My friend turned to me the other day with a sly smirk and whispered, “Are you also part of Group 7?” I shook my head, unsure of what she meant—feeling left out of whatever secret club she was referring to.
It didn’t take long for the algorithm to catch up with me. Within a few hours, my For You Page on TikTok was flooded, and before I knew it, I, too, was officially part of the internet’s newest inside joke.
“Group 7” began as a simple experiment by musician Sophia James, who wanted to promote her new song So Unfair—and experiment with the quirky nature of TikTok’s algorithm.
TikTok’s For You Page, or FYP, described by the Guardian as “uncannily good at predicting what videos will catch your eye,” works differently than older recommendation systems.
Rather than passively waiting for us