NASHVILLE, TN — Derek Hollis, 38, announced Tuesday that his plan to escape years of algorithmically curated content by creating a secondary social media account under a different email address collapsed completely at the four-minute mark, when his recommended feed populated with the exact same seventeen accounts he had been trying to avoid.

Hollis, a project manager, reported that he had taken careful precautions, including using his work email, selecting different interests during onboarding, and claiming his age was 41. The algorithm, described by engineers as “a sophisticated interest-mapping system,” identified him anyway and served up three home renovation reels, a faith and productivity influencer he has never intentionally followed, and a debate about a television show he watched two episodes of in 2022.

“I didn’t even log into my old account on this device,” Hollis said, staring at his phone with the expression of a man rereading a bill he already paid. “I just wanted to see what the internet looks like when it doesn’t know who I am. Turns out it still knows who I am.”

“At a certain point you have to ask whether you’re shaping your digital life or your digital life is shaping you,” said no one in Hollis’s immediate circle, because none of them thought about it that hard.”

Dr. Patricia Osei, 44, a digital behavior researcher at Vanderbilt, noted that modern recommendation systems build behavioral profiles from typing cadence, scroll speed, and pause duration. “The algorithm doesn’t need your name,” she said. “It needs about ninety seconds.”

Hollis has since merged both accounts.

At press time, the algorithm had surfaced a sponsored post for a journaling app promising to help users “rediscover themselves,” which Hollis clicked.