Unpopular opinion: I used to think viral dance challenges were just fun, but my cousin's school play video showed me the algorithm's hand

Honestly, I always believed those dance trends spread because people liked them. Tbh, when my cousin posted a clip from her school play, it got like ten views. Then she added a popular song and a hashtag from a big creator. Ngl, overnight, it blew up with thousands of shares. I started seeing similar school videos all over my feed, all using that same sound. It clicked that the algorithm wasn't just sharing cool stuff, it was pushing content that matched trends it already knew. Now I notice how everything that goes big has these little hooks the system loves. It's kind of creepy how it decides what we see.