Here's how content should show up on the recommended sidebars and front page.
If you click like on something.
That's the only thing that should move the needle. If the only thing I ever clicked like on was a single vaporwave video 2 years ago, then my feed and recommended should be entirely vaporwave videos even if I've clicked on 1000 videos in the 2 years since.
If I type up to see what happened to the guy from Linus Tech Tips who trooned out, out of morbid curiosity, and click on Anthony's dead channel, just out of that desire to see a trainwreck, that doesn't mean, youtube, that I'm interested in "the study of trans-ness" or "my coming out story" from other people.
If I click on a leftist video, maybe it's because I want to laugh to myself at the absurd arguments. It doesn't make me a leftist. But if you were to click on a Vaush video out of masochistic self hatred, congratulations, now you're gonna get Destiny pop up in your feed and other woke people.
Again, Youtube, I'll TELL you what I actually like, by doing something I rarely do which is click the like button.
Every Youtube video you click carries with it an instant change to the front page and the recommended. It makes going "do I want to click this retarded crap" not worth it most of the time because you know it's going to influence whatever pops up in your home page. Clicking a video should be seen as meaningless. Only liking a video should tell Youtube, "show more of that".
The instagram algorithm is also fucked. If you watch videos all the way through, it starts showing you more like that. So far, so good.
If you don't interact with these new videos, though, it eventually stops showing you them and moves to adjacent topics.
I had an account where I followed no one. I was shown a couple comedians I liked and some tabletop stuff. For a while, my feed was just those items. But I didn't follow or like anything, so the specific comedians got cycled out and other comedians started showing up. The tabletop stuff became more broad and shifted to general "D&D/Warhammer culture" type reddit shit. Eventually, both converged on thots.
So I reset my recommendations. And the original, specific comedians came back in the feed! And it happened again. Then I stopped using instagram.