Hot Dogs Broke My Algorithm

A few months ago, a friend invented a back story for my character — the character being me in my everyday life. According to this lore, I am obsessed with hot dogs — it's the reason I have a Costco membership and go to baseball games.

What started as a silly joke ended up hilariously destroying my Instagram algorithm. We'll get to that in a minute, but first, the escalation.

The hot dog backstory is funny and not grounded in reality — I mean, I do enjoy a hot dog from time to time but wouldn't say I'm obsessed. Though, to be fair, a classic Chicago dog is peak weenier. And a one of my current hyper-fixation meals is hot dogs and baked beans over sweet potatoes, but is that because of the gaslighting or something that would have occurred naturally?

Anyway, there's a philosophical concept called the frequency illusion. It asserts that when our brains are introduced to a new word or concept, we start to recognize it everywhere in our lives — for a deep cut look at this phenomenon, check out The Kia Soul Conspiracy.

Thanks to the frequency illusion, I became acutely aware of hot dogs — I was a hot dog savant, if you will.

Shopping in the condiment aisle at Costco, I came across two unconnected shoppers discussing the new grilling pack. It used to have two ketchups, one mustard, and one relish. Now, it contains two ketchups, one mustard, and one barbecue.

One customer could not believe they removed the relish while another said there is no better way to eat a hot dog than with barbecue. As a new found expert in the field, I threw in my support with a "100% agree" as I walked by. After all, a dog draped in bbq, a slice of cheese, and some pickles is a great meal that hits all your food groups.

Later in the store, I ran into that person again and she introduced me to her partner as "the guy who knows how to eat a proper hot dog." I didn't share with her that I'm actually the king of hot dogs now because it's important to keep a humble head.

For the record, the condiment pack should have one ketchup and bring back the relish. Costco and Heinz people, call me.

A few weeks later, the same friend that created my new backstory, turned me into a hot dog suit wearing SIM — really, this was the proper next step in my evolution.

As is wont to happen with Instagram, it started to surface a Costco hot dog related video here and there — I saw a guy who 3D-printed a holster for his Costco dog, another who rolled their Costco pizza slice up around the hot dog for extra protein or something. These were all pretty harmless, but I was not ready for what was to come.

Over time, the hot dog SIM version of me becomes a beacon of success — he ran companies, learned rocket science for fun, just crushed everything. Imitation is the highest form of flattery after all. Real world me starts to get a few non-Costco related hot dog reels here and there. But boy, were things about to change.

One night I returned from traveling and pulled up Instagram to unwind, as one does. My feed, practically out of nowhere, was wall to wall hot dogs.

I had hot dog hacks, hot dog needlepoint, AI-generated talking weeniers, goodwill hot dog finds, hot dog sculptures — pretty much anything you can think of, I had the hot dog version showing up in my feed. With the exception of the ads, Instagram only showed me hot dogs. Watch these videos and enter into my insanity:

I'd never seen anything like this — a single topic feed. And, as far as I know, frequency illusion can't control an algorithm. Instagram does not have camera or microphone access, but somehow the internet gods knew — either that or this is like the System AI setting Carl up to step on things.

I have no idea how it happened or if it will happen again in the future — nor did I have any idea that so many people were making hot dog content. There's an entire subculture out there. Maybe I'm meant to be part of it — maybe this is truly my destiny.

I started intentionally watching any non hot dog related video I could find and cleansed my feed as best as I could. It's been a few days and there have thankfully only been limited weenier sightings.

The SIM is reportedly still thriving and I made another batch of bean dog potato for this week. I think all is right in the world.