Whether it’s a spiel about the benefits of rubbing beef tallow on your face, specific ab exercises and tips targeting belly fat, or a Gen X dancer wishing you joy through their body movements, Instagram Reels are as varied as they are numerous. But they do share one thing in common: Viewers often think, “What have I done to deserve this?”

It’s not just that people hate Reels — the shortform video posts found on Instagram — it’s that some people hate Reels to the point where they use it to describe other things that they hate. From music, to food, to sentimental “boy mom” content, being deemed “perfect for Reels” is a sign of being off or unwelcome; basic but also subtly repulsive. Instagram Reels has simultaneously become an adjective and an insult — a corny type of thing no one really wants to watch, and a convenient negative shorthand to express a specific stripe of dislike.

So why do people hate Reels so much?

Before finding use as a derogatory descriptor, the content on Reels has long been characterized as bad — dating back to its launch in 2020 as a TikTok rival. Users I spoke to say that, unlike that other social media video app — which seems to know so much about us that it’s led to concerns about information privacy — Instagram’s algorithm is comically disastrous. This is doubly hilarious when you take into account how much data Meta has on all of us.

If Reels was a true TikTok competitor, using years and years of collected Instagram and Facebook data to create a truly uncanny feed, it would be frightening. Thankfully no one, including Meta, Instagram’s parent company, seems concerned about it being good.

It’s not just you — everyone’s Reels is full of raw milk, belly fat warnings, and “devil yoga”

Like most social media users, many of us are simply lurkers. For the hundreds of millions who use Instagram, most will never make a Reel. In 2022, the Wall Street Journal obtained leaked data from Meta that indicated that only one-fifth of Instagram users actually make and post shortform video to the site. While Reels has managed to stick around since........

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