This behavior is disgusting. why do it...?

[ben]

I think with instagram there’s something a lot of people don’t understand with using tags. I don’t know if you’re using them but I guess this is just something I’ll talk about in general because I see conversations about tags all the time.

A lot of the people who use tags and engage with tags are bots and this means a lot of different things that I don’t think people really know about. There are people who use bots for their art accounts to “like” everything in that tag to get more traffic to their own art/comic pages. There are also bots that allow people to automatically follow people posting in those tags and then automatically unfollow after a certain amount of time.

And I’ve KNOWN people who have experimented with those methods so I know it’s not even uncommon. It’s one of the reasons I’ve never used tags because it’s just NOT a reliable way to get real engagement and the numbers you get might not end up meaning anything at all.

That said, the people I’ve known who have tried this generally stop because it’s not a good long term strategy for making actual engaged readers. But it’s very possible the person you’re talking about was just using bots and was never even aware they were following you.

[Maps]

I’ve heard of influencers doing this. They’ll follow a ridiculous amount of people who follow them back and then they unfollow those people. It’s a method people use on IG to get quick follows.

[mariusthered]

yep, all part of the game. This is why i dont sweat the numbers anymore, I just put my stuff out there and wait for people to come to me. My comic is not for everyone so by taking the slower road i know people want to read my stuff. the sub for sub stuff just messes up your numbers, it might say you have high numbers of subs but if they are not all reading and talking about your comic/ novel they are just pillow stuffing.

[JRHoch]

This does happen, but the motives aren't always sinister. I did unfollow one person who was posting multiple times a day--and I just felt bombarded.

[magalise]

this happened when I started my Instagram account as well. I was so surprised artist accounts with big follower numbers started following, only to be deceived and unfollowed a day later. It is a (n unethical) way of getting 'organic' followers. Especially fresh accounts. I suggest you only follow people you want to follow. You owe nobody anything. Best of luck to everyone.

[rmdooley]

Yeah, I'm pretty that has happened to most people here. Don't sweat it, it's poor manners and there are plenty of people on this site who are happy to help support other creators rather than behave so lowly

[rajillustration]

People follow and unfollow, it's super common. But don't go trying to unlock the riddle of the Sphinx as to why they do and don't. We really don't know. I personally just assume everyone who unfollows me is a bot that got deleted.

But occasionally there will be someone who I thought I had like a rapport with and when they unfollow it's like...why? Did I not give you enough free content??? But honestly you can't get wrapped up in why. Some people unfollow because they only wanted a follow-back, some people unfollow because we post too often, others because we don't post often enough, some unfollow when we get to negative, other's unfollow if we simply stop drawing the fandom they like. It's really really hella random and if you go digging that just gets obsessive. Who knows, maybe this guy will re-follow some time down the road?

[unknown_user]

I did it. Not in Instagram, though, but in Tapas.
There were a lot of times, when I subbed to some comics to read them later. Sometimes I also liked their first pages, too. Then after a while I revisited my library, started to read postponed comics and realised that I either don't like where the plot of particular comics goes, or that it's too long, and I have too few free time for reading it, or I'll not actually read this particular postponed comics anytime soon for whatever other reason... and, in such a case, I unsubbed from it.
In some cases of this sort, author of the comics subbed to me in return, when I subbed to them. And remained my sub after my unsubbing from their comics.
Am I a villain?

[vothnthorvaldson]

That's completely different though.
You were first interested, then lost interest for one reason or another.
On tapas, with the dead sub problem, you actually do them a favor by not keeping comics that you don't read in your list.

I think OP was speaking solely about people who sub/follow with no intend to stay, and leave as soon as they get the sub/follow back.

[unknown_user]

But how can we know the intention of people for sure?

[vothnthorvaldson]

Time, mostly.
On Instagram, for sure, and I saw it a bit on tapas too, these people unfollow you very quick after you follow them back. I'm sure some have other more sneaky strategies, but the bulk of them unfollow in the hours or days after you follow back. Generally 1-2 days, at least for the ones I spotted.

[Rodimus13]

I've had that happened with someone who was all "sub for sub!", showing they weren't being honest. I unfollowed them as well.

[JRHoch]

You're more than a villain, you're the devil. But you know that.

[skeelecamm]

This has happened to me a lot in instagram. I don't have a lot of followers, but at the beginning when people started to follow me, I followed them in return, automatically (I felt almost obligated in some way). Then I realized that soon after following them they stopped following me, so they really were not interested in what I uploaded, they only wanted to get followers for themselves, what is ok, but I don't like this way of doing it, so I just unfollowed them too. Now I don't follow everyone that follows me unless I find them interesting enough. If they unfollow me because I don't follow them back, I don't mind.

[Tanako]

Yea that's the thing, i don't follow people who follow me. However, when they follow me, i at least try to check out their stuff. if i like it i follow, if i don't, then i wont. the reason why i was upset was because, i actually genuinely liked this artist's stuff and since he followed me, i though to myself, why not. only to find out he did it for following.
Yes i could have remained his follower, but since i was upset by his behavior i saw no need to follow someone like that.

[Moshimitsu]

I've also had the same issue everywhere I post especially on Instagram. The first time it happened on each one of galleries I was just heartbroken because I thought I wasn't good enough to get anyone's attention with my art... Only after spending some time here and reading people sharing that experience I learned to ignore that and just do my thing. And definitely no sub4sub.

[Daknight]

This is way to common sadly and giving is hard to tell when someone unfollow you outside of checking it becomes hard to determine who does this. I stopped following people only for the fact they follow me, I do it now if I really like their art and not cause they follow me.

One way to determine who probably does this is checking how many people they follow, if is a ratio of say 1,000 following to a 1,000 followers is a high indication they do this.

[beta1042]

I think it's pretty much either what @ben said - Bots.
Or what @tired_programmer said - they realize it's not to their tastes when they revisit
OR 3rd option:
They have stupid butter fingers like me and ACCIDENTALLY hit sub buttons when checking out your profile. Then later when your stuff shows up on their feed it's like WHOOPS i never actually meant to follow this person.... and then unfollow.

I do that last one more than I want to admit. I swear there's no malice behind the actions. I like to keep my follow list around 100 or less so I can properly give attention to the artists and friends I really admire.

But here's a question for you, You said you genuinely liked their stuff, yet you still unfollowed? Like we don't know the intentions of the other person, but you just admitted that you unfollowed them out of spite alone.

[Tanako]

yes i did unfolow them because their intentions weren't genuine. all the people that followed me, i didn't follow a singe one of them back but since i liked his stuff i followed him.

you are reading too much into this. I am aware that people lose interest. but in a span of two days? he didn't have to follow me. i'm not out here seeking followers. I know my art is good and i know with time, it will grow.

i could care less if someone followed me then unfollowed me lets say a week later. it is justified because they lost interest and that's okay. this annoyance is that, he needed me to follow him back so he can unfollow me.

[kimketli]

I'm lucky to tell I wouldn't care. :DDD I rarely look into my followers account but if I would and follow someone back because I like their work, I wouldn't care if they unfollow me after. I don't need insincere followers and also what if they were just not satisfied with my work after a while? I could understand that.