instagram feed, designed to tempt me with the promises of self improvement and a better life. Have I learned my lesson? I’ll let this morning’s Amazon order - an ab roller, a bag of charcoal, and catnip - answer that question.
Out of the 18 Instagram products I tried out, I’m still using the WHOOP strap, the Norlan whisky glasses, LARQ water bottle, BlendJet, Wi-Fi Porter, Nuraphone and Kokoon headphones. If I’m being honest with myself and tallied up which ones I actually truly needed though, I’d have a grand total of... zero.
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This article was originally published by WIRED UK
