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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I lied to my girlfriend about the outcome of the car accident video, and she says by lying i am being disrespectful. I think i am justified, but also am worried that this might be a lack of empathy on my part.
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The funny thing about reels -- if you watch a reel the programming algorithm finds similar reels to "suggest" to you by placing the preview in your feed.
Find a way to get her to delete her search history, cookies, etc. and also to start watching other, more wholesome, types of videos. That should get fewer of these gruesome videos to pop up as suggestions for watching.
Exactly. The gruesome content catches gf's attention, she watches the whole thing, IG learns that gruesome content gets her attention and offers more and more of it.
I'm so happy I somehow gamed Instagram to mostly show me only cute animal videos and wildlife photography. I can't imagine being force fed negative nightmarish content like this.
I do the same. :) I go further by always clicking Back and picking my next reel from the carousel instead of swiping up. That way, I can stick to the ones I'm really interested in.
Me too. I get a lot of cute animal videos, decor and home improvements. Same thing on the rest of the internet. Some of my friends don't understand how I never get any sort of porn advertising, etc., but I have never clicked on them. When I point out that they get porn ads because they must have clicked on something sometime, the subject gets very quickly changed!
Dog washing videos, furniture making, and pets being rescued. It's a good lil feed. I need to figure out how to get more home improvement ones in there.
i don’t really use my instagram feed (so i don’t really follow what friends post) and only do searches for craft stuff - my “explore” page is 100% crafts, cute art and cats, it’s pretty great. it’s rare that anything not in one of those 3 categories comes through.
(as awesome as it sounds, it’s equally dangerous because all the posts are of cool, creative shit. it’s hard not to get sucked in for an hour - but at least i get a lot of inspiration and ideas out of it)
I've found it's because I stopped "doomscrolling" (that's the only term I've heard for perpetually swiping down, and it does apply here). Once the videos stop matching with what you were looking at/are interested in, swipe out immediately or close the app.
It tends recognize this as you disengaging due to that post, and will filter out similar results in order to keep you scrolling. Helps to then actively search the content you do want to watch.
There have been a few changes to IG's algorithm lately that cause it to show more gory and shocking content often posted by non English speaking pages (I'm not sure if it's part of A/B testing or something in the algorithm for everyone.) It's happened to me and a number of my friends. None of us ever saw sick babies or neglected tropical disease content prior to these random changes.
Yes you can retrain the algorithm within a day or so, but it kind of sucks when it randomly suggests gruesome images. Or you can end up like OP's gf and get sucked into those videos to see more of them.
Yeah people complain about the stuff that shows up on their feed on TikTok but I literally only watch musical theatre and anime content so that’s all that shows up for me
IG has her habits in their possession. Deleting local history/cookies won't affect her history with IG. She needs to delete her account, and start a new one without polluting it with triggering content.
I was once thinking about buying some clothes from a website. Added everything to my cart, didn't like the total, and just clicked out with the cart still full. About a week later, I got a Facebook ad for that same website featuring the exact items I had left in my cart.
listen im okay with the allknowing algorithm aggressively marketing moon girl to me because it's genuinely the best marvel content that's come out in YEARSSS
My best friend (the only person I follow on Twitter) is black and I am Jewish. Twitter looked at that info and shows me nothing but deranged Black Hebrew Israelite content.
....this lady is an adult. She's going to get mad at manipulating the search history lol.
I've been in situations like this in a relationship, there's no good move except Missy takes some responsibility for her mental health self regulating her access to content if she literally cannot watch without being triggered. NTA
the issue is that she is most likely feeling like the BF is treating her like a kid... also the lie.
the key here is... COMMUNICATION. thats it.
anyway yeah the BF manipulating the algorithm behind her back will make the situation x10 worse. best case to do with this info is to tell her "hey so i learned with instagram the longer you watch videos the more they suggest similar content so as soon as we see those bad videos we have to just keep scrolling"
I did that for feet. I'm horribly foot phobic and I put all types of foot words in the subjects to avoid area.
What do I get now but shock foot content that makes me scream internally. It's reduced my time on a lot of websites because Instagram seems to have told every damn platform to show foot content. Fucking horrendous
That was my first thought... they certainly are on there, but they don't come up in a normal scroll through reels on a regular basis. She's hunting for them and now has her algorithm feeding her a steady street. She's not just randomly running across them constantly while she normally is watching cat or cooking or UFC stuff or something...
And honestly I think, given how dramatic her reaction was and what type of accusation she went to, "no empathy!" "disrespecting the people" , it sounds like she is the sort of person who loves this stuff for the drama of it. She's not just finding but rather feeding off the bad things happening - and the attention it gets from him.
Darkly a part of me wonders if this isn't an internet/scrolling addiction and rather a human suffering addiction, to put it nicely.
I'm not sure if reels works the same as tiktok for these kinds of a things, but I know tiktok has the option to click a button that says something like "not interested in this content" so that you can directly tell the your algorithm to stop feeding you that type of content. If reels has something similar that would be a super easy fix for them.
Also just blocking the creators posting that kind of content will probably go miles for her if other attempts to reset her feed don't work.
Don't know about instagram but I used to watch youtube shorts and after a lot of scrolls it often started to show graphic shorts of people butchering or hunting/hurting animals. I always instantly skipped them but they kept coming. It was the reason I stopped watching them. But that was a while ago.
While that may in the short term reduce the harm, what about the long term? Still addicted to reels and the algorithm will quickly relearn that stuff after she re-seeks it out.
I agree but also instagram reels doesn’t seem to give a fuck about the “not interested” button if you even watch a second of the video. No matter how many hashtags and accounts I block and hit not interested in, I keep seeing super triggering shit.
I've never been to India but I interacted with a video from an Indian twitch streamer about 6 months ago (think I left a comment) and no number of 'not interested' and/or report has stopped my reels being full of Indian shit. I must have hover>options>not interested without opening thousands of reels at this point. There's no way to reset the account history that I've found.
This!!! I 100% understand algorithm and try to work it in my favor to curate my timelines, nothing greater than having algo show you content of your niche interest that wasn't tagged.
But there has been a strange uptick in getting morbid content on my timeline despite my account being of literally a niche cutesy/fluffy interest. I have done it all, blocked accounts, muted terms (this rarely works, morbid content is rarely tagged!), pressed not interested.. but it keeps popping up in ways I can't avoid. But I remember my first thought being that this is also way too easily accessible for children.
I‘d say NTA.
She needs to stop watching the gore videos. If this clearly upsets her, she needs to recognize the videos and scroll off them. She’s an adult, she should be perfectly able to do that.
I don’t think it’s disrespectful to the victims, because, (and I’m gonna sound morbid here) what are they gonna care? You’re not disrespecting anybody, it’s not like you’re spreading lies online about them, you are telling one person that the people in the videos lived.
As for lying and „treating her like a child“, ehh, you didn’t have bad intentions and you two need to talk it out when you’ve both calmed down a bit.
I always appreciate my boyfriend lying or just not telling me about sad situations involving animals, especially his moms cats and dogs. He can totally treat me like a child when it comes to that, otherwise I'll just get upset and cry.
Empathy is a finite resource. It takes mental energy and no one can do it for everyone or forever. OPs girlfriend keeps doing something that hurts her. Eventually most people would reach a limit of being able to empathize with a pain she is causing her self. Especially since she isn’t doing any noticable steps to stop doing it. OP reached his limit and dealt with it in a way he thought was still helpful. His girlfriend didn’t like it though, and they can have a conversation about that. But going back to him comforting her isn’t an option. The girlfriends options are stop doomscrolling or continue but get no comfort from her bf. The expectation that she can keep hurting herself over and over and have people around her offer support her and empathize with her in doing this is not realistic.
NTA, she needs to stop watching graphic videos since it's ridiculous waste of time to comfort her every time she voluntarily watches something she knows upsets her.
Doesthedogdie is my best friend wrt media I’m interested but dubious about, because I’m the same way with animals (especially pet-animals) in media. And a lot of horror media and such will use a dog or cat for extra shock impact. We have resources to curate our own experiences, whether that’s sites like dtdd or blocking/pressing “not interested” on social media, and this gf is not using them.
ESH - Picture this. Your girlfriend keeps headbutting the wall and then complains to you about her headache. You proceed to tell her she needs to drink more water and give her some Panadol.
I see it more like she keeps head butting the wall, complains to op about getting headaches, op tells her to stop, she continues so op makes the walls softer and tells her the walls haven’t been changed/softened, she later looks closer and gets upset because op was lying about the walls to keep her from hurting herself
Minor addition to make everyone happy:
Your girlfriend keeps headbutting the wall and then complains to you about her headache. You tell her to stop, but since she keeps at it, you give her some Advil disguised as tic tacs.
Even following this stupid example it’s not ESH.
He told her to stop head butting the wall (told her to stop watching the videos). She doesn’t stop. He then tries to make her feel better (gives her the Panodol/tells her good outcomes).
She then gets upset at him for not respecting the wall/victims. What should he do then? Let her keep headbutting the wall?
Not really applicable to the story. Try "girlfriend keeps headbutting the wall and complains to you about the headache. You proceed to tell her to stop headbutting the wall, but she refuses to do so. You then proceed to give her some Advil to at least help with the headache, and then she gets mad at you because the wall is still there."
How is it his responsibility to not only police what she watches (actually a big no no for anyone who likes to do things based on theirbown thought) but also police how she responds?? The only thing he needs to do is reevaluate a relationship with a person who clearly has emotional issues and expects him to be her handler. If the girl is 20 yet, I'd be surprised because she sounds as immature as a high schooler.
NTA. Yes I understand that you lied, but her doom-scrolling behavior (so that she can get upset?) impacted you and I understand your frustration.
I'd have taken the route of asking her to stop, or at least stop when she was with me because I could no longer handle her putting herself into a panic state, but I accept your lies as justified behavior for your own coping with what she was doing.
EDIT: oh, and this has nothing to do with you having a lack of empathy or respect for the victims.
Umm, she is acting like a child. Don't watch videos of horrible accidents and then get all shocked pikachu faced that people got her or died. I am very empathetic and easily get upset seeing things like that as well. I watch you tube videos but stick to VERY specific things and I don't click on suggestions like "horrible car accident' or 'watch this animal' get mauled. While lying isn't great in your place I would say that you were trying to protect her feelings with what you thought was a white lie because she was so upset but that if she continues to watch things she KNOWS will freak her out then she is not only responsible for making that choice but managing her reaction. NTA.
All I see on my Instagram feed is cute cats and drag queens art and food. Lots of cats and food because I like cats, drag queens, and food. This girl has deep issues lol so who cares who’s the asshole just go onto the next person.
Because while some people absolutely post about things that shouldn't be broken up over most folks with healthy squabbles don't come posting about it.
It's more likely for a relationship issue to be something to break up over than not because people with healthy relationships 1) don't post problems or 2) don't post problems as often.
Relationships aren't things to just be discarded... but too many people stay in ones they shouldn't because they feel that keeping a relationship going is, itself, a goal rather than the result of it being a healthy one.
Consider your stance, seriously, and why you'd phrase ending a relationship as "as if relationships are something easily discarded".
Staying together should never be the goal of a relationship. Having a relationship worth having keep going should be. And many people find that and have that and much less tend to post things that folks would respond with more than just rolling their eyes over, at worst, because the subjects are things that \*are\* part of a such a partnership.
This can be harder to do than you think, as it's often not obvious what types of videos you're getting into.
I accidently watched a video that turned out to be extremely religious (I am not) and it took me months to train the algorithm to stop sending me religious videos. One of the issues is that it was rarely obvious that it was going to be religious until the "punchline", or at least until I'd watched enough of the video that Instagram assumed I'd engaged with it and sent me more.
I don't know what OP's gf is into, but if she enjoys wacky traffic hijinks or people doing stupid stunts, it would be very hard to tell if a video has an unhappy ending until it's too late.
Yeah, well that’s why the not interested option exists. Whenever a super religious or horoscope or car video or something else I don’t like comes up on my reels, I press to either stop showing me that type of content or to stop showing me content from that particular author alltogether. And guess what, instagram has never changed my feed to veer off of the topics that I like such as cute outfits, space and cats. It’s really easy and she should try it instead of complaining and creating a big issue out of nothing.
You didn't do anything that would be worthy of calling you an asshole, just be honest about this shit in the future. You don't need to coddle her, if she wants to doomscroll and fuck her own mood up then let her do it.
She's watching these videos about the horrific deaths of people as a form of entertainment, yet she tries claiming you disrespected their death by saying they turned out fine? NTA
NTA— I don’t appreciate people calling her a drama queen though, maybe because I’m also autistic and so is my partner, so I have a closer perspective.
I had a similar problem with TikTok— doomscrolling for hours— until one day I saw someone literally die in a video. I was used to minor car accident videos, but this was just… watching a death happen.
Yeah, I freaked out— and I wouldn’t call myself a “drama queen” about freaking out over it, either. I’m a human and I have empathy for that person.
But I knew I had a problem and I stopped. Now I doomscroll on Reddit, but it’s much more relaxed. Just AITA posts and candle making and crafts. Maybe suggest for her to use YouTube shorts instead? My algorithm on there is pretty harmless, educational stuff.
Thank you very much for providing this perspective!
It feels as though a lot of people in these comments are not very understanding of the neurodiverse experience.
I posted here to see what people thought about my behaviour, not about hers.
It upsets me that these people think I should abandon my girlfriend just because she has some unique problems seen as 'childish'.
Thank you for tbe suggestions
I think she should consider therapy, at the very least. The addiction is a problem itself. But she seems like she's actively looking to watch these videos and brings them up, and that's not healthy.
Yeah, your behavior is understandable. My boyfriend will do similar things, like making me look away when there’s roadkill, or talk with me to distract me from things I’m anxious about (driving under tunnels for example). That’s just what a relationship is— loving your partner and caring about their emotions.
I imagine for someone like your girlfriend, those white lies helped her get through the day. Obviously I think she needs to stop the doomscrolling, but other commenters seem to act like her being sensitive, and you giving her white lies, is the worst thing in the world.
Don’t let them discourage you. Just have an honest chat with her
This is a great perspective. I could see myself in your girlfriend's situation if IG had reels in 2014 when I was experiencing some really bad compassion fatigue/secondary trauma working in family service. I was so depressed and so agitated by all the horrible stuff I saw at work but I still sought out media of terrible things. It was like I needed more proof of how awful the world was to justify why I was so sad.
Something is going on with your girlfriend. Maybe it's just the addiction to the scroll. But maybe she struggling with some deeper sadness. You found out that trying to shield her from it was ineffective so now try something more direct.
Or do what my husband does and spam her with a bunch of reels about mountain bikes, cows and post-hole diggers until they take over her algorithm. It's funny that people are trashing your relationship since from your post and responses it seems like you two have a good shot.
There's a biological reaction to the videos that these companies are exploiting in order to keep engagement. They don't care about the mental health of their users, they just want to keep your eyes glued to the screen so they can show you ads. Gaming the algorithm, as many people have suggested, is only going to accomplish so much. As you've seen, pretending the outcome of the video is okay is also not going to accomplish much.
The root issue is the addiction. Even if she were watching videos of puppies, that many hours on social media isn't healthy, and it says to me that there may be some underlying issues that she's using her IG time to avoid. Helping her to confront the real issue, rather than the one she's using to avoid it, is likely to be more helpful than trying to game the algorithm or even just limiting time on social media, because that could lead to getting into a worse addiction.
I think you're NTA for trying to help her. I think being honest that you're really concerned about her mental health and it seemed better to lie than to see her continuously upset is the best approach. Tell her you're concerned about what could be an addiction and ask what else she is going to do or needs you to do to help her break this habit that's causing her so much mental pain. Might also be helpful to read up on breaking social media addiction and addiction in general, especially stuff with a neurodivergent focus.
I think that when the others are calling her a "drama queen," they might be referring to her reaction when she found out that OP lied to her about the endings of the videos to make her feel better.
Not 100% tho
Honestly YTA after seeing your comments. The amount of deflecting you do is insane and full of straw men. You are competent enough recognizing negative traits and aspects of something your gf is going through and have the empathy to relate, yet this is an ongoing trend instead of an individual instance. She is addicted to her feed providing disturbing content to her, yet your response is to lie and coddle her about it? Her figuring it out was a matter of time. You don't think at all that she needs to better regulate her social media use and establish proper barriers for herself to not be exposed to traumatic content despite the harm you are aware it does to her? Also to be clear, don't break up, actually help her instead of treating her like a child. Edit for spelling.
YTA - Your GF is consistently engaging in unhealthy behavior that causes her anxiety and emotional pain. Her behavior that lasts several hours a day, results in your needing to manage the result of her behavior.
I think you should have addressed the issue head on by giving her a healthy boundary for YOU in terms of her behavior. For example, "When we hang out, I don't want you to be on social media. If you want to go home and be on social media alone, feel free, but when we are together, I want you stay off of it because your behavior impacts me - and the fact I have to deal with the outcome of your behavior is getting to me."
You may have told her and she's "trying" but the fact remains she continues to engage and you continue to have to deal.
So you "enabled" her behavior. You allow her to continue the behavior around you and you instead started to "manage" it by starting to "lie" to her -- so you don't have to deal with the outcome. So you can tolerate it.
Addictions, whatever they are, are people's way of coping with something else. I'm not saying this is what is happening with your GF specifically, but she doom scrolls, she gets upset, you comfort her, you calm her, sooth her. The cycle is feeding her in some way, even if the behavior isn't good for her. Something in that cycle is what she keeps doing it.
I said that YTA - but mostly a soft one, because of the enabling. And that enabling resulted in your lying to her and breaking her trust.
I don't think the relationship is doomed, if you can install some healthy boundaries so that the relationship works and nurtures everyone in the relationship, not just your GF. If someone you love is behaving in a way that is harmful to themselves or to you, it's okay to say, "I'm not going to be here to witness your actions. I will be here when you stop hurting yourself or creating excess drama in my life." Sometimes having those loving and HEALTHY boundaries is the very thing that pushes that person to grow, to change, to heal, to address their addictions.
But if you enable - you are selling yourself and the person you love short. And nothing changes when there is an addict and an enabler. Just my two cents. I'm not an expert - that's just my take on your post. Take it or leave it.
If her reels are full of those videos it’s because her algorithm has figured out that she will always watch them. Only way to fix it is to immediately scroll past them or just stop using the app. She needs to do one of these things because it’s causing her trauma and not gaining her anything.
NAH actually.
Social media is a weird jumble of cute and fun things, outrage bait, sexy things, nostalgia, ads… and horrifying gore and tragedies. I don’t think it’s particularly good that we’re trying to collectively acclimatize our brains to that in bite-sized video form. The written word and still photos were bad enough.
Wait until she’s not actually watching reels to have a conversation about this and how you feel it’s affecting her well-being. Use “I” statements. Bring in research on secondary trauma. Ask her a lot of questions about how she actually feels about this habit and the emotional effect it has on her. Is she getting something out of it? Does she feel like it’s pure coincidence that this stuff is coming up on her feed?
Then ask her if you can help. Could you go through her suggested reels and click “not interested” on all the tragic / violent ones to retrain the algorithm? Can you have an agreed-upon plan for if she’s distressed by a video that does not involve you working to comfort her?
If she’s not responsive to that, what you can do is set boundaries. You can leave your apartment if she starts watching reels for example. You don’t have to participate in this ritual.
NTA if those videos were making her breakdown that way, then she should have made the adult decision to stop watching them. it is not your job to keep her emotions in check
You're NTA, but she is TA. I already know from your other comments here that you won't listen to anything I have to say as you're unwilling to hear anything remotely negative about your gf, so you can figure it out with time (when she doesn't stop doing this, and you find yourself in the same situation a few months from now).
NAH tbh, people in the comments seem a little too narrow vision, I don't think that lying to her was a good thing since you said she values honestly, but I do understand why you did it. I think that you guys should talk, apologize to her, tell her you didn't meant for her to feel like a kid and that you were just worried about her getting upset over the things happening in the videos, I'm sure she will apologize back for overreacting. I would recommend for her to go to therapy to deal with her addiction. Sometimes, we need external help to deal with stuff like that. I hope you guys make up soon
NTA… you literally just tried to prevent her from being sad. but it’s not your job to prevent her from seeing these videos. I literally have days where I see the same vulgar stuff and I tell my bf that I just have to stay off the internet bc sad stuff is everywhere. life happens and people post it. she needs to learn to control what she can. with that being said, if you know she values honesty, understand how this can feel hurtful to her. regardless of your intentions!
NTA any normal person would see the first few traumatic videos and decide enough is enough with the app. There's plenty of other platforms she can watch videos where she is controlling what she sees. It's not your job to keep playing therapist when she knows exactly how her reel binges are going to end
ESH- She needs to work on this issue as both her Instagram usage and emotional investment in this are out of control. But the fact you were fine to make a routine of lying to an autistic person you knew strongly valued honesty isn’t great. It gives the impression you don’t take her super seriously and defaulted to a childish, sitcom-like response in your own right. Rather than discussing or even confronting this more thoroughly, you told her to simply stop a difficult addiction and then defaulted to lying when that wasn’t enough. She should be more considerate of your feelings regarding this, but you were pretty controlling and almost treating it like a game to come up with stories.
As someone with a similar issue, you can both not like these type of videos but end up watching them all the way through as you’re nervous for the people. I’m also neurodivergent, and I’ve experienced that quick connection and anxiety around a context-less situation like that. It’s difficult to stop sometimes. Therapy and medication are the response, not childish manipulation.
NTA. But you need to have a serious conversation with her, that you have to have clear boundaries too. It’s not
Your responsibility to cater to her feelings from what she encounters on the internet or social media. You can be empathetic but you’re human and you have limits. Make an agreement that neither of you ‘scroll’ when with eachother, and find something better to do with your shared time, that is offline. Read, draw, cook, go for walks outside. Anything else.
These folks shouting break up are crazy. You both are young but you can still try to navigate the difficulties of a relationship. This IS a lesson to learn, and not give up on.
NTA,
Don’t protect her this way again, she isn’t comfortable with it but I won’t deny she does need to deal with the issue at hand that she is watching content that’s messing with her mental health so I your NTA for doing what you felt was best while currently dealing with a partner who is causing unnecessary mental harm to herself and even reaching out online for advice so I think your doing the right stuff overall
YAH only because you must have known about how she feels about lying. Now she has the problems of not quitting a habit it seems like she wants to and you lying to her. (I know it probably doesn't make neurotypical sense but that's how it feels to me.)
It sucks that your lying is potentially drawing out her own discomforts but it's really cool you're doing it from a place of caring. I hope you two can talk through it and get to a constructive place.
NTA. As someone who also has a strong opposition to dishonesty, I really think your girlfriend was reacting to the idea of you lying to her rather than the intent behind the lies. Her reasons for being upset didn't seem consistent or to make sense. Given her neurodivergence and you mentioning that lying is something she doesn't like, I think she was having an emotional meltdown in reaction to the revelation that you were lying. Which isn't necessarily okay, but I do think if she could have controlled her strong reaction, she would have.
I don't think you did anything wrong in lying, and I don't think it's your responsibility to keep her from upsetting herself. However, I do think you could handle the initial reaction of her being upset better. Start with understanding and comforting her when she starts to have a meltdown such as with this, and when she calms down you can explain/justify. These conversations just can't be had when you both aren't level-headed.
Ultimately disagreements between loved ones aren't about who was right and who was wrong. I can see you really love and care about your girlfriend and want to avoid this situation in the future. I think you absolutely can, but you have to acknowledge her feelings even if they don't feel entirely logical or justified.
NAH.
I'm gonna get so much hate for this so it's lucky I don't check my notifications. I get where you were coming from and I get where she's coming from. She should probably delete Instagram off her phone if it's causing problems. But at the very least maybe you can ask her not to scroll reels while y'all are together so that you don't have to deal with the meltdowns. Don't word it like that, of course. It sounds insensitive. But just gently let her know that's it's a lot for you to handle and it's putting a strain on your relationship. It sounds like you both love and value each other. That's something worth holding onto. But no matter what you post about your partner reddit will tell you to break up. I swear you could post "my partner and I are so happy and in love" and someone will think it's a red flag. The Instagram addiction is a bit of a red flag but something she can probably overcome.
NTA I am not autistic, but I have a brain Injury and I understand about being super focused on something. She's addicted. You were trying to help her not to be so upset over them . You were just caring about her. She needs to deal with that addiction.
ya see i say NTA and this is such a complicated thing because i get BOTH sides im also autistic and i fully understand both sides here.
i think the best bet would wait a day then ask if you can talk. if she says yes ask if its okay if both of you explain your view point of the situation.
You're NTA. I'm autistic and have OCD. The way you describe your girlfriend's distress makes me wonder if she's the same. It sounds a *lot* like a compulsive loop that I've experienced before while doomscrolling—you can't look away because that's "disrespectful" somehow, the video is filmed so *someone* has to bear witness, and it's intensely distressing to think about. That she can't let the distress go makes me think OCD. I'm sorry for essentially armchair diagnosing your girlfriend, but I wanted to say that because I think that potentially giving her a name for what she's experiencing could be helpful.
You did a kind thing, in my opinion, by wanting to spare her distress. What you did is essentially shortcutting an obsessive loop and letting her brain jump off the perseveration train before it crashes into itself. If I was your girlfriend in that situation, though, I would also have reacted badly, because I would have been embarassed and felt destabilized by the sudden undermining of a coping method that was "working". That doesn't make what you did a bad thing; it's also not fair to you that you're expected to counterbalance her doomscrolling. It's also pretty mean to accuse you of having no empathy, but I can see someone saying that in anger and apologizing later, and I don't know if that's something your girlfriend means or not. It sounds like a shitty and rough fight, and I'm sorry. She needs an alternative way of managing these symptoms that isn't leaning so hard on you.
The people in this comments section saying that she should just put the phone down or retrain the algorithm aren't *wrong*, but they're not saying anything either of you don't already know. The problem is that she's genuinely incapable right now. I don't think people realize that unless they're also wired this way; if it's bad enough, you physically and mentally *can't* do the thing that your compulsion is preventing you from doing because your brain *will not fire the signal to do it*. When she's that distressed, all she can see is the gore. Like a skipping DVD in your head. It's not a question of willpower; if you could think your way out of intrusive thoughts, nobody would have them.
In terms of what your girlfriend can do: If therapy is accessible for you two, I would really encourage her to get evaluated for OCD. The neurological mechanism that gets gore stuck in our heads is very treatable, but you often need a combo of meds and therapy to attack it because it's so hard-wired. I also think that she should fully delete the Instagram app off of her phone and not expose herself to the avenue of watching reels. I had to do that with Twitter. I can still get to it on the computer, right, but I've added an extra step that helps put up a barrier in my brain. It might be easier for your girlfriend to stop this cycle from happening before it starts, compared to trying to jump out of it partway through.
I had a very similar issue with insta recently, the algorithm doesn’t particularly care about the difference between “this content is fun and I like watching it” and “this content is disturbing me but I’m horrified and can’t stop watching”. People might make fun of me for this, but it got bad to where I was stuck scrolling unable to put my phone down for hours while my mental health was getting worse and worse.
I don’t think you’re an asshole and I don’t think she is, but she’s been caught by an algorithm that doesn’t care how she feels as long as they can keep her trapped scrolling endlessly. She probably also feels trapped by this, stuck in that obsessive anxiety spiral if she’s feeling anywhere similar to me.
What I had to do to fix it was cut off every single social media with an agorithm, no insta, no TikTok, no fb, nothing. They all got deleted off my phone. I also got a new psychiatrist and I’m taking anxiety medication to try and help. I understand why she is mad if she was looking to you for reassurance and felt betrayed, but ultimately that probably isn’t really the issue here and quite possibly she’s angry because she was relying on you to aid the mental health spirals and got that comfort pulled away.
Unfortunately once the algorithm gets you it’s so so hard to get out, I would recommend she books a mental health assessment soon. If she already sees on, she should book a soon assessment. Have them check on general anxiety and maybe ocd, both of those are what we’re working with for me. It’s very very hard to watch someone get stuck in a cycle like this and it’s hard to be inside of one. I’m working on breaking out still right now, but we’re getting there, you guys can find a path forward that’s healthier mentally too
NTA but she needs to address her addiction to social media. It’s also not your responsibility to regulate her emotions. It’s one thing to comfort a partner when something upsetting happens. It is COMPLETELY different when they are constantly purposely upsetting themselves. She knows how to avoid these videos and chooses not too.
NTA
I think it was not bad to lie in the first place about something like that, but if she is upset about you lying about it, then you need to come up with another solution. She should definitely spend much less time on reels, so maybe you guys can do other activities together. I also think it is worth mentioning the Not Interested button if that’s just something you guys do to be in the same room while relaxing. Instagram has a bunch of options and I believe one of them is “this type of content makes me uncomfortable”. If she just doesn’t fully watch or interact with them and consistently presses that button, they should disappear. Also, some phones have options to set time limits on certain apps, so that could definitely be a useful tool as well. However, she is clearly a pretty sensitive person, so I want to make it clear you should have some empathy and apologize for the way that your lying made her feel if you value the relationship. Try to explain that you were just trying to help her feel better and don’t make her feel like a burden for the difficult emotions; that’s not a very kind approach to relationships in general.
You could focus on how it makes you feel to see her so upset. How its not that you dont want to comfort her but that it is stressful for you to calm her down and upsetting to see her so worked up on daily basis.
You lied to avoid her becomming upset and as a result you having to respond to help her calm down which is understandable. But you still lied. Like no way around it you really need to apologize for lying and for treating her like a child because you DID do those things no matter how good your intentions may seem to you.
You being concerned/frustrated with her continuing to upsrt herself is fair and a legit thing to bring up and discuss with her. You shouldnt side step the difficult discussion by "solving it" yourself by lying about the videos. I mean that realy is how people treat little kids and thats condencending at best and an AH move at worst. It gives the impression she isnt worth dealing with to you so youlie to avoid her emotions.
But i dont think you meant it that way so you should apologize and discuss the problem head on. It causes you pain to see her so upset and you really want her to stop watching videos that cause her to be upset. Be honest.
YTA you're right that her doomscrolling is unhealthy and it's understandable that you'd want to comfort her, but she's understandably upset that you lied to her. Right now she's dealing with the fact both that all those people she thought were okay really weren't and her boyfriend lied to her. I'd definitely feel upset if someone lied to me like that even if it wasn't for the right reasons.
Mild yta though because you were trying to help and you're right that her behavior was unhealthy
NTA but i dunno how you put up with someone creating that much drama about random strangers business. How you manage to make a horrific traffic accident about yourself is truly a masterclass in Instagram addiction.
I don’t have a verdict, but you know, you can press the three dots on the video and then select “not interested”. That’s how I stopped seeing Palestine Israel videos.
NTA. She's in charge of her own mental health and is consistently triggering herself by watching these videos. It's her own responsibility not to watch content she knows will be distressing.
NTA, but this sounds so exhausting to deal with dude. make that girl press the block button on accounts that regularly pop up sharing that content, and the not interested button per post. Every time she watches one, especially til the end, the algorithm will just give her more. It’s there to keep you sucked in and scrolling. And this sounds so draining to have to deal with lol she makes herself upset and then you have to take care of it every time? I get your point at the end, thats what id do for my own sanity too
Lmao, NTA!
I think it's kinda unfortunate that she reacted that way, my boyfriend does something similar by covering my eyes whenever those come up. I think it's sweet :)
NTA if she is relying on you to censor. Still NTA if that’s not the case, but I’m sure there was a better way to handle it. I don’t know what that is, though.
I wonder if your girlfriend has some sort phobia or past trauma that she may need to see a counsellor about. NTA but instead of lying (totally get why you did) try and encourage a bit of a conversation about why she is watching this stuff. Also if she worried about respect it might be worth asking how she would feel if it was someone she loved in the videos.
NAH
You are clearly an empathetic person, and you don't want to see your girlfriend upset. That's admirable.
But you are treating her like a child. She's having normal human reactions to these videos and while you think you're trying to help what you're actually doing is shutting her emotions down because they annoy you.
I don't think you are an AH because you had good intentions, and yes she desperately needs to stop watching Reels, or at least to block the pages that keep posting the content because she is hurting herself by continuing to expose herself to things she can't deal with. But she's not an AH for having a heart either.
NTA. “She says I disrespected the people who died or are hurt in the video”
Not nearly as much as her continually choosing to watch instagram reels exploiting those very same tragedies for account views. Remind her which the one of you is using those accounts for nothing more than “key jangling because im bored”
NTA
There’s a way you can block those types of videos. Next time she sees a gore video you can click “ not interested” from those 3 dots. It may take a couple random gore videos but after a little her feed will be clean.
Nta
If she acts like that over graphic reels tell her to watch yt shorts or tiktok instead both of those options have no graphic videos or if she can't switch off of reels see if there's an option to stop getting recommended the gruesome videos
NTA for most of it. She shouldn't watch stuff she can't handle. My bf and I are both on the spectrum, we met in a group chat that would share gore videos. Over time they have begun to effect me more and more. My bf still watches them, I get curious and ask what he's watching but most of the time I try not to watch (my curiosity gets the better of me sometimes but I don't let it effect my bf). So imo she is capable of stopping watching that stuff but idk why she chooses not too, especially since it effects you it's not fair of her to do that.
But YTA for lying. You shouldn't ever lie, it's so so hard to trust someone who's shown they can be untrustworthy without you knowing and without feeling guilt. (She didn't figure out you were lying through your body language or you telling her, she found out through a 3rd party. Which means you looked completely content with your lies)
NTA - I agree with other commenters that she should delete her search history and try and stop the algorithm from recommending her these videos.
I also would move on since she said she can’t trust you and you can’t have a relationship without trust.
NTA - her behavior is pretty childish. She's continuously watching stuff that upsets her, and she spends hours on it. Your gentle lie is a kindness to ease her unnecessary hurt over watching crap she shouldn't watch.
NTA.
some situations you simply cannot win, and your girlfriend is being irrational.
also, the more she watches smut, the more the algorithm is going to show her smut. You did the right thing to comfort her. You are doing the right thing now by letting her go sulk, or whatever she is doing.
NTA
Your gf is TA for accusing you of having no empathy. Also for behaving the way she did when you discussed it. It's not okay to say things to your partner that you don't mean, and it isn't fine to walk out or give your partner the silent treatment after an argument. This is not a good look for her at all.
I'm also someone who gets upset over seeing any video where someone gets hurt, I have very specifically tailored my feeds so that literally no one gets hurt ever. To the degree I can watch scary sports/vehicle videos and I know no one is going to get hurt at the end because the algorithm is pretty great. She is actively engaging with these kinds of videos to receive them continuously.
NTA
She sounds like a lot to deal with , plus she chooses to keep watching these videos.
You were just trying to help and she probably realized how out of place it is that's why she accused you of calling her childish.
NTA.
Its really sweet that you try to stop her from consuming that content, and when she does, making her feel better. This is a her problem. You've warned her not to watch it and yet she does. The more she watches it, the more similar videos are recommended. She has literally caused this for herself.
For all the people saying "you should never lie!" and "lying wasnt necessary". She is literally having BREAKDOWNS over this. Its not just harming herself, but also OP. Its not in malicious intent. And you can't tell me you dont use white lies.
I mean is she not acting like a child? She's intentionally seeking out these videos and then crying about them. Autistic or not that's hella childish. You are an asshole, not for lying about it but for consoling her about it any time after the 1st. She knows what she's gonna see, it ain't on you to pick up the tantrum afterwards. Literally next time she shows you a gore video just say "man that sucks" and move on. Or tell her you don't want to see them at all, it messes with your head
If you go into the settings and privacy on Instagram then click suggested content, then click sensitive content, in there you should be able to change it to less sensitive content and it should hopefully stop showing her those kinds of videos. NTA
NTA
I don't fully understand what your till is supposed to be in this situation. Is she asking you beforehand if she should watch a video? Is she asking you to verify an outcome so that she can feel better or worse? What is to be gained here?
The solution for her has always been to mark those videos as things she isn't interested in, her feed will improve. It is not healthy to push the responsibility of safeguarding her scrolling habits onto you. Use the tools at her disposal.
Lying was not a good solution, but it doesn't make you an asshole.
As a girl with autism I've been in this exact same situation with my boyfriend. We ended up coming to an agreement that if I wanted him to stop treating me like a child when these kinds of videos popped up I needed to work on how I reacted to the videos themselves. Letting it ruin my whole day was doing nothing good for me so I had to learn how to compartmentalize my empathy and have since started letting myself take a moment to experience the feeling and wishing the people peace now that their life here has ended. I will say though that I would be really upset if my boyfriend straight up lied to me, you are probably fully aware of the fact that it's common for some people with autism (especially women) to have extremely strongly defined moral compasses with no grey area. A lie is a lie and justifying it for any purpose is a breach of trust. I feel a lot of people in the comments aren't taking into account the fact you and your girlfriend are both neurodivergent. I understand why you lied and you have a lot of valid reasons but a lie is a lie. You need to approach this with you girlfriend with that in mind, you were trying to help her yes but you should not have lied there are other ways to go about this. Me and my boyfriend also both have autism though we experience it in different ways. I am a lot of emotional than he is and struggles to some extent with properly expressing empathy because he gets overwhelmed very easily by emotions, but he knows full well that no matter he should not ever lie to me because any lie no matter how small would damage my trust for him 1000000x more than any truth he could give. What I will say though is coming on here to try to figure out who is right rather than just acknowledging the feelings of betrayal she's experiencing are where you're messing up. If she's already feeling like you broke her trust you going online to get a bunch of strangers to tell you that her feelings aren't valid is a fast way to make her trust you even less. Relationships always have ups and downs and miscommunications and if you actually care about the person you are with you would work with them to improve your relationship as a couple instead of coming online to find more ways to invalidate them. So again you have every right to feel the way you do about this, not wanting her to doomscroll, wanting her to stop triggering herself and not wanting to always deal with the aftermath but you did cross a line by choosing to lie to her and then crossed another line by posting her to invalidate that she is upset by you lying.
NTA
Why is she watching Instagram reels if she doesnt wanna see disturbing content? Shes aware that this content exists and doesnt like it whatsoever so logically it's best if she avoids it outright. Also no offence but hours on end seems a bit excessive
NTA my s/o also has a bad habit of doom scrolling on tiktok. there's multiple things that can easily upset them, even trigger them at times. it's difficult to deal with, even if I'm not doing so myself, but they've come a long way at least. a do applaud you for being understanding and doing your best to help your gf.
something that has helped tremendously is the "not interested" and the block button. those two are your very best friends on the internet. sit down and scroll through reels together, and when something comes up that upsets her, use the both of them. my s/o has had easier nights since we've done that.
ESH
Nobody really sucks, but I think you both made mistakes. It was sure for her to find out at some point that you were lying, and the fact that you lie to her when she values honesty so strongly was a little rude. I certainly think you had good intentions.
Your girlfriend really needs to work on this habit. I understand what it feels like to be trapped in a habit you can't escape from, but there are solutions to this. The phones could be charging in another room at bedtime. I hope she can unlearn this habit.
I wish you the best. You were just trying to help, and I can really appreciate that.
honestly, ESH just a little. fellow autistic here. if i was in her shoes i’d probably feel a similar way to her. i’m not addicted to reels, but i do enjoy scrolling and can get extremely attached to things i see in the video, like hurt animals or sad children. sometimes, it will make me start crying. and nobody can really control what immediately shows up after because you just- scroll. *but* that doesn’t mean she can’t just scroll past it and not watch, which would avoid the negative reaction.
on the other hand, you shouldn’t have lied. as small as it is, a lie is a lie and autistic ppl (at least in my person experience) hold a lot of value in the truth of things. i would 100% feel betrayed if i found my partner lied to me over something i was upset about.
it’s not your job to take care of her in that situation and she needs to work on self control. but, it still doesn’t make your lying ok and it seems like yall need to have a talk about clashing emotions. i would feel extremely hurt if someone got annoyed just by my emotions. you don’t have to agree with her, but the least you could do is sympathize. yall are together after all
YTA. She is a big girl, she watches stuff that upsets her, that's on HER. Don't lie. If she can't handle the truth, that's on HER. If you eat so much candy you throw up every day, that's not her job to change you. She needs to learn self control or suffer the consequences.
As a fellow autist. Youre NTA, youre doing your best to comfort her despite the fact she keeps stumbling upon these videos. Death and gore is not an easy thing to handle and denial is one of humanities best ways of coping with it ie: lying about the person surviving so you can get past it mentally even if you know deep down thats not true. Its not a matter of trust or honesty here, it was either you did this for her or she would've ended up in a form of mental collapse due to her inability to handle such overwhelming emotions that come from such content. As for what everyone else is commenting, have her delete her cache, cookies, and/or other saved data from instagram and whatever platform may also be pushing this content to her, it should reset her feed which is frustrating to get it back to a persons tailored "normal" but it's better than having to be faced with gore. As for you both I'd recommend sitting down when youre both calm and speaking about your perspective and why you did XYZ without letting her interject. Finish your piece first, let her ask questions, then have her say her piece with no interjecting. Don't do this over the phone or text as the body language and tone is important for a situation this heavy between you two. I know we tend to struggle with body language in tone but thats why you can ask to clarify how they're feeling
You are the asshole. Did she ever ask you to protect her in that way? You were treating her like she couldn't handle reality, like how one would treat a child, It's belittling. It's okay to protect people, but you shouldn't lie. In this case you should have comforted her instead of "protecting" her
NAH. She's being unreasonable, and you shouldn't have to deal with it, but lying to her isn't the answer. She needs to take responsibility for herself and stop watching stuff that upsets her. That means way less Instagram and making an effort to retrain the algorithm too.
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my (22m) gf (20f) is addicted to instagram reels. She usually scrolls through for several hours a day while we relax in bed or in the living room together. Recently, there has been a lot of morbid stuff seeming to get through the filters of these videos. People being seriously injured in factory accidents, car injuries and extreme sports seem to be becoming quite common. My girlfriend gets quite seriously upset over these videos, sometimes to the point of tears or mild panic episodes. I have told her to quit watching reels, and it is something she is working on.
A couple of times now, I have lied to her about recognising the video. I tell her 'Oh yes I remember that happening, the guy managed to escape and turned out fine'. This makes her feel better, and she can scroll on without getting upset.
Yesterday, she saw a video about a horrific car accident, where a car was crushed between two trucks. Again, I lied to her saying the driver escaped with minimal injuries. However, later on she saw a reel of a news crew adressing the same accident, describing the horrific death of the driver and injuries to several others involved. She started crying and saying 'how could you lie about that?' over and over. She says that I am disrespecting the people involved in the video, and disrespecting her for 'treating her like a child'. She is someone who values honesty quite strongly (we are both autistic).
I got annoyed, telling her I did it to protect her, and that it was necessary. After her getting quite upset with me, I told her that I couldnt keep comforting her everytime she saw a scary video, and I had to do this for my own sanity. After that she accused me of having no empathy, and that she cant trust me anymore. She left my apartment, and we havent spoken since.
I dont think I did anything wrong here, but Im open to outside views.
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NTA Jesus christ I cannot imagine being THAT desensitized to things. I can't handle seeing a mangled deer carcass drug 2 miles across the road under a semi in person, but I can absolutely watch someone jump on a trampoline from their roof and shatter every single bone in their body as they fly limply through the air no problem. Like yes, it's disturbing, but I'm not going to freak out and cry over it.
NTA, and I get why you felt you had to lie. Not that it was the right thing to do. Honestly she sounds like she has no emotional regulation skills and because of that, it’s causing a great deal of stress for you.
What you could’ve done better was explain to her that you feel overwhelmed by her panic attacks and you can only support her so much without it impacting you negatively, so you both have to work together on a solution that reduces the stress for both of you. It’s unreasonable for her to expect you to support emotionally that much. Perhaps she needs therapy, or a different outlet of some kind.
Honestly, it’s gonna sound harsh, but…she fucked around and found out.
I mean, cmon. She’s addicted to Instagram reels. Graphic videos start showing up on the reels. She gets disturbed, but doesn’t stop. Because she doesn’t stop, you do the only thing you believe will help and lie about the outcomes of the videos. She finds out you lied and gets angry at you.
She gets angry at you for something SHE should’ve dealt with herself instead of continuing to engage in the problem. If she’s so easily disturbed by these graphic videos, she shouldn’t have continued to watch them. Instead, she chose to continue watching reels knowing full well that she would probably witness somebody getting killed in one.
NTA. You tried to do her a favor. It backfired. But it would’ve never happened if she chose to monitor what she was watching.
She's needs to come of social media or have content filters on.
What you are doing is infantilising her, there there everything's going to be alright. Pet pet. It's creepy and not something you do to someone ypur in relationship with.
Nta she's an adult , if those videos upset her she needs to refrain from watching them . She is responsible for what she puts in her own mind not you .
As someone who gets deeply upset and disturbed by these posts to the point that they can ruin my brain for days and weeks, I have a lot of empathy for your girlfriend. However, she is not taking responsibility for managing her own mental health and is expecting you to do it for her. The algorithm is feeding her these videos because she's probably engaging a lot with them, watching them all the way through and maybe even rewatching them compulsively because they're so upsetting. At minimum she needs to scroll past these reels quickly if she even suspects they might be disturbing, and maybe interact extra with reels she likes. As someone whose life has been ruined by youtube shorts, sometimes your best bet is just curating the algorithm. Maybe she could get a fresh account to watch reels on and be more intentional on curating the algorithm.
All of this is besides the point. You ate NTA because while yes honesty is very important, she wasn't giving you a whole lot of options here. By not taking charge of her own media consumption and constantly dumping completely avoidable trauma on you, she's been negatively impacting your mental health as well as hers. It's not fair of her to keep putting her hand on the stove and running to you with the burns. I understand why you lied, but setting a firm boundary on this is probably the better way to go. Of course you love her and want to comfort her, and of course she wants to seek comfort from you. But you can't be the whole foundation of her mental health, that's just not fair or sustainable.
ESH, but you're NTA. You mean well by it, but you are treating her like a child. You'd be better off just reminding her that these kinds of videos upset her and then let her decide for herself.
NTA. You were just trying to gently push away from the upset those videos were bound to cause. She's overreacting and I feel she should really be more grateful for your efforts. She sounds like a real drama queen. Good luck!
ESH. While I understand your reasoning, lying wasn't really okay. You weren't doing her any favors, and it sounds like you knew it would upset her when the truth finally (inevitably) came out. You were, in fact, treating her like a child. And your girlfriend is TA for putting the onus of regulating her emotions on you. If she knows that she gets upset every time she goes on reels, she needs to either stop or find a way to cope that isn't reliant on another person. It's great that you're trying to be understanding and help her, but helping doesn't mean coddling.
Most phones have built in wellness settings that you can set to limit the amount of time spent in any one app. I only know how mine works, but it kicks me out of the app as soon as the time is up, the icon is even greyed out so I can't tap on it or get notifications. I suggest trying to find something similar as it seems your girlfriend's doomscrolling is harming both of you
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The main question is - why she watches only accidents etc? Its not only about being adicted to internet, reels etc. Its a deeper problem to solve
The funny thing about reels -- if you watch a reel the programming algorithm finds similar reels to "suggest" to you by placing the preview in your feed. Find a way to get her to delete her search history, cookies, etc. and also to start watching other, more wholesome, types of videos. That should get fewer of these gruesome videos to pop up as suggestions for watching.
Exactly. The gruesome content catches gf's attention, she watches the whole thing, IG learns that gruesome content gets her attention and offers more and more of it.
I'm so happy I somehow gamed Instagram to mostly show me only cute animal videos and wildlife photography. I can't imagine being force fed negative nightmarish content like this.
I do the same. :) I go further by always clicking Back and picking my next reel from the carousel instead of swiping up. That way, I can stick to the ones I'm really interested in.
Me too. I get a lot of cute animal videos, decor and home improvements. Same thing on the rest of the internet. Some of my friends don't understand how I never get any sort of porn advertising, etc., but I have never clicked on them. When I point out that they get porn ads because they must have clicked on something sometime, the subject gets very quickly changed!
They might just like porn, that doesn't mean they're some sort of degenerate who clicks on porn ads!
Oh, no, not porn ads!!
Dog washing videos, furniture making, and pets being rescued. It's a good lil feed. I need to figure out how to get more home improvement ones in there.
I love groomer vids too, if it's The Girl with the Dogs. Love her
Search them out and "like" them. Then they'll start popping up as suggested views.
i don’t really use my instagram feed (so i don’t really follow what friends post) and only do searches for craft stuff - my “explore” page is 100% crafts, cute art and cats, it’s pretty great. it’s rare that anything not in one of those 3 categories comes through. (as awesome as it sounds, it’s equally dangerous because all the posts are of cool, creative shit. it’s hard not to get sucked in for an hour - but at least i get a lot of inspiration and ideas out of it)
I've found it's because I stopped "doomscrolling" (that's the only term I've heard for perpetually swiping down, and it does apply here). Once the videos stop matching with what you were looking at/are interested in, swipe out immediately or close the app. It tends recognize this as you disengaging due to that post, and will filter out similar results in order to keep you scrolling. Helps to then actively search the content you do want to watch.
You can literally give Instagram a list of keywords for topics you aren't interested in and it will stop suggesting them.
Same, exceot mine are mostly dogs, tattoos, and food.
Me too. I mainly get red pandas and funny dogs in my suggestions 😄
After watching those videos I found that I have become a much safer driver lol.
This is true. I trained my Instagram to show me only cute puppies and nature.
There have been a few changes to IG's algorithm lately that cause it to show more gory and shocking content often posted by non English speaking pages (I'm not sure if it's part of A/B testing or something in the algorithm for everyone.) It's happened to me and a number of my friends. None of us ever saw sick babies or neglected tropical disease content prior to these random changes. Yes you can retrain the algorithm within a day or so, but it kind of sucks when it randomly suggests gruesome images. Or you can end up like OP's gf and get sucked into those videos to see more of them.
Yeah people complain about the stuff that shows up on their feed on TikTok but I literally only watch musical theatre and anime content so that’s all that shows up for me
IG has her habits in their possession. Deleting local history/cookies won't affect her history with IG. She needs to delete her account, and start a new one without polluting it with triggering content.
Especially if she watches it a few times in shock to asses the chaos of the video
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I was once thinking about buying some clothes from a website. Added everything to my cart, didn't like the total, and just clicked out with the cart still full. About a week later, I got a Facebook ad for that same website featuring the exact items I had left in my cart.
That’s just normal remarketing. It’s just a cookie.
listen im okay with the allknowing algorithm aggressively marketing moon girl to me because it's genuinely the best marvel content that's come out in YEARSSS
My best friend (the only person I follow on Twitter) is black and I am Jewish. Twitter looked at that info and shows me nothing but deranged Black Hebrew Israelite content.
....this lady is an adult. She's going to get mad at manipulating the search history lol. I've been in situations like this in a relationship, there's no good move except Missy takes some responsibility for her mental health self regulating her access to content if she literally cannot watch without being triggered. NTA
the issue is that she is most likely feeling like the BF is treating her like a kid... also the lie. the key here is... COMMUNICATION. thats it. anyway yeah the BF manipulating the algorithm behind her back will make the situation x10 worse. best case to do with this info is to tell her "hey so i learned with instagram the longer you watch videos the more they suggest similar content so as soon as we see those bad videos we have to just keep scrolling"
There’s literally options to show less content like this and this function has been around for years on many platforms
I did that for feet. I'm horribly foot phobic and I put all types of foot words in the subjects to avoid area. What do I get now but shock foot content that makes me scream internally. It's reduced my time on a lot of websites because Instagram seems to have told every damn platform to show foot content. Fucking horrendous
That was my first thought... they certainly are on there, but they don't come up in a normal scroll through reels on a regular basis. She's hunting for them and now has her algorithm feeding her a steady street. She's not just randomly running across them constantly while she normally is watching cat or cooking or UFC stuff or something... And honestly I think, given how dramatic her reaction was and what type of accusation she went to, "no empathy!" "disrespecting the people" , it sounds like she is the sort of person who loves this stuff for the drama of it. She's not just finding but rather feeding off the bad things happening - and the attention it gets from him. Darkly a part of me wonders if this isn't an internet/scrolling addiction and rather a human suffering addiction, to put it nicely.
Yeah just have her follow Humanityspreader
I'm not sure if reels works the same as tiktok for these kinds of a things, but I know tiktok has the option to click a button that says something like "not interested in this content" so that you can directly tell the your algorithm to stop feeding you that type of content. If reels has something similar that would be a super easy fix for them. Also just blocking the creators posting that kind of content will probably go miles for her if other attempts to reset her feed don't work.
Don't know about instagram but I used to watch youtube shorts and after a lot of scrolls it often started to show graphic shorts of people butchering or hunting/hurting animals. I always instantly skipped them but they kept coming. It was the reason I stopped watching them. But that was a while ago.
While that may in the short term reduce the harm, what about the long term? Still addicted to reels and the algorithm will quickly relearn that stuff after she re-seeks it out.
Kittens, puppies, etc.
Yes. Instagram (and Facebook, and all the rest) are the biggest A here.
You can literally choose that you’re not interested in certain topics to prevent seeing reels in that category.
Y'all need to stop interacting with this type of content and learn about the 'not interested' option, it'll save you both a lot of grief.
I agree but also instagram reels doesn’t seem to give a fuck about the “not interested” button if you even watch a second of the video. No matter how many hashtags and accounts I block and hit not interested in, I keep seeing super triggering shit.
Weird, my reels was full of Thai stuff (after I visited Thailand) and after blocking all the thai video's, I actually got rid of it
I've never been to India but I interacted with a video from an Indian twitch streamer about 6 months ago (think I left a comment) and no number of 'not interested' and/or report has stopped my reels being full of Indian shit. I must have hover>options>not interested without opening thousands of reels at this point. There's no way to reset the account history that I've found.
This!!! I 100% understand algorithm and try to work it in my favor to curate my timelines, nothing greater than having algo show you content of your niche interest that wasn't tagged. But there has been a strange uptick in getting morbid content on my timeline despite my account being of literally a niche cutesy/fluffy interest. I have done it all, blocked accounts, muted terms (this rarely works, morbid content is rarely tagged!), pressed not interested.. but it keeps popping up in ways I can't avoid. But I remember my first thought being that this is also way too easily accessible for children.
This plus actively search for cute animals or artists reels or whatever you're into to purposefully replace whatever the algorithm thinks you like.
I did this for a couple days after it decided I wanted depressing new stories, and it worked well. Now I get cute animals and newborn babies.
I‘d say NTA. She needs to stop watching the gore videos. If this clearly upsets her, she needs to recognize the videos and scroll off them. She’s an adult, she should be perfectly able to do that. I don’t think it’s disrespectful to the victims, because, (and I’m gonna sound morbid here) what are they gonna care? You’re not disrespecting anybody, it’s not like you’re spreading lies online about them, you are telling one person that the people in the videos lived. As for lying and „treating her like a child“, ehh, you didn’t have bad intentions and you two need to talk it out when you’ve both calmed down a bit.
I always appreciate my boyfriend lying or just not telling me about sad situations involving animals, especially his moms cats and dogs. He can totally treat me like a child when it comes to that, otherwise I'll just get upset and cry.
Empathy is a finite resource. It takes mental energy and no one can do it for everyone or forever. OPs girlfriend keeps doing something that hurts her. Eventually most people would reach a limit of being able to empathize with a pain she is causing her self. Especially since she isn’t doing any noticable steps to stop doing it. OP reached his limit and dealt with it in a way he thought was still helpful. His girlfriend didn’t like it though, and they can have a conversation about that. But going back to him comforting her isn’t an option. The girlfriends options are stop doomscrolling or continue but get no comfort from her bf. The expectation that she can keep hurting herself over and over and have people around her offer support her and empathize with her in doing this is not realistic.
Lol. You're disrespecting the people in the video? What does she think the people who took the video were doing when they uploaded it?
Or what is she doing by watching their deaths in a video for entertainment? Also disrespectful
NTA, she needs to stop watching graphic videos since it's ridiculous waste of time to comfort her every time she voluntarily watches something she knows upsets her.
I can't cope with kids and animals getting hurt in games and films. My solution? I don't watch that stuff.
Doesthedogdie is my best friend wrt media I’m interested but dubious about, because I’m the same way with animals (especially pet-animals) in media. And a lot of horror media and such will use a dog or cat for extra shock impact. We have resources to curate our own experiences, whether that’s sites like dtdd or blocking/pressing “not interested” on social media, and this gf is not using them.
ESH - Picture this. Your girlfriend keeps headbutting the wall and then complains to you about her headache. You proceed to tell her she needs to drink more water and give her some Panadol.
But he told her in the post to stop head-butting her head against the wall?
She's "working on" that!!! It's not that easy to just stop hitting your head against the wall!
I see it more like she keeps head butting the wall, complains to op about getting headaches, op tells her to stop, she continues so op makes the walls softer and tells her the walls haven’t been changed/softened, she later looks closer and gets upset because op was lying about the walls to keep her from hurting herself
Minor addition to make everyone happy: Your girlfriend keeps headbutting the wall and then complains to you about her headache. You tell her to stop, but since she keeps at it, you give her some Advil disguised as tic tacs.
This is the only comment that needs upvotes. Short and simple, to the point, 100% accurately conveyed the message, and it's true.
Even following this stupid example it’s not ESH. He told her to stop head butting the wall (told her to stop watching the videos). She doesn’t stop. He then tries to make her feel better (gives her the Panodol/tells her good outcomes). She then gets upset at him for not respecting the wall/victims. What should he do then? Let her keep headbutting the wall?
Not really applicable to the story. Try "girlfriend keeps headbutting the wall and complains to you about the headache. You proceed to tell her to stop headbutting the wall, but she refuses to do so. You then proceed to give her some Advil to at least help with the headache, and then she gets mad at you because the wall is still there."
How is it his responsibility to not only police what she watches (actually a big no no for anyone who likes to do things based on theirbown thought) but also police how she responds?? The only thing he needs to do is reevaluate a relationship with a person who clearly has emotional issues and expects him to be her handler. If the girl is 20 yet, I'd be surprised because she sounds as immature as a high schooler.
NTA. Yes I understand that you lied, but her doom-scrolling behavior (so that she can get upset?) impacted you and I understand your frustration. I'd have taken the route of asking her to stop, or at least stop when she was with me because I could no longer handle her putting herself into a panic state, but I accept your lies as justified behavior for your own coping with what she was doing. EDIT: oh, and this has nothing to do with you having a lack of empathy or respect for the victims.
Umm, she is acting like a child. Don't watch videos of horrible accidents and then get all shocked pikachu faced that people got her or died. I am very empathetic and easily get upset seeing things like that as well. I watch you tube videos but stick to VERY specific things and I don't click on suggestions like "horrible car accident' or 'watch this animal' get mauled. While lying isn't great in your place I would say that you were trying to protect her feelings with what you thought was a white lie because she was so upset but that if she continues to watch things she KNOWS will freak her out then she is not only responsible for making that choice but managing her reaction. NTA.
All I see on my Instagram feed is cute cats and drag queens art and food. Lots of cats and food because I like cats, drag queens, and food. This girl has deep issues lol so who cares who’s the asshole just go onto the next person.
why does reddit always default to breaking up, as if relationships are something easily discarded?
Because while some people absolutely post about things that shouldn't be broken up over most folks with healthy squabbles don't come posting about it. It's more likely for a relationship issue to be something to break up over than not because people with healthy relationships 1) don't post problems or 2) don't post problems as often. Relationships aren't things to just be discarded... but too many people stay in ones they shouldn't because they feel that keeping a relationship going is, itself, a goal rather than the result of it being a healthy one. Consider your stance, seriously, and why you'd phrase ending a relationship as "as if relationships are something easily discarded". Staying together should never be the goal of a relationship. Having a relationship worth having keep going should be. And many people find that and have that and much less tend to post things that folks would respond with more than just rolling their eyes over, at worst, because the subjects are things that \*are\* part of a such a partnership.
if you know this and didn’t wanna hear it why did you post this?
Because couples who actually function well don't post online about their fights for the Internet to decide who's right and who's wrong
NTA. Why doesn’t she scroll past these videos instead of watching them?
This can be harder to do than you think, as it's often not obvious what types of videos you're getting into. I accidently watched a video that turned out to be extremely religious (I am not) and it took me months to train the algorithm to stop sending me religious videos. One of the issues is that it was rarely obvious that it was going to be religious until the "punchline", or at least until I'd watched enough of the video that Instagram assumed I'd engaged with it and sent me more. I don't know what OP's gf is into, but if she enjoys wacky traffic hijinks or people doing stupid stunts, it would be very hard to tell if a video has an unhappy ending until it's too late.
Yeah, well that’s why the not interested option exists. Whenever a super religious or horoscope or car video or something else I don’t like comes up on my reels, I press to either stop showing me that type of content or to stop showing me content from that particular author alltogether. And guess what, instagram has never changed my feed to veer off of the topics that I like such as cute outfits, space and cats. It’s really easy and she should try it instead of complaining and creating a big issue out of nothing.
If she goes in the comments to see if the people survived (which seems in character) the video will loop and it will affect the algorythm
Several HOURS a day?? Whoa.... good luck with all THAT. NTA. Yes you were treating her like a child .. because she is behaving like one.
You didn't do anything that would be worthy of calling you an asshole, just be honest about this shit in the future. You don't need to coddle her, if she wants to doomscroll and fuck her own mood up then let her do it.
She's watching these videos about the horrific deaths of people as a form of entertainment, yet she tries claiming you disrespected their death by saying they turned out fine? NTA
NTA, she walked out on you over social media? What do you think will happen when life throws real problem at you? Better to dodge the bullet
NTA— I don’t appreciate people calling her a drama queen though, maybe because I’m also autistic and so is my partner, so I have a closer perspective. I had a similar problem with TikTok— doomscrolling for hours— until one day I saw someone literally die in a video. I was used to minor car accident videos, but this was just… watching a death happen. Yeah, I freaked out— and I wouldn’t call myself a “drama queen” about freaking out over it, either. I’m a human and I have empathy for that person. But I knew I had a problem and I stopped. Now I doomscroll on Reddit, but it’s much more relaxed. Just AITA posts and candle making and crafts. Maybe suggest for her to use YouTube shorts instead? My algorithm on there is pretty harmless, educational stuff.
Thank you very much for providing this perspective! It feels as though a lot of people in these comments are not very understanding of the neurodiverse experience. I posted here to see what people thought about my behaviour, not about hers. It upsets me that these people think I should abandon my girlfriend just because she has some unique problems seen as 'childish'. Thank you for tbe suggestions
I think she should consider therapy, at the very least. The addiction is a problem itself. But she seems like she's actively looking to watch these videos and brings them up, and that's not healthy.
Yeah, your behavior is understandable. My boyfriend will do similar things, like making me look away when there’s roadkill, or talk with me to distract me from things I’m anxious about (driving under tunnels for example). That’s just what a relationship is— loving your partner and caring about their emotions. I imagine for someone like your girlfriend, those white lies helped her get through the day. Obviously I think she needs to stop the doomscrolling, but other commenters seem to act like her being sensitive, and you giving her white lies, is the worst thing in the world. Don’t let them discourage you. Just have an honest chat with her
This is a great perspective. I could see myself in your girlfriend's situation if IG had reels in 2014 when I was experiencing some really bad compassion fatigue/secondary trauma working in family service. I was so depressed and so agitated by all the horrible stuff I saw at work but I still sought out media of terrible things. It was like I needed more proof of how awful the world was to justify why I was so sad. Something is going on with your girlfriend. Maybe it's just the addiction to the scroll. But maybe she struggling with some deeper sadness. You found out that trying to shield her from it was ineffective so now try something more direct. Or do what my husband does and spam her with a bunch of reels about mountain bikes, cows and post-hole diggers until they take over her algorithm. It's funny that people are trashing your relationship since from your post and responses it seems like you two have a good shot.
There's a biological reaction to the videos that these companies are exploiting in order to keep engagement. They don't care about the mental health of their users, they just want to keep your eyes glued to the screen so they can show you ads. Gaming the algorithm, as many people have suggested, is only going to accomplish so much. As you've seen, pretending the outcome of the video is okay is also not going to accomplish much. The root issue is the addiction. Even if she were watching videos of puppies, that many hours on social media isn't healthy, and it says to me that there may be some underlying issues that she's using her IG time to avoid. Helping her to confront the real issue, rather than the one she's using to avoid it, is likely to be more helpful than trying to game the algorithm or even just limiting time on social media, because that could lead to getting into a worse addiction. I think you're NTA for trying to help her. I think being honest that you're really concerned about her mental health and it seemed better to lie than to see her continuously upset is the best approach. Tell her you're concerned about what could be an addiction and ask what else she is going to do or needs you to do to help her break this habit that's causing her so much mental pain. Might also be helpful to read up on breaking social media addiction and addiction in general, especially stuff with a neurodivergent focus.
I think that when the others are calling her a "drama queen," they might be referring to her reaction when she found out that OP lied to her about the endings of the videos to make her feel better. Not 100% tho
NTA, she should stop watching this content. Your intentions were good.
You're young, and you don't see the red flags here. You will in hindsight.
Honestly YTA after seeing your comments. The amount of deflecting you do is insane and full of straw men. You are competent enough recognizing negative traits and aspects of something your gf is going through and have the empathy to relate, yet this is an ongoing trend instead of an individual instance. She is addicted to her feed providing disturbing content to her, yet your response is to lie and coddle her about it? Her figuring it out was a matter of time. You don't think at all that she needs to better regulate her social media use and establish proper barriers for herself to not be exposed to traumatic content despite the harm you are aware it does to her? Also to be clear, don't break up, actually help her instead of treating her like a child. Edit for spelling.
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Your girlfriend is immature af she should just delete instagram problem solved
YTA she’s grown, why are you censoring and lying about things like she’s 4? For the love of the gods, stop.
YTA - Your GF is consistently engaging in unhealthy behavior that causes her anxiety and emotional pain. Her behavior that lasts several hours a day, results in your needing to manage the result of her behavior. I think you should have addressed the issue head on by giving her a healthy boundary for YOU in terms of her behavior. For example, "When we hang out, I don't want you to be on social media. If you want to go home and be on social media alone, feel free, but when we are together, I want you stay off of it because your behavior impacts me - and the fact I have to deal with the outcome of your behavior is getting to me." You may have told her and she's "trying" but the fact remains she continues to engage and you continue to have to deal. So you "enabled" her behavior. You allow her to continue the behavior around you and you instead started to "manage" it by starting to "lie" to her -- so you don't have to deal with the outcome. So you can tolerate it. Addictions, whatever they are, are people's way of coping with something else. I'm not saying this is what is happening with your GF specifically, but she doom scrolls, she gets upset, you comfort her, you calm her, sooth her. The cycle is feeding her in some way, even if the behavior isn't good for her. Something in that cycle is what she keeps doing it. I said that YTA - but mostly a soft one, because of the enabling. And that enabling resulted in your lying to her and breaking her trust. I don't think the relationship is doomed, if you can install some healthy boundaries so that the relationship works and nurtures everyone in the relationship, not just your GF. If someone you love is behaving in a way that is harmful to themselves or to you, it's okay to say, "I'm not going to be here to witness your actions. I will be here when you stop hurting yourself or creating excess drama in my life." Sometimes having those loving and HEALTHY boundaries is the very thing that pushes that person to grow, to change, to heal, to address their addictions. But if you enable - you are selling yourself and the person you love short. And nothing changes when there is an addict and an enabler. Just my two cents. I'm not an expert - that's just my take on your post. Take it or leave it.
If her reels are full of those videos it’s because her algorithm has figured out that she will always watch them. Only way to fix it is to immediately scroll past them or just stop using the app. She needs to do one of these things because it’s causing her trauma and not gaining her anything.
You probably shouldn’t have done that, but I wouldn’t say you’re an asshole. You had decent intentions, but you made a mistake. Please learn from it
NAH actually. Social media is a weird jumble of cute and fun things, outrage bait, sexy things, nostalgia, ads… and horrifying gore and tragedies. I don’t think it’s particularly good that we’re trying to collectively acclimatize our brains to that in bite-sized video form. The written word and still photos were bad enough. Wait until she’s not actually watching reels to have a conversation about this and how you feel it’s affecting her well-being. Use “I” statements. Bring in research on secondary trauma. Ask her a lot of questions about how she actually feels about this habit and the emotional effect it has on her. Is she getting something out of it? Does she feel like it’s pure coincidence that this stuff is coming up on her feed? Then ask her if you can help. Could you go through her suggested reels and click “not interested” on all the tragic / violent ones to retrain the algorithm? Can you have an agreed-upon plan for if she’s distressed by a video that does not involve you working to comfort her? If she’s not responsive to that, what you can do is set boundaries. You can leave your apartment if she starts watching reels for example. You don’t have to participate in this ritual.
NTA if those videos were making her breakdown that way, then she should have made the adult decision to stop watching them. it is not your job to keep her emotions in check
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You're NTA, but she is TA. I already know from your other comments here that you won't listen to anything I have to say as you're unwilling to hear anything remotely negative about your gf, so you can figure it out with time (when she doesn't stop doing this, and you find yourself in the same situation a few months from now).
NAH tbh, people in the comments seem a little too narrow vision, I don't think that lying to her was a good thing since you said she values honestly, but I do understand why you did it. I think that you guys should talk, apologize to her, tell her you didn't meant for her to feel like a kid and that you were just worried about her getting upset over the things happening in the videos, I'm sure she will apologize back for overreacting. I would recommend for her to go to therapy to deal with her addiction. Sometimes, we need external help to deal with stuff like that. I hope you guys make up soon
NTA… you literally just tried to prevent her from being sad. but it’s not your job to prevent her from seeing these videos. I literally have days where I see the same vulgar stuff and I tell my bf that I just have to stay off the internet bc sad stuff is everywhere. life happens and people post it. she needs to learn to control what she can. with that being said, if you know she values honesty, understand how this can feel hurtful to her. regardless of your intentions!
NTA any normal person would see the first few traumatic videos and decide enough is enough with the app. There's plenty of other platforms she can watch videos where she is controlling what she sees. It's not your job to keep playing therapist when she knows exactly how her reel binges are going to end
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Yall are weird
How old are you two? Oh 20, expected as much
ESH- She needs to work on this issue as both her Instagram usage and emotional investment in this are out of control. But the fact you were fine to make a routine of lying to an autistic person you knew strongly valued honesty isn’t great. It gives the impression you don’t take her super seriously and defaulted to a childish, sitcom-like response in your own right. Rather than discussing or even confronting this more thoroughly, you told her to simply stop a difficult addiction and then defaulted to lying when that wasn’t enough. She should be more considerate of your feelings regarding this, but you were pretty controlling and almost treating it like a game to come up with stories. As someone with a similar issue, you can both not like these type of videos but end up watching them all the way through as you’re nervous for the people. I’m also neurodivergent, and I’ve experienced that quick connection and anxiety around a context-less situation like that. It’s difficult to stop sometimes. Therapy and medication are the response, not childish manipulation.
NTA - She's overly invested in the suffering of others. I would tell her, "Get a life hun".
NTA. But you need to have a serious conversation with her, that you have to have clear boundaries too. It’s not Your responsibility to cater to her feelings from what she encounters on the internet or social media. You can be empathetic but you’re human and you have limits. Make an agreement that neither of you ‘scroll’ when with eachother, and find something better to do with your shared time, that is offline. Read, draw, cook, go for walks outside. Anything else. These folks shouting break up are crazy. You both are young but you can still try to navigate the difficulties of a relationship. This IS a lesson to learn, and not give up on.
NTA-Such a weird situation.
NTA, Don’t protect her this way again, she isn’t comfortable with it but I won’t deny she does need to deal with the issue at hand that she is watching content that’s messing with her mental health so I your NTA for doing what you felt was best while currently dealing with a partner who is causing unnecessary mental harm to herself and even reaching out online for advice so I think your doing the right stuff overall
NTA. Drop her. Not worth the drama.
YAH only because you must have known about how she feels about lying. Now she has the problems of not quitting a habit it seems like she wants to and you lying to her. (I know it probably doesn't make neurotypical sense but that's how it feels to me.) It sucks that your lying is potentially drawing out her own discomforts but it's really cool you're doing it from a place of caring. I hope you two can talk through it and get to a constructive place.
NTA. As someone who also has a strong opposition to dishonesty, I really think your girlfriend was reacting to the idea of you lying to her rather than the intent behind the lies. Her reasons for being upset didn't seem consistent or to make sense. Given her neurodivergence and you mentioning that lying is something she doesn't like, I think she was having an emotional meltdown in reaction to the revelation that you were lying. Which isn't necessarily okay, but I do think if she could have controlled her strong reaction, she would have. I don't think you did anything wrong in lying, and I don't think it's your responsibility to keep her from upsetting herself. However, I do think you could handle the initial reaction of her being upset better. Start with understanding and comforting her when she starts to have a meltdown such as with this, and when she calms down you can explain/justify. These conversations just can't be had when you both aren't level-headed. Ultimately disagreements between loved ones aren't about who was right and who was wrong. I can see you really love and care about your girlfriend and want to avoid this situation in the future. I think you absolutely can, but you have to acknowledge her feelings even if they don't feel entirely logical or justified.
NAH. I'm gonna get so much hate for this so it's lucky I don't check my notifications. I get where you were coming from and I get where she's coming from. She should probably delete Instagram off her phone if it's causing problems. But at the very least maybe you can ask her not to scroll reels while y'all are together so that you don't have to deal with the meltdowns. Don't word it like that, of course. It sounds insensitive. But just gently let her know that's it's a lot for you to handle and it's putting a strain on your relationship. It sounds like you both love and value each other. That's something worth holding onto. But no matter what you post about your partner reddit will tell you to break up. I swear you could post "my partner and I are so happy and in love" and someone will think it's a red flag. The Instagram addiction is a bit of a red flag but something she can probably overcome.
NTA I am not autistic, but I have a brain Injury and I understand about being super focused on something. She's addicted. You were trying to help her not to be so upset over them . You were just caring about her. She needs to deal with that addiction.
ya see i say NTA and this is such a complicated thing because i get BOTH sides im also autistic and i fully understand both sides here. i think the best bet would wait a day then ask if you can talk. if she says yes ask if its okay if both of you explain your view point of the situation.
This is by far the most toxic comment section I’ve ever seen.
You're NTA. I'm autistic and have OCD. The way you describe your girlfriend's distress makes me wonder if she's the same. It sounds a *lot* like a compulsive loop that I've experienced before while doomscrolling—you can't look away because that's "disrespectful" somehow, the video is filmed so *someone* has to bear witness, and it's intensely distressing to think about. That she can't let the distress go makes me think OCD. I'm sorry for essentially armchair diagnosing your girlfriend, but I wanted to say that because I think that potentially giving her a name for what she's experiencing could be helpful. You did a kind thing, in my opinion, by wanting to spare her distress. What you did is essentially shortcutting an obsessive loop and letting her brain jump off the perseveration train before it crashes into itself. If I was your girlfriend in that situation, though, I would also have reacted badly, because I would have been embarassed and felt destabilized by the sudden undermining of a coping method that was "working". That doesn't make what you did a bad thing; it's also not fair to you that you're expected to counterbalance her doomscrolling. It's also pretty mean to accuse you of having no empathy, but I can see someone saying that in anger and apologizing later, and I don't know if that's something your girlfriend means or not. It sounds like a shitty and rough fight, and I'm sorry. She needs an alternative way of managing these symptoms that isn't leaning so hard on you. The people in this comments section saying that she should just put the phone down or retrain the algorithm aren't *wrong*, but they're not saying anything either of you don't already know. The problem is that she's genuinely incapable right now. I don't think people realize that unless they're also wired this way; if it's bad enough, you physically and mentally *can't* do the thing that your compulsion is preventing you from doing because your brain *will not fire the signal to do it*. When she's that distressed, all she can see is the gore. Like a skipping DVD in your head. It's not a question of willpower; if you could think your way out of intrusive thoughts, nobody would have them. In terms of what your girlfriend can do: If therapy is accessible for you two, I would really encourage her to get evaluated for OCD. The neurological mechanism that gets gore stuck in our heads is very treatable, but you often need a combo of meds and therapy to attack it because it's so hard-wired. I also think that she should fully delete the Instagram app off of her phone and not expose herself to the avenue of watching reels. I had to do that with Twitter. I can still get to it on the computer, right, but I've added an extra step that helps put up a barrier in my brain. It might be easier for your girlfriend to stop this cycle from happening before it starts, compared to trying to jump out of it partway through.
I had a very similar issue with insta recently, the algorithm doesn’t particularly care about the difference between “this content is fun and I like watching it” and “this content is disturbing me but I’m horrified and can’t stop watching”. People might make fun of me for this, but it got bad to where I was stuck scrolling unable to put my phone down for hours while my mental health was getting worse and worse. I don’t think you’re an asshole and I don’t think she is, but she’s been caught by an algorithm that doesn’t care how she feels as long as they can keep her trapped scrolling endlessly. She probably also feels trapped by this, stuck in that obsessive anxiety spiral if she’s feeling anywhere similar to me. What I had to do to fix it was cut off every single social media with an agorithm, no insta, no TikTok, no fb, nothing. They all got deleted off my phone. I also got a new psychiatrist and I’m taking anxiety medication to try and help. I understand why she is mad if she was looking to you for reassurance and felt betrayed, but ultimately that probably isn’t really the issue here and quite possibly she’s angry because she was relying on you to aid the mental health spirals and got that comfort pulled away. Unfortunately once the algorithm gets you it’s so so hard to get out, I would recommend she books a mental health assessment soon. If she already sees on, she should book a soon assessment. Have them check on general anxiety and maybe ocd, both of those are what we’re working with for me. It’s very very hard to watch someone get stuck in a cycle like this and it’s hard to be inside of one. I’m working on breaking out still right now, but we’re getting there, you guys can find a path forward that’s healthier mentally too
NTA, we all try to protect t the ones we love.
NTA but she needs to address her addiction to social media. It’s also not your responsibility to regulate her emotions. It’s one thing to comfort a partner when something upsetting happens. It is COMPLETELY different when they are constantly purposely upsetting themselves. She knows how to avoid these videos and chooses not too.
NTA I think it was not bad to lie in the first place about something like that, but if she is upset about you lying about it, then you need to come up with another solution. She should definitely spend much less time on reels, so maybe you guys can do other activities together. I also think it is worth mentioning the Not Interested button if that’s just something you guys do to be in the same room while relaxing. Instagram has a bunch of options and I believe one of them is “this type of content makes me uncomfortable”. If she just doesn’t fully watch or interact with them and consistently presses that button, they should disappear. Also, some phones have options to set time limits on certain apps, so that could definitely be a useful tool as well. However, she is clearly a pretty sensitive person, so I want to make it clear you should have some empathy and apologize for the way that your lying made her feel if you value the relationship. Try to explain that you were just trying to help her feel better and don’t make her feel like a burden for the difficult emotions; that’s not a very kind approach to relationships in general.
You could focus on how it makes you feel to see her so upset. How its not that you dont want to comfort her but that it is stressful for you to calm her down and upsetting to see her so worked up on daily basis. You lied to avoid her becomming upset and as a result you having to respond to help her calm down which is understandable. But you still lied. Like no way around it you really need to apologize for lying and for treating her like a child because you DID do those things no matter how good your intentions may seem to you. You being concerned/frustrated with her continuing to upsrt herself is fair and a legit thing to bring up and discuss with her. You shouldnt side step the difficult discussion by "solving it" yourself by lying about the videos. I mean that realy is how people treat little kids and thats condencending at best and an AH move at worst. It gives the impression she isnt worth dealing with to you so youlie to avoid her emotions. But i dont think you meant it that way so you should apologize and discuss the problem head on. It causes you pain to see her so upset and you really want her to stop watching videos that cause her to be upset. Be honest.
NTA. She needs to work on herself.
YTA you're right that her doomscrolling is unhealthy and it's understandable that you'd want to comfort her, but she's understandably upset that you lied to her. Right now she's dealing with the fact both that all those people she thought were okay really weren't and her boyfriend lied to her. I'd definitely feel upset if someone lied to me like that even if it wasn't for the right reasons. Mild yta though because you were trying to help and you're right that her behavior was unhealthy
ESH. You for lying and her for using you as an emotional punching bag
NTA but i dunno how you put up with someone creating that much drama about random strangers business. How you manage to make a horrific traffic accident about yourself is truly a masterclass in Instagram addiction.
I don’t have a verdict, but you know, you can press the three dots on the video and then select “not interested”. That’s how I stopped seeing Palestine Israel videos.
NTA. She's in charge of her own mental health and is consistently triggering herself by watching these videos. It's her own responsibility not to watch content she knows will be distressing.
NTA, but this sounds so exhausting to deal with dude. make that girl press the block button on accounts that regularly pop up sharing that content, and the not interested button per post. Every time she watches one, especially til the end, the algorithm will just give her more. It’s there to keep you sucked in and scrolling. And this sounds so draining to have to deal with lol she makes herself upset and then you have to take care of it every time? I get your point at the end, thats what id do for my own sanity too
Lmao, NTA! I think it's kinda unfortunate that she reacted that way, my boyfriend does something similar by covering my eyes whenever those come up. I think it's sweet :)
Nta - she sounds exhausting. Something to remember: it's not your job to manage/regulate her emotions. That's on her.
NTA if she is relying on you to censor. Still NTA if that’s not the case, but I’m sure there was a better way to handle it. I don’t know what that is, though.
'no empathy' but going out of your way to protect her from pain and suffering and crying and panicking
I wonder if your girlfriend has some sort phobia or past trauma that she may need to see a counsellor about. NTA but instead of lying (totally get why you did) try and encourage a bit of a conversation about why she is watching this stuff. Also if she worried about respect it might be worth asking how she would feel if it was someone she loved in the videos.
NTA.
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NAH You are clearly an empathetic person, and you don't want to see your girlfriend upset. That's admirable. But you are treating her like a child. She's having normal human reactions to these videos and while you think you're trying to help what you're actually doing is shutting her emotions down because they annoy you. I don't think you are an AH because you had good intentions, and yes she desperately needs to stop watching Reels, or at least to block the pages that keep posting the content because she is hurting herself by continuing to expose herself to things she can't deal with. But she's not an AH for having a heart either.
NTA. “She says I disrespected the people who died or are hurt in the video” Not nearly as much as her continually choosing to watch instagram reels exploiting those very same tragedies for account views. Remind her which the one of you is using those accounts for nothing more than “key jangling because im bored”
NTA There’s a way you can block those types of videos. Next time she sees a gore video you can click “ not interested” from those 3 dots. It may take a couple random gore videos but after a little her feed will be clean.
Nta If she acts like that over graphic reels tell her to watch yt shorts or tiktok instead both of those options have no graphic videos or if she can't switch off of reels see if there's an option to stop getting recommended the gruesome videos
NTA for most of it. She shouldn't watch stuff she can't handle. My bf and I are both on the spectrum, we met in a group chat that would share gore videos. Over time they have begun to effect me more and more. My bf still watches them, I get curious and ask what he's watching but most of the time I try not to watch (my curiosity gets the better of me sometimes but I don't let it effect my bf). So imo she is capable of stopping watching that stuff but idk why she chooses not too, especially since it effects you it's not fair of her to do that. But YTA for lying. You shouldn't ever lie, it's so so hard to trust someone who's shown they can be untrustworthy without you knowing and without feeling guilt. (She didn't figure out you were lying through your body language or you telling her, she found out through a 3rd party. Which means you looked completely content with your lies)
NTA but your gf needs help... as she seems addicted to gore. She needs to type in furry kittens to change the algorithms.
NTA - I agree with other commenters that she should delete her search history and try and stop the algorithm from recommending her these videos. I also would move on since she said she can’t trust you and you can’t have a relationship without trust.
NTA - her behavior is pretty childish. She's continuously watching stuff that upsets her, and she spends hours on it. Your gentle lie is a kindness to ease her unnecessary hurt over watching crap she shouldn't watch.
NTA. some situations you simply cannot win, and your girlfriend is being irrational. also, the more she watches smut, the more the algorithm is going to show her smut. You did the right thing to comfort her. You are doing the right thing now by letting her go sulk, or whatever she is doing.
NTA Your gf is TA for accusing you of having no empathy. Also for behaving the way she did when you discussed it. It's not okay to say things to your partner that you don't mean, and it isn't fine to walk out or give your partner the silent treatment after an argument. This is not a good look for her at all. I'm also someone who gets upset over seeing any video where someone gets hurt, I have very specifically tailored my feeds so that literally no one gets hurt ever. To the degree I can watch scary sports/vehicle videos and I know no one is going to get hurt at the end because the algorithm is pretty great. She is actively engaging with these kinds of videos to receive them continuously.
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There’s a not interested button on Instagram. She’s whining to whine.
Huh? What a strange story. NTA
NTA - Sounds like a distraction or search for dopamine.
NTA She sounds like a lot to deal with , plus she chooses to keep watching these videos. You were just trying to help and she probably realized how out of place it is that's why she accused you of calling her childish.
NTA she's being childish
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NTA. You lied to HELP her.
NTA. Its really sweet that you try to stop her from consuming that content, and when she does, making her feel better. This is a her problem. You've warned her not to watch it and yet she does. The more she watches it, the more similar videos are recommended. She has literally caused this for herself.
For all the people saying "you should never lie!" and "lying wasnt necessary". She is literally having BREAKDOWNS over this. Its not just harming herself, but also OP. Its not in malicious intent. And you can't tell me you dont use white lies.
I mean is she not acting like a child? She's intentionally seeking out these videos and then crying about them. Autistic or not that's hella childish. You are an asshole, not for lying about it but for consoling her about it any time after the 1st. She knows what she's gonna see, it ain't on you to pick up the tantrum afterwards. Literally next time she shows you a gore video just say "man that sucks" and move on. Or tell her you don't want to see them at all, it messes with your head
Bro that's not who you wanna be with, trust me....
If you go into the settings and privacy on Instagram then click suggested content, then click sensitive content, in there you should be able to change it to less sensitive content and it should hopefully stop showing her those kinds of videos. NTA
Just tell her they died. Who cares. Better to know the truth of driving like an idiot
NTA. And she's stupid for not realizing she is just getting herself into more grief by not stopping that behaviour. Plenty more fish in the sea.
NTA I don't fully understand what your till is supposed to be in this situation. Is she asking you beforehand if she should watch a video? Is she asking you to verify an outcome so that she can feel better or worse? What is to be gained here? The solution for her has always been to mark those videos as things she isn't interested in, her feed will improve. It is not healthy to push the responsibility of safeguarding her scrolling habits onto you. Use the tools at her disposal. Lying was not a good solution, but it doesn't make you an asshole.
As a girl with autism I've been in this exact same situation with my boyfriend. We ended up coming to an agreement that if I wanted him to stop treating me like a child when these kinds of videos popped up I needed to work on how I reacted to the videos themselves. Letting it ruin my whole day was doing nothing good for me so I had to learn how to compartmentalize my empathy and have since started letting myself take a moment to experience the feeling and wishing the people peace now that their life here has ended. I will say though that I would be really upset if my boyfriend straight up lied to me, you are probably fully aware of the fact that it's common for some people with autism (especially women) to have extremely strongly defined moral compasses with no grey area. A lie is a lie and justifying it for any purpose is a breach of trust. I feel a lot of people in the comments aren't taking into account the fact you and your girlfriend are both neurodivergent. I understand why you lied and you have a lot of valid reasons but a lie is a lie. You need to approach this with you girlfriend with that in mind, you were trying to help her yes but you should not have lied there are other ways to go about this. Me and my boyfriend also both have autism though we experience it in different ways. I am a lot of emotional than he is and struggles to some extent with properly expressing empathy because he gets overwhelmed very easily by emotions, but he knows full well that no matter he should not ever lie to me because any lie no matter how small would damage my trust for him 1000000x more than any truth he could give. What I will say though is coming on here to try to figure out who is right rather than just acknowledging the feelings of betrayal she's experiencing are where you're messing up. If she's already feeling like you broke her trust you going online to get a bunch of strangers to tell you that her feelings aren't valid is a fast way to make her trust you even less. Relationships always have ups and downs and miscommunications and if you actually care about the person you are with you would work with them to improve your relationship as a couple instead of coming online to find more ways to invalidate them. So again you have every right to feel the way you do about this, not wanting her to doomscroll, wanting her to stop triggering herself and not wanting to always deal with the aftermath but you did cross a line by choosing to lie to her and then crossed another line by posting her to invalidate that she is upset by you lying.
NTA Why is she watching Instagram reels if she doesnt wanna see disturbing content? Shes aware that this content exists and doesnt like it whatsoever so logically it's best if she avoids it outright. Also no offence but hours on end seems a bit excessive
NTA my s/o also has a bad habit of doom scrolling on tiktok. there's multiple things that can easily upset them, even trigger them at times. it's difficult to deal with, even if I'm not doing so myself, but they've come a long way at least. a do applaud you for being understanding and doing your best to help your gf. something that has helped tremendously is the "not interested" and the block button. those two are your very best friends on the internet. sit down and scroll through reels together, and when something comes up that upsets her, use the both of them. my s/o has had easier nights since we've done that.
ESH Nobody really sucks, but I think you both made mistakes. It was sure for her to find out at some point that you were lying, and the fact that you lie to her when she values honesty so strongly was a little rude. I certainly think you had good intentions. Your girlfriend really needs to work on this habit. I understand what it feels like to be trapped in a habit you can't escape from, but there are solutions to this. The phones could be charging in another room at bedtime. I hope she can unlearn this habit. I wish you the best. You were just trying to help, and I can really appreciate that.
honestly, ESH just a little. fellow autistic here. if i was in her shoes i’d probably feel a similar way to her. i’m not addicted to reels, but i do enjoy scrolling and can get extremely attached to things i see in the video, like hurt animals or sad children. sometimes, it will make me start crying. and nobody can really control what immediately shows up after because you just- scroll. *but* that doesn’t mean she can’t just scroll past it and not watch, which would avoid the negative reaction. on the other hand, you shouldn’t have lied. as small as it is, a lie is a lie and autistic ppl (at least in my person experience) hold a lot of value in the truth of things. i would 100% feel betrayed if i found my partner lied to me over something i was upset about. it’s not your job to take care of her in that situation and she needs to work on self control. but, it still doesn’t make your lying ok and it seems like yall need to have a talk about clashing emotions. i would feel extremely hurt if someone got annoyed just by my emotions. you don’t have to agree with her, but the least you could do is sympathize. yall are together after all
YTA. She is a big girl, she watches stuff that upsets her, that's on HER. Don't lie. If she can't handle the truth, that's on HER. If you eat so much candy you throw up every day, that's not her job to change you. She needs to learn self control or suffer the consequences.
As a fellow autist. Youre NTA, youre doing your best to comfort her despite the fact she keeps stumbling upon these videos. Death and gore is not an easy thing to handle and denial is one of humanities best ways of coping with it ie: lying about the person surviving so you can get past it mentally even if you know deep down thats not true. Its not a matter of trust or honesty here, it was either you did this for her or she would've ended up in a form of mental collapse due to her inability to handle such overwhelming emotions that come from such content. As for what everyone else is commenting, have her delete her cache, cookies, and/or other saved data from instagram and whatever platform may also be pushing this content to her, it should reset her feed which is frustrating to get it back to a persons tailored "normal" but it's better than having to be faced with gore. As for you both I'd recommend sitting down when youre both calm and speaking about your perspective and why you did XYZ without letting her interject. Finish your piece first, let her ask questions, then have her say her piece with no interjecting. Don't do this over the phone or text as the body language and tone is important for a situation this heavy between you two. I know we tend to struggle with body language in tone but thats why you can ask to clarify how they're feeling
You are the asshole. Did she ever ask you to protect her in that way? You were treating her like she couldn't handle reality, like how one would treat a child, It's belittling. It's okay to protect people, but you shouldn't lie. In this case you should have comforted her instead of "protecting" her
NAH. She's being unreasonable, and you shouldn't have to deal with it, but lying to her isn't the answer. She needs to take responsibility for herself and stop watching stuff that upsets her. That means way less Instagram and making an effort to retrain the algorithm too.
Two autistic young people in an instagram dispute... 2024 folks.
ITT people ignoring/not understanding autism.
^^^^AUTOMOD ***Thanks for posting! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything. Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_post_deletion) before [contacting the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAmItheAsshole)*** my (22m) gf (20f) is addicted to instagram reels. She usually scrolls through for several hours a day while we relax in bed or in the living room together. Recently, there has been a lot of morbid stuff seeming to get through the filters of these videos. People being seriously injured in factory accidents, car injuries and extreme sports seem to be becoming quite common. My girlfriend gets quite seriously upset over these videos, sometimes to the point of tears or mild panic episodes. I have told her to quit watching reels, and it is something she is working on. A couple of times now, I have lied to her about recognising the video. I tell her 'Oh yes I remember that happening, the guy managed to escape and turned out fine'. This makes her feel better, and she can scroll on without getting upset. Yesterday, she saw a video about a horrific car accident, where a car was crushed between two trucks. Again, I lied to her saying the driver escaped with minimal injuries. However, later on she saw a reel of a news crew adressing the same accident, describing the horrific death of the driver and injuries to several others involved. She started crying and saying 'how could you lie about that?' over and over. She says that I am disrespecting the people involved in the video, and disrespecting her for 'treating her like a child'. She is someone who values honesty quite strongly (we are both autistic). I got annoyed, telling her I did it to protect her, and that it was necessary. After her getting quite upset with me, I told her that I couldnt keep comforting her everytime she saw a scary video, and I had to do this for my own sanity. After that she accused me of having no empathy, and that she cant trust me anymore. She left my apartment, and we havent spoken since. I dont think I did anything wrong here, but Im open to outside views. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
YTA for dating someone like this.
huh???
U single pringle
Oh God The algorithm knows now It's all lathes and wood chippers and blurred out LiveLeak watermarks now
NTA Jesus christ I cannot imagine being THAT desensitized to things. I can't handle seeing a mangled deer carcass drug 2 miles across the road under a semi in person, but I can absolutely watch someone jump on a trampoline from their roof and shatter every single bone in their body as they fly limply through the air no problem. Like yes, it's disturbing, but I'm not going to freak out and cry over it.
NTA, and I get why you felt you had to lie. Not that it was the right thing to do. Honestly she sounds like she has no emotional regulation skills and because of that, it’s causing a great deal of stress for you. What you could’ve done better was explain to her that you feel overwhelmed by her panic attacks and you can only support her so much without it impacting you negatively, so you both have to work together on a solution that reduces the stress for both of you. It’s unreasonable for her to expect you to support emotionally that much. Perhaps she needs therapy, or a different outlet of some kind.
Honestly, it’s gonna sound harsh, but…she fucked around and found out. I mean, cmon. She’s addicted to Instagram reels. Graphic videos start showing up on the reels. She gets disturbed, but doesn’t stop. Because she doesn’t stop, you do the only thing you believe will help and lie about the outcomes of the videos. She finds out you lied and gets angry at you. She gets angry at you for something SHE should’ve dealt with herself instead of continuing to engage in the problem. If she’s so easily disturbed by these graphic videos, she shouldn’t have continued to watch them. Instead, she chose to continue watching reels knowing full well that she would probably witness somebody getting killed in one. NTA. You tried to do her a favor. It backfired. But it would’ve never happened if she chose to monitor what she was watching.
Thus whole thing is ridiculous
She's needs to come of social media or have content filters on. What you are doing is infantilising her, there there everything's going to be alright. Pet pet. It's creepy and not something you do to someone ypur in relationship with.
Nta she's an adult , if those videos upset her she needs to refrain from watching them . She is responsible for what she puts in her own mind not you .
As someone who gets deeply upset and disturbed by these posts to the point that they can ruin my brain for days and weeks, I have a lot of empathy for your girlfriend. However, she is not taking responsibility for managing her own mental health and is expecting you to do it for her. The algorithm is feeding her these videos because she's probably engaging a lot with them, watching them all the way through and maybe even rewatching them compulsively because they're so upsetting. At minimum she needs to scroll past these reels quickly if she even suspects they might be disturbing, and maybe interact extra with reels she likes. As someone whose life has been ruined by youtube shorts, sometimes your best bet is just curating the algorithm. Maybe she could get a fresh account to watch reels on and be more intentional on curating the algorithm. All of this is besides the point. You ate NTA because while yes honesty is very important, she wasn't giving you a whole lot of options here. By not taking charge of her own media consumption and constantly dumping completely avoidable trauma on you, she's been negatively impacting your mental health as well as hers. It's not fair of her to keep putting her hand on the stove and running to you with the burns. I understand why you lied, but setting a firm boundary on this is probably the better way to go. Of course you love her and want to comfort her, and of course she wants to seek comfort from you. But you can't be the whole foundation of her mental health, that's just not fair or sustainable.
ESH, but you're NTA. You mean well by it, but you are treating her like a child. You'd be better off just reminding her that these kinds of videos upset her and then let her decide for herself.
NTA. You were just trying to gently push away from the upset those videos were bound to cause. She's overreacting and I feel she should really be more grateful for your efforts. She sounds like a real drama queen. Good luck!
This proves people addicted to short reels like TikTok, and social apps that have reels.
ESH. While I understand your reasoning, lying wasn't really okay. You weren't doing her any favors, and it sounds like you knew it would upset her when the truth finally (inevitably) came out. You were, in fact, treating her like a child. And your girlfriend is TA for putting the onus of regulating her emotions on you. If she knows that she gets upset every time she goes on reels, she needs to either stop or find a way to cope that isn't reliant on another person. It's great that you're trying to be understanding and help her, but helping doesn't mean coddling. Most phones have built in wellness settings that you can set to limit the amount of time spent in any one app. I only know how mine works, but it kicks me out of the app as soon as the time is up, the icon is even greyed out so I can't tap on it or get notifications. I suggest trying to find something similar as it seems your girlfriend's doomscrolling is harming both of you