Since Instagram came about, creators have been wrestling with the length of a caption. Particularly the size of it, and whether big or short captions hurt the reach. Some questions which echo in all the corners of content creators include these: Are heartfelt, essay length captions secretly hurting post reach? Are creators better off trimming every word? And with all the craze of coming up AI-sounding captions, do they work?
Thankfully, we now have a definitive answer. Instagram CEO, Adam Mosseri spilled beans on what’s what about post captions and their influence.
Post Captions & Meme Accounts: Here’s What’s Up
It is no secret that Instagram thrives on meme accounts. Since ChatGPT came into mainstream, some meme accounts leaned into the absurdity by dumping entire technical documents or car buying guides into their captions, totally unrelated to the post. If you do not remember them, this might jog the memory:
All of these captions came into being because meme posters thought longer captions could trick Instagram algorithm. Here’s how they thought it worked:
- Game the algorithm into showing your meme to car enthusiasts
- Fool ChatGPT-style recommendations into suggesting posts
- Boost dwell time, tricking the algorithm into rewarding posts
- Stuff keywords to confuse recommendation systems
- Attract advertisers interested in luxury car content
- Make posts look informational, tricking ranking systems
- But most of those theories simply did not hold water.
The Real Reason Behind the Caption Craziness
Last April, the platform updated its algorithm to penalize unoriginal content, especially reposts by meme aggregators. These accounts thrive on recycled viral content, not original posts. The crackdown targeted Explore and recommendation feeds directly.
However, if a meme is reposted with a completely unrelated technical caption, Instagram’s system cannot easily flag it as duplicate. It tricks the pre ranking engine into thinking the post is unique, allowing meme accounts to keep traction without penalties.
Some users have reported seeing an average increase of about 30% in their reach when they use these unrelated captions on their memes.
Why Mosseri’s Confirmation Frees Creators
When Instagram chief Adam Mosseri stepped in during a Stories Q and A, he put story threads, grand captions, and creators’ fears to rest: long captions do not impact reach.
In his words, “It is not bad to have really long captions … It is not going to affect your reach much one way or the other … Go for it if you want to.”
That means creators can toss length anxiety out the window and let creativity flow, caption first, without algorithmic guilt trips.
And now you know why some accounts have these absurd car post captions, that are completely unrelated to the content of the reel or post. If Mosseri says such captions do not work, will we see any less of them? We think not, but the truth is finally out.