u/vietoushka

I recently started pole dancing, and started an Instagram to keep pole inspo separate, and occasionally share my totally awkward progress videos with friends and pole studio peeps. I’ve only posted a couple disappearing stories, no grid posts, and my account is private, but I do have “beginner pole diary” in the bio.

I’m now getting like 5-10 follow requests a day from various pole accounts. I imagine they may be using bots to promo themselves to people with pole mentioned in their bio? Lots of them have zero existing mutuals with me. I’ve never experienced anything like this with any other kind of hobby Instagram I’ve started. Would love to understand what is happening! I’m started to get a little weirded out, though I have actually approved and followed a bunch of them back at this point because they seem to be genuinely very talented dancers and instructors, so I figured why not, but I’m kind of worried I shouldn’t be doing that, like I’m rewarding the self promo? I’ve also ignored a handful of random dude follow requests. But curious if anyone has any more insight into how this works, pretty much!