There’s a very specific modern behaviour that seems almost too mundane to question. A scroll, a pause, a follow. Another one. And another. A feed quietly filling up with highly polished bodies, algorithmically perfected faces, and accounts that exist solely to be looked at.
It’s easy to shrug and say, “well, men like looking at attractive women.” That’s not new. What is new is the scale, the accessibility, the performative nature of it, and the quiet ripple effects it has on real-world relationships. So it’s worth asking properly: what’s actually going on here?
1. “What’s wrong with looking at hot girls?”
On the surface, nothing; attraction is human, people notice beauty – that part is straightforward. But passive noticing isn’t the same as active curation. There’s a difference between seeing someone attractive and building a personalised, ever-refreshing catalogue of sexualised content tied to your identity, your account, and your social graph.
In real life, if someone spent hours each day flipping through magazines of near-nude models in front of their partner, people would recognise that as somewhat inappropriate. Online, it’s been normalised because it’s quieter and more dispersed.
The behaviour isn’t just about attraction. It’s about repetition, reinforcement, and habit. The brain gets a steady stream of novelty, which triggers dopamine. Over time, that loop becomes less about appreciation and more about compulsion. So the question shifts. It’s not “is it wrong to look?” It’s “what does it mean when someone builds a routine around it?”
2. “They’re just influencers” – the reluctance to name what’s happening
A striking feature of this behaviour is the language used to justify it: “Fitness model.” “Content creator.” “Influencer.” In many cases, these accounts are part of a broader monetised ecosystem where attention is the product. The model is simple: attract, hold, convert. That conversion might be subscriptions, private content, tips, or traffic to paid platforms.
Calling it “just Instagram” softens what is, in effect, a transactional dynamic. It allows the follower to frame their behaviour as harmless scrolling rather than participation in a digital marketplace built on sexualised attention.
There’s often resistance to acknowledging this. Not because it’s complicated, but because naming it changes how the behaviour feels. “Following influencers” sounds neutral. “Engaging with monetised sexual content” lands differently. That discomfort tends to get brushed aside rather than examined.
3. The AI layer: when the person isn’t even real
The landscape is shifting again. Increasingly, some of these accounts are not real people at all. AI-generated faces, bodies, and personas are now sophisticated enough to pass as authentic at a glance. That introduces a strange twist. The follower isn’t just engaging with an idealised human. They’re engaging with a constructed fantasy designed with precision: perfect proportions, flawless skin, endlessly consistent output. There’s no off day, no imperfection, no boundary.
From a psychological standpoint, this can quietly recalibrate expectations. Real people become, by comparison, less visually stimulating simply because they are real. The gap between online consumption and real-world connection widens. And most followers don’t consciously register that shift. It just happens in the background.
4. The money: every follow has value
Every follow, like, pause, and interaction feeds into a system. Platforms such as Meta monetise attention at scale. The more engaging the content, the longer users stay, the more data is collected, and the more valuable advertising becomes.
Highly sexualised content performs well. It keeps people scrolling and this is not accidental. From a business perspective, each additional follow strengthens the signal. It tells the algorithm, “more of this.” The feed adjusts. The loop tightens.
For the individual, it feels like a small, inconsequential action. At scale, it becomes a behavioural pattern that platforms actively encourage because it drives revenue. So while the user might see it as harmless, the system treats it as highly valuable.
5. What is each follow actually worth in dollars?
It sounds abstract, but there is a real monetary value behind a single follow. Meta doesn’t publish a “per-follow price,” but its revenue model gives a clear benchmark. On average, Meta generates roughly $30–$60+ per user per year globally, with higher figures in the US market. That breaks down to just a few cents per day per user. A single follow might only be worth fractions of a cent in isolation, but that’s not how the system works.
Each follow strengthens a behavioural signal, which improves ad targeting, which increases the value of that user’s attention over time. When someone follows multiple “instasl@&s,” engages with their content, and lingers on those posts, they become a highly predictable, high-value advertising profile. Multiply that across millions of users, and those tiny fractions turn into billions in revenue. So while one follow feels meaningless, it is part of a pattern that has measurable financial weight.s
Bear this in mind when you’ve reported one of these accounts for sliding into your DMs with the promise of visuals beyond your wildest dreams and for only $3 a month – positive bargain! Once an accoun has more than 20k followers, it’s virtually impossible to get them removed, even with multiple community guideline breaches.
6. The quiet impact on real relationships
This is where things stop being abstract.
Partners notice. Friends notice. Not always immediately, and not always in a confrontational way, but it registers.
A partner scrolling past a long list of explicit or near-explicit accounts linked to someone they care about isn’t just seeing “harmless follows.” They’re seeing time, attention, and energy directed elsewhere.
It can raise simple, grounded questions:
Why is this necessary?
What does this add?
Where do I sit in comparison?
For some, it creates insecurity. For others, it creates irritation or loss of respect. Not because attraction exists, but because of how publicly and persistently it’s being engaged with. There’s also a social perception layer. People do form impressions. A profile heavily populated with sexualised follows can signal a lack of discretion or self-awareness. Whether that judgement is fair or not, it happens.
And the key point is this: many people engaging in the behaviour don’t stop to consider how it reads externally. It’s treated as private consumption, even though it’s often visible.
7. Real-life patterns
You see it in small, everyday moments such as their partner jokingly scrolling through follows and then going quiet; a friend raising an eyebrow and saying, “bit much, that eh old chap?” at the pub; someone unfollowing quietly after realising what their own feed has become – the algorith does love to suggest who you might like to add because “John does”…
Or the classic: deflection “I didn’t even realise I was following that many – That last one is telling. The behaviour often runs on autopilot, but the fundamental point remains: do they want to change their behaviour ?
8. So what’s actually driving it?
At a basic level:
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Easy access to endless novelty
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Algorithmic reinforcement
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Social normalisation
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Low immediate consequence
There’s no strong friction to stop it, and no immediate cost hence it continues, however, the absence of immediate consequence isn’t the same as absence of impact to themselves and those they may care about.
9. Final thoughts
This isn’t about moral judgement or policing attraction, it’s about awareness. There’s a difference between something being common and something being neutral. Following one account might mean nothing. Following hundreds, over time, says something about habit, attention, and priorities. Not in an abstract way, but in a very visible, very real one.
And the interesting part is this: most people engaging in it don’t pause long enough to ask themselves what it actually signals – not to others, but to themselves.
My attention was first drawn to this back in 2024 when a rugby group chat was dicussing the IG follows of one of the intermittent members. One of the chat regulars, a few pints to the wind on a Saturday night, was giving us chapter and verse on their “barely legal” choices, a tad creepy for anyone over the age of 30.
More recently, a comment was made about them switching to more “mature ladies”, but they were questioning if they even realised that these were now just AI; the ones with GG cups that will never show any signs of ageing…
Are you aware of someone who does this and if so are you laughing or just feeling a bit sad…?
