TikTok users reported a For You Page glitch that sent them careening into 'straight TikTok'

• The TikTok For You Page algorithm briefly glitched on Wednesday afternoon, the company confirmed.
• Users posted about the app feeding them more mainstream content than usual.
• The glitch appears to have been resolved, and its impact and causes are still unclear. 

On Wednesday, some TikTok users noticed that their For You Page (FYP) — the central landing hub that serves you the videos its mysterious algorithm thinks you'll like — looked a bit different than normal. Through social-media comments, many users reported that they were primarily seeing viral videos with millions of likes rather than their typical niche fare.

Several social-media posts referenced seeing popular creators like Charli D'Amelio on their FYP despite not typically being served her content. One D'Amelio video from March 1 shows a slew of comments from Wednesday, with numerous users saying that it was the first time they had ever seen her on their FYP.

Their testimonies were part of a temporary issue that affected some users' feeds on Wednesday by only surfacing videos with higher view counts, according to TikTok. The platform told Insider the issue has since been resolved.

TikTok's algorithm studies the way each user interacts with the FYP, which is the platform's centerpiece. Users scroll, view, like, and share content they enjoy, and in turn, the app's recommendation system will continue to present similar content.

In a blog post, TikTok describes the FYP as "a stream of videos curated to your interests, making it easy to find content and creators you love," but the system also surfaces content that may not fit into the kinds of videos they typically expect to see. 

That kind of personalized curation is likely why many users were quick to report a difference in their FYP, posting about how the app was suddenly serving them viral videos and popular creators they don't normally see. 

Over the course of 2020, distinct TikTok subcultures and the language to describe them emerged. This siloed users into areas of the app like "straight TikTok" and "alt TikTok," based on the kinds of content they create and engage with.

As Mashable's Morgan Sung reported in June 2020, "straight TikTok" is the most front-facing cultural space on the app: it's home to its biggest, most conventional stars and the dance trends for which TikTok is best known. Users on the app typically frame "Alt TikTok" as an antithesis to that, skewing towards more absurd humor and aesthetics. 

On Wednesday, the FYP issue sent people who were typically on "alt TikTok" careening over to the more mainstream side of the app, leading to complaints about landing on "straight TikTok." 

HELP

From one day to the next I start getting only VIRAL viral videos on my fyp 😳

i think the algorithm is broken

Users have picked up on temporary TikTok glitches in the past. In July 2020, the brief disappearance of like counts on the platform led users to believe that it was shutting down, amid speculation of a United States TikTok ban.

It's unclear how many users were impacted by Wednesday's glitch, but according to TikTok, your FYP should now be back to its normal level of chaos.

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