The New TikTok Underground

The secret meaning of Cute Winter Boots, CONstant THoughts, DIOR, and the "anti-algorithm" strategies: secret codes hidden in plain sight

A new phenomenon is taking off on social media: anti-algorithm secret coded content.

If you scroll Tiktok, you may start seeing things like “cute winter boots” or “winter boots sale” on the screen of the reel or video, but the actual content of the video is about something totally different.

This isn’t entirely new - “underground” industries have been using this on social media for a while (that is why some hashtags are banned) - but people are increasingly skeptical of social media censorship happening at the algorithm level.

So, what we are seeing now is content that is “hidden” from algorithms. Creators feed the algorithm “red herrings” designed to mislead the algorithm into thinking the content is about something innocuous like “cute winter boots” when in reality, it’s code for something else.

The codes have started to catch on and then turn into a movement or an entire coded / secret online community.

“Cute winter boots” or “winter boots sale” has gotten so big that it now means a LOT of different things depending on which “corner” of the internet you find yourself in - everything from peaceful protests dates and times to resources for marginalized people.

Another recent one is “CONstant THoughts” (the “CON” and the “TH” are intentionally capitalized), which is code for talking about a conspiracy theory.

How to use this to your advantage:

• First, this likely won’t work for very long - algorithms are constantly learning and evolving.

• From a learning perspective, because this is working so well as a tool to “trick” the algorithm, it is HIGHLY indicative in how algorithms work at understanding and categorizing content. You can read into this to see that certain aspects of content (on-screen text, for example) is seemingly weighed so much more than spoken words or “background” text appearing in the actual footage (not added in editing or captioned).

What you should learn from this:

• Where to lean into with your SEO, keywords, etc. for your content to teach the algorithm how to get your content into the feeds of your target audience.

• If you have posts or content or subject matter that the algorithm doesn’t seem to like for whatever reason, you can try “hiding” it in elements of the your content that aren’t likely to be picked up by the algorithm. This is especially helpful on Instagram, where posting content that is “off the mark” from your usual content can sometimes impact your performance for the next few posts.

• The key with this is that you still have to be posting content that you know your audience will like - but for whatever reason the algorithm doesn’t. You’re hiding the substance from the ALGORITHM ONLY - NOT YOUR AUDIENCE. In other words, the content still has to do well once it gets into the feeds of your audience. You’re just “overriding” any yellow or red flags the content might set off in the algorithm that would prevent it from getting into the feeds of your audience.

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