Escaping the Spectacle: Anti-Check-in as an Algorithmic Culture Jamming Strategy on Social Media

Abstract

Check-in, defined as the social media activity of photographing, tagging, and publicly displaying one’s presence at specific locations, tightly binds the body to space, transforming both self and place into consumable and communicable symbols. In this process, the body gradually becomes alienated as an appendage of the spectacle. Introducing the concept of algorithmic culture jamming, this study explores how anti-check-in, grounded in embodied practices, disrupts and resists the consumerist logic of spectacle. Based on qualitative research, the findings identify three strategies of anti-check-in practices: first, de-standardization, which restores the body’s naturalness and autonomy through atypical images and multisensory narratives; second, low visibility, which rejects platform recognition and categorization through blurred, hidden, or de-tagged content; and third, spatial wandering as an embodied response, which breaks the consumption path dependency reinforced by algorithmic recommendation through the non-instrumental use of routes and places. However, anti-check-in is inevitably reabsorbed into the platform’s visibility regime, thereby revealing an ongoing and unfinished struggle between the body and the algorithmic society of the spectacle. Theoretically, this study extends Debord’s notion of the spectacle by situating it within the algorithmic condition and highlighting the embodied tactics that emerge in response to platformized visibility regimes. By revealing anti-check-in as both a form of resistance and a mechanism of reabsorption within platform capitalism, it provides a nuanced account of how agency and power are continually renegotiated in the algorithmic society of the spectacle.

Introduction

On weekends, in popular shopping districts or tourist attractions, one can often see groups of people holding cameras or smartphones, lining up to pose in the same iconic spots simply to capture an image that proves “I’ve been here.” Yet this proof is only completed when the image is uploaded to a social media platform, where physical presence is digitally revalidated via posts, tags, and engagement metrics. This practice, known in Chinese as da-ka (打卡), or “check-in,” is not only a popular cultural phenomenon in urban spaces but also a visual ritual shaped by social media platforms.

Among these platforms, Xiaohongshu (Rednote) plays a particularly significant role in structuring contemporary check-in culture. Founded in Shanghai in 2013, Xiaohongshu has evolved into a vibrant, community-driven lifestyle platform with over 300 million registered users, two-thirds of whom are monthly active users in China (Statista, 2025). Within this platform ecology, check-in practices have become a popular mode of spatial experience, as Xiaohongshu’s visually oriented interface, algorithmic recommendation system, and influencer-led content templates collectively shape how places are seen, valued, and performed. Through the circulation of photos and videos, individuals transform a fleeting experience of presence into digital symbols that can be shared and consumed, a process closely intertwined with the country’s rapidly expanding influencer economy (Han, 2021).

Originally derived from time-tracking systems in workplaces, “check-in” has evolved into a paradigmatic spatial practice of the social media era. Through ritualized bodily performances of presence, individuals convert specific spaces into digital symbols that align with the aesthetic logic of platforms. Essentially, this reflects the disciplining of the body under the spectacle’s visibility regime (Debord, 2012). In contrast, “anti-check-in” refers to an embodied response to the existing logic of the spectacle. Through subtle practices such as avoiding standardized poses and sidestepping saturated hotspots, users enact a nuanced form of resistance to algorithmic logics, reclaiming a degree of agency over how spatial meaning is produced and experienced. This everyday spatial drifting resonates with Guy Debord’s concept of the dérive.

Existing research on check-in practices primarily focuses on how they contribute to city branding and local identity formation, emphasizing their role in producing a mediated sense of place. Studies have shown that influencer landmark marketing fosters an immersive feeling of presence, transforming urban space into a consumable visual spectacle (Malvica et al., 2024). Other scholars have examined how check-in practices shape embodied experience and meaning-making (Chen & Zhu, 2024). Yet, within the spectacle’s consumerist and visual-centric logic, subtle forms of resistance have emerged—such as users exposing the visual deceptions of “beautified” influencer filters (Fang & Xiang, 2023) or engaging in aimless wandering to bypass commercialized attractions and reconfigure their relation to space. These practices suggest a growing resistance to platform aesthetic norms.

Against this backdrop, this study introduces the concept of anti-check-in to describe bodily practices that deviate from mainstream check-in behaviors and interprets them as micro-strategies of resistance against the disciplinary mechanisms of the society of the spectacle. Specifically, by examining anti-check-in practices on Xiaohongshu, this study asks: (1) Through what embodied strategies do anti-check-in practices challenge the spectacle discipline? (2) How do these practices, while resisting the platform’s spectacle logic, simultaneously reveal a paradox of resistance and incorporation, thereby illuminating the cultural politics of the body and space in the digital era?

Literature Review

Check-In: Space and Embodied Practice

Within media and communication research, check-in practices have been examined as forms of location-based or locative media through which spatial presence becomes communicable and socially meaningful. Drawing on research of Dodgeball, Humphreys (2008) demonstrates that check-ins do not merely record geographic coordinates but operate as socially oriented signals of presence embedded within broader flows of mediated communication, often initiating subsequent interpersonal exchanges that negotiate co-presence, belonging, and social connection. Schwartz and Halegoua (2015) take the “spatial self” as the core theoretical framework and define “check-in” as a practice in location-based social media (LBSM) that connects offline physical spaces with online identity performance. Frith (2022) defines the early 2010s as the “LBSN moment,” location-based social networks like Foursquare popularized the check-in as a primary mode of social interaction and ended up being dominated by large platforms like Facebook and Uber. In this sense, space becomes a communicative resource rather than a neutral backdrop for social interaction.

While the term check-in in media research originates from earlier forms of mobile check-in such as Dodgeball and Foursquare, where location sharing primarily functioned as a socially oriented signal facilitating interpersonal coordination and the negotiation of co-presence, contemporary da-ka practices on Chinese platforms such as Xiaohongshu operate within a markedly different media ecology. Nowadays, social media check-in practices are deeply embedded within algorithmic recommendation systems, visual metrics of popularity, and platformized economies of attention. Through geo-media, individuals actively tag and consume places, turning lived experiences into displayable content (Koliska & Roberts, 2021). As de Souza e Silva (2023) argues, hybrid spaces are constituted not only by those physically present but also by remotely connected actors, including online audiences, platforms, and systems of algorithmic surveillance. Yet, algorithms, through the mechanism of “popular check-in spots,” segment urban space into a series of visualized nodes, producing mediated yet hollow urban imaginaries (Zeng & Shi, 2025). Check-in practices thus draw commercial platforms, data infrastructures, and invisible spectators into the user’s embodied spatial experience, transforming local places into nodes within networked economies of visibility.

Within this platform-mediated environment, check-in also operates as a mechanism of aesthetic normalization and bodily discipline. Filters, standardized poses, and replicable visual scripts produce codified forms of bodily expression aligned with platform norms. Driven jointly by commercial capital and online communities, local cultural symbols have been repackaged and circulated as visual commodities. For instance, the Xunpu head-pinned flower decoration, an elaborate traditional hairstyle worn by women in the coastal village of Xunpu, Quanzhou, Fujian Province, has been rebranded as a cultural tourism brand and replicated across diverse scenic sites (Xie et al., 2025). Historically, this hairstyle and clothing are rooted in the local fishing culture. As tourists adopt the look for standardized photo-taking, it has become increasingly detached from its original social context and turned into a portable visual symbol. This illustrates how check-in practices intertwine local culture, bodily display, and the logic of the spectacle within a unified and highly transmissible symbolic system.

The Alienated Body of Check-In

Social media practices, such as check-ins and selfies, blur the boundaries between the physical and the digital (Kitchin & Dodge, 2014) and profoundly reshape urban space and the flows of capital (Törnberg, 2025). In this process, platform algorithms reinforce dominant aesthetics to maximize commercial value, creating a strong set of visual and behavioral norms (Cotter, 2019). Even seemingly superficial acts of fans’ “check-in” are deeply rooted in desires for identity and community belonging (Vilela, 2019), which provide the psychological basis for the internalization of these norms. This operation of norms is not intangible; it is inscribed directly into embodied practices. As Lee Humphreys (2018) points out, “the qualified self is simultaneously made up of representations of us and for us.” Thus, check-in is a representation of a present location or experience, but more critically, it is a performative representation for an idealized digital self, actively constructing and adhering to the very social order it appears to merely document.

To understand how these norms act on the body, theories of space and power are instructive. Foucault’s (2012) theory of bodily discipline demonstrates how power systematically regulates bodies through spatial design and everyday practices. Lefebvre (2014) emphasizes that space is not a neutral container but a dynamic field continually produced by social relations. Debord’s notion of the spectacle further shows that under the influence of capital and administrative power, authentic experiences are replaced by more controllable and aestheticized substitutes. As a result, bodily participation in check-in practices has been alienated into a symbolic social performance, oriented toward the pursuit of identity, the objectification of sensory experience, and the display of cultural capital (Fox & Vendemia, 2016). This alienation can be observed in two key dimensions:

• First, the standardized body. Postmodern consumer culture constructs the body as a central symbol of pleasure and an idealized lifestyle (Featherstone, 2007). Within check-in practices, everyday life is transformed into a displayable visual landscape, and individual bodily performances converge, leading to a flattening and homogenization of experience. Oh (2022) describes the “Insta-gaze” as a fully performative set of embodied practices in which bodies strive to replicate and reproduce compositions and styles validated as “visually appealing,” resulting in the formatting of the body. In contrast, some anti-check-in images deliberately depart from dominant platform aesthetics, for example, by posting unedited travel photos that foreground the non-standardized body.

• Second, the datafied body. Check-in practices capture individual behavior through platform algorithms and convert it into computable metrics of engagement (Bishop, 2025). Willment (2025) shows that content creators, even when attempting to express difference, must navigate the tension between audience expectations and emotional labor. This means that while anti-check-in practices resist the logic of the spectacle, they cannot entirely escape the dual disciplining of both audience and platform. Metrics such as likes, comments, and shares determine the circulation of images and videos, simultaneously shaping and regulating future embodied practices. This results in a situation in which, on social media platforms, some anti-check-in images, while expressing dissatisfaction with dominant standards of perfection, still need to incorporate popular hashtags or conform to certain aesthetic features to reach a wider audience.

Challenging the Spectacle’s Discipline Through Anti-Check-In

Drawing on the theoretical legacy of the Situationist International, this study approaches anti-check-in as a concept emerging from close observation of everyday practices on Xiaohongshu, situating contemporary Chinese social media within broader debates on spectacle, space, and embodied resistance. From this perspective, anti-check-in practices can be understood as operating both within and against the logic of the spectacle identified by Debord, and later elaborated by Jameson (2016), in which images and symbols become central sites of value production. Social media further extends this process by imbuing commodities with symbolic meanings that move beyond aesthetics toward forms of social mobilization (Bourdieu, 1984). In the pursuit of visibility, individuals not only reconstruct the meaning of space but also, often unconsciously, participate in the symbolic reproduction of the society of the spectacle through embodied practices.

Anti-check-in practices challenge the algorithmically reinforced order of the spectacle. They can be understood as a form of algorithmic culture jamming, in which users consciously mimic and exploit platform recommendation logics to compete for visibility while disseminating anti-consumerist messages (DeLaure & Fink, 2017; Murphy & Jarrett, 2024; Wood, 2021). This practice not only resists the cultural logic of platforms but also functions as a strategy of jamming: anti-check-in participants are aware of algorithmic preferences for certain aesthetics and critically examine the motivations behind appearance-centered social media posts (Paxton et al., 2022). Alternatively, they may post in unconventional ways, such as sharing failed photos or unfiltered landscapes, thereby creating alternative circulation paths beyond algorithmic expectations. Dickinson and Giorgia (2016) emphasize that bodies, media, and space are mutually entangled in shaping urban communication. Anti-check-in leverages non-normative spatial use and embodied practices to perturb social media ranking mechanisms, enabling individuals to explore more diverse forms of presence outside algorithmic discipline. Such “jamming” does not completely escape algorithmic control but exposes its mechanisms of regulation and exclusion through friction.

From a critical cultural perspective, anti-check-in also exposes the logic of consumption and the symbolic nature of landscapes. Lefebvre (2014) argued that cultural products are not merely commodities but cultural objects endowed with specific values, where the act of “use” is often mystified, masking the standardizing logic of commodities. When publicly accessible influencer landmarks are packaged as personalized experiences, check-in participants are still reproducing homogenized visual grammars. Y. Li and Lee (2024) note that the authenticity of check-in photos is co-constructed by influencers and users. Anti-check-in, by contrast, attempts to construct an alternative form of authenticity, prioritizing a sense of place and individual expression over visual appeal. Through unconventional embodied practices, anti-check-in practices reveal the commodified logic of cultural production sustained jointly by algorithms and the spectacle.

While anti-check-in shares a subversive lineage with Situationist tactics, it is not merely a digital “upgrade” of it. It addresses a fundamentally different medium specificity characterized by the algorithmic governance of social media. Unlike the 20th-century spectacle that relied on image consumption, the contemporary spectacle on platforms like Xiaohongshu operates through a feedback loop of algorithms and data extraction. Within the regime of surveillance capitalism (Zuboff, 2019), check-in is no longer just a geographic coordinate to be “drifted” through but a raw material for predictive modeling. Thus, anti-check-in goes beyond the symbolic subversion of images; it functions as a form of algorithmic culture jamming that targets the underlying data logic.

Method

This study focuses on the embodied spatial practices of anti-check-in on the Xiaohongshu platform. A non-participatory observational approach was adopted to collect data (Marshall & Rossman, 2014). This method emphasizes both observing content and systematically understanding platform culture in its natural context (Zhai, 2025). The researcher conducted long-term, immersive tracking of relevant content without intervening in user interactions or content production, documenting anti-check-in image-making practices and the tension with platform algorithmic visibility.

Data Collection

Data collection focused on the interaction between user-generated content (UGC) and algorithmic feedback, aiming to capture the nuanced details and inherent tensions of anti-check-in practices. For textual data, this study recorded textual content that shifted from visually centered representations to multi-sensory and introspective experiences. In terms of imagery, a wide range of non-standardized visuals reflecting anti-check-in aesthetics were collected, including scenes of queuing under extreme heat used as satirical material. Comment sections were treated as secondary texts for meaning-making and were systematically analyzed. Disparities in the ratio of comments to likes, or instances in which comment likes exceeded those of the original post, were treated as key sites for communal negotiation of check-in culture.

Data collection complied with Xiaohongshu’s user agreement and combined manual search with snowball sampling. To ensure systematic and targeted retrieval, a multi-layered search framework was designed around anti-check-in as a core feature of algorithmic culture jamming. At the conceptual level, hashtags such as #ReverseTravel (反向旅行) and #TripNotForCheckIn (不为打卡的旅行) were used to directly identify anti-check-in practices. At the interaction level, keywords like # CheckInScam (打卡骗局), #InfluencerLandmarkFraud (网红景点诈骗), and #NicheEestinations (小众景点) were added to capture critical reflections on algorithmic logic and the spectacle of space. Finally, user-generated tags such as # EmbodiedExperience (身体沉浸), #NonInfluencer (非网红), and #Authentic (真实) were included to highlight the embodied nature of anti-check-in practices and reveal tensions between self-classification by users and algorithmic recognition.

The sampling period covered May 2024 to April 2025, capturing seasonal variations in travel hotspots. An initial dataset of 115 posts was retrieved. After data cleaning, which excluded commercial promotions, duplicate content, and discussions unrelated to algorithmic disruption, 107 valid samples remained, including textual content, images/videos, and interaction data serving as indirect indicators of algorithmic visibility. Sample analysis showed that 93 posts (86.92%) were produced by non-professional users with fewer than 10,000 followers, while 14 posts (13.08%) came from users with professional content orientation with 10,000–60,000 followers. Tagged as reflecting authentic experiences, these findings indicate that anti-check-in practices are primarily grassroots and spontaneous rather than driven by performative data-seeking, suggesting a relatively pure intention of algorithmic cultural jamming.

Data Analysis

Ethical Considerations

This study adhered strictly to principles of data privacy. All usernames, avatars, and geolocation information in the sample were anonymized. Identifiable details in Chinese textual data were redacted during transcription and translation to prevent tracing back to the original content. For frequently occurring behavioral patterns, cross-sample integration was employed to preserve the authenticity and representativeness of the phenomena while maintaining users’ confidentiality.

While non-participatory observation guided the data collection process, the analytical procedure unfolded in two stages. First, a thematic analysis was conducted to identify recurring patterns, motifs, and discursive tendencies across anti-check-in posts. This inductive step enabled the organization of a large corpus of UGC into analytically meaningful categories, grounded in observed practices rather than predefined theoretical constructs. In this sense, thematic analysis bridged empirical observation and critical interpretation. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) was subsequently employed as an interpretive framework to examine how the meanings of anti-check-in are discursively constructed. Through this lens, the identified themes are situated within broader power relations and platform logics, such as algorithmic visibility and digital spatiality, which shape user subjectivity on Xiaohongshu.

Thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2021) was employed to examine patterned interactions between bodies and space in anti-check-in image-making practices. Through coding, three interrelated forms of resistance strategies were identified. First, at the visual level, users adopted a “de-standardization” strategy to counter landscape discipline. For example, they critically reflected on the purely visual pursuit of striking images, thereby questioning “just for photos” practices that detach from genuine experience. Second, users employed low-visibility strategies to signal dissatisfaction with task-oriented travel, such as trips performed solely to check in, while critically evaluating discrepancies between real-world sites and their network representations. These visual and value-oriented resistances materialized in physical space as embodied spatial wandering. Practices such as citywalks, immersive exploration, and slow travel allowed users to reject prescriptive Xiaohongshu travel guides and embrace serendipitous experiences, returning agency to the body’s immediate perception.

Simultaneously, CDA (Fairclough, 2013) was applied to deconstruct users’ discursive constructions of authenticity in anti-check-in practices. Findings show that users legitimized anti-check-in behaviors through a series of binary oppositions, most prominently the contrast between “curated social media life versus unedited real life” and the philosophical distinction between consumerist “tourism” and introspective “travel.” Here, tourism refers to consumption-oriented mobility structured, whereas travel denotes a more open-ended engagement with place centered on lived experience. These discourses not only defined what counts as “authenticity” but also constructed an internal value system within the community. Analysis also captured contradictory affective positions, such as the tension between preserving memories through photos and frustration with queuing for popular photo spots, indicating that resistance was not purely performative. Furthermore, comment sections were treated as critical sites of meaning negotiation, where users collectively critiqued task-oriented travel and debated whether anti-check-in constitutes an alternative form of performance. Notably, the widespread resonance of the idiomatic phrase “since we’re here anyway” (来都来了) points to a long-standing popular mind-set through which disappointment is softened and meaning is retroactively conferred on embodied practices. Figure 1 is included here as an illustrative example of this widely circulating discourse, rather than as time-bound empirical evidence. Such expressions reflect the compromises inherent in travel consumption, as well as the tension between individual bodily agency and collectively shared cultural norms.

Figure 1.

Screenshot of an informational post on Xiaohongshu.

The phrase “来都来了” literally means “since we’re already here, let’s do something” and is commonly used to reconcile gaps between expectations and reality or to express a form of self-comforting optimism.

Findings: Anti-Check-In as Algorithmic Culture Jamming Strategy

Empirical observations from this study reveal that some users attempt to resist this spectacularized spatial logic through anti-check-in practices. Based on thematic and critical discourse analyses of 107 valid Xiaohongshu posts, the study identifies three interrelated mechanisms through which anti-check-in operates as an embodied strategy: de-standardization, low visibility, and spatial wandering. These strategies reflect ways in which users tactically engage with platform norms and algorithmic visibility. It is important to note that users do not always articulate a critical stance explicitly; the identification of these strategies and their implications for resisting the spectacle is, in part, the result of the researcher’s interpretive analysis.

Strategy 1: De-Standardization

The act of check-in essentially constitutes a highly standardized visual production mechanism. It relies on fixed framing, filters, and poses that compress bodily experience into easily reproducible visual commodities. As Lewis Mumford (2010) observed, cinema as an art form constructs its own coordinates in time and space, yet it must also account for the position of the observer. Check-in practices, through a tightly codified visual grammar, transform bodily performance into a spectacle-oriented mode of representation (Silva, 2019). In contrast, anti-check-in practices employ de-standardization strategies to reclaim perceptual autonomy and experiential integrity. This manifests in two main ways:

First, sensory experience undermines visual centrality. As Merleau-Ponty (2013) proposed, the world is revealed to us through bodily perception rather than abstract cognition. In mainstream check-in practices, visual consumption dominates experiential modes (He et al., 2022). When tourists are drawn by appealing images on social media but discover that the destination looks very different in reality, they often experience disappointment and interpret these posts as “tourism scams” (Xu et al., 2021). Anti-check-in users, by contrast, emphasize multisensory engagement in ways that deliberately move beyond the visual framework that dominates platform-mediated experience.

Second, the anti-check-in practices resist algorithmic classification. Filters and hashtags on social media form a system of aesthetic governance that incorporates the body into algorithmically recognizable categories (Solomatina, 2025). Empirical studies have shown that filters not only enhance personal attractiveness but also discipline aesthetic norms on social media, prompting users to conform to dominant visual standards (Herring et al., 2024). Anti-check-in participants advocate for original camera and unedited imagery to restore the body’s unquantifiable authenticity. Some users deliberately post unfiltered, unretouched images that highlight “natural light” and “real states” to resist standardized aesthetic norms (see Figure 2). By “letting go of the KPI of posting good photos,” users explicitly reject performative behaviors aimed at satisfying algorithmic or social expectations of visual perfection.

Figure 2.

Example of unfiltered anti-check-in imagery on Xiaohongshu (anonymized), illustrating the rejection of aesthetic standardization.

One illustrative example is a Xiaohongshu post, titled A Complete Guide to Not Getting Good Photos in Jeju Island, which explicitly subverts the platform’s image-centered aesthetic logic. Rather than presenting carefully curated visuals, the post consists of 18 image–text entries, many of which are unfiltered “live” selfies taken under overcast skies, with visible shadows, uneven lighting, and no aesthetic enhancement. The accompanying textual descriptions are detailed and pragmatic, listing each visited site alongside concrete information such as costs, alternative paid and unpaid routes for hiking trails, and mundane but often omitted details of popular attractions. For instance, when discussing a well-known café frequented by influencers, the author notes that animals kept on-site may defecate indoors, summarizing it as “not necessarily worth visiting.” Through this accumulation of sensory and authentic experiential details, the post foregrounds bodily effort and ambivalence rather than visual pleasure. Despite this refusal of visual optimization, the post had received 274 favorites at the time of observation, suggesting that its honesty and practical orientation were valued by readers as a more authentic and trustworthy form of travel guidance.

As Stevanovic (2025) notes, our aesthetic preferences are no longer entirely individual choices; they are cultivated and reinforced by algorithms that continuously recommend specific types of content, subtly teaching and normalizing what we are supposed to find appealing. Check-in thus represents a form of algorithmic taste—a taste structured and intensified by algorithmic feedback loops. Consequently, the de-standardized visual strategies observed in anti-check-in practices can be understood as a mode of resistance against algorithmic taste. By disrupting established image conventions and bodily disciplines, anti-check-in participants attempt to escape their status as coded data bodies and reassert themselves as active producers of spatial meaning.

Strategy 2: Low Visibility

In contemporary China, imitation landscapes such as “Little Kyoto,” “Little Santorini,” “Little Kamakura,” and “Little Switzerland” have proliferated across the country (W. Li & Su, 2024). These locations attract visitors by mimicking foreign architectural styles, selling an aestheticized image of an exotic lifestyle, and capitalizing on the popularity of overseas landmarks. In doing so, they convert visibility into economic value. Such spaces are standardized consumer environments produced through the combined forces of capital, algorithmic preference, and the attention economy.

Yet within this highly visualized and algorithmically governed spatial logic, a countercurrent has quietly emerged—what may be termed low-visibility anti-check-in practices. Debord (2008) anticipates what would later be theorized as détournement, understood here as the displacement, reappropriation, and rerouting of dominant spatial and symbolic forms that open possibilities for alternative modes of lived experience. From this perspective, low-visibility anti-check-in does not simply signify the absence of check-in behaviors; rather, it represents a deliberate strategy to resist the logic of the spectacle and its underlying consumerist order. As Meyrowitz (1986) argued, electronic media are not merely channels of information transmission but are constitutive of new social environments. Similarly, social media do not merely record travel experiences; they shape how space itself is perceived and experienced. In this mediated spatial environment, hashtags such as “niche county travel,” “avoiding the crowds,” and “hidden destinations” have become increasingly popular (People’s Daily, 2024).

First, users reject algorithmically defined “hot spots” and turn toward non-typical travel spaces. Many deliberately avoid heavily commercialized, tag-saturated influencer landmarks, instead exploring smaller towns, peripheral regions, and everyday non-commercial settings. By emphasizing hashtags like “niche county travel” and “avoiding the crowds,” they prioritize authentic local experience over image production, enacting a subtle resistance to the capitalist valuation of space through visibility and attention.

Second, users challenge the algorithmic construction of functionalized spaces by exposing the discrepancy between filtered imagery and lived experience. Some post direct comparisons between “filtered” and “real” scenes—for example, a “pink lake” that appears dreamlike on social media (see Figure 3) but, in reality, looks pale red or grayish under natural light. Through captions contrasting “online vs. reality,” users mock the illusion of the filtered spectacle and dismantle the semiotic fabrication of idealized destinations.

Figure 3.

Online vs. Reality (from a Xiaohongshu post).

Social media provide new mechanisms for the standardization of urban attractions, producing homogenized and abstract spaces rather than distinctive and situated ones (Zou, 2025). Within this algorithmically driven spatial order, certain sites gain visibility primarily because of their photogenic attributes. Trendy street signs in China such as “I miss you here in [place]” or “The wind that misses you also reaches [place]” on influencer-style signboards exemplify this spectacle-driven production of space (see Figure 4) (The Paper, 2023). However, an increasing number of users now refuse to take photos at such locations, pass by without stopping, or even intentionally avoid them. This low-visibility practice can be understood as an intentional withdrawal from the algorithmic economy of attention—users consciously limit their content output and circulation to reduce their algorithmic traceability, thus achieving a form of digital invisibility.

Figure 4.

Trendy street signs in China (from a Xiaohongshu post).

Rather than a passive absence, such withdrawal constitutes an active, strategic resistance. By refusing to be seen, users disrupt the platform’s disciplinary logic over both body and space. As Stegeman et al. (2024) note in their discussion of strategic invisibility, individuals caught between hypervisibility and erasure often seek controlled forms of low visibility as a mode of defense against platform surveillance and social discipline. In a similar vein, low visibility in anti-check-in practices represents a conscious negotiation between the body and algorithmic power—a resistance to the imperative of “being seen” and a critical response to the commodification of visibility itself.

Strategy 3: Spatial Wandering

As Guy Debord (2014) proposed, dérive is an urban practice that enables individuals to break free from daily constraints and re-perceive the city as a lived landscape. In this study, anti-check-in practices resonate strongly with this logic of dérive. Rather than following algorithmically recommended routes or visiting highly ranked attractions, participants deliberately disengage from path-dependent mobilities and embrace purposeless wandering as a way of reclaiming spatial experience. This form of spatial wandering can be further understood through Michel de Certeau’s (1984) The Practice of Everyday Life, whereby individuals resist normalized and institutionalized patterns of behavior through “tactics,” thereby reclaiming a degree of agency and finding new freedoms of action within established social frameworks. In a manner comparable to the contemporary Citywalk phenomenon in China, such embodied exploration challenges the logic of visual consumption and redefines the relationship between body and space (Mu et al., 2025).

First, embodied wandering resists algorithmic planning. Citywalk has become a popular means of engaging with spatial relations, identifying social needs, and envisioning the city’s future (Borucka, 2019). Many users deliberately abandon navigation apps or travel guides, choosing instead to walk without fixed destinations or routes, valuing improvisation and non-iconic spatial experiences. They may traverse residential areas, markets, or local parks rather than visit commercial landmarks or influencer destinations. This “intentional disorientation” is not mere aimlessness but a deliberate refusal of algorithmic prefiguration. Through bodily presence and sensory engagement, users reclaim interpretive authority over urban space.

Second, they uncover and share non-algorithmic places. Anti-check-in participants actively seek spaces overlooked by platform algorithms, such as local restaurants, street vendors, and neighborhood cafés, and document these uncommodified, unspectacular experiences. In doing so, they construct an alternative cognitive map of the city that challenges mainstream tourism narratives. As Willems (2019) argues, publicity does not exist solely within digital networks but emerges through the interplay of bodies, material objects, and urban environments. In this sense, spatial wandering in anti-check-in practices represents both a bodily resistance to algorithmic mapping and an ongoing renegotiation between digital media and urban space.

Spatial practices on social media are shaped not only by physical constraints but also by the affordances of platforms. For example, Xiaohongshu algorithmically promotes posts created at or near the same location, encouraging users to reproduce similar spatial trajectories and visual perspectives. As users increasingly depend on such systems, they encounter what Zuboff (2019) identifies as a paradox of surveillance capitalism: platforms present algorithmic monitoring as personalized service, promising to satisfy individual preferences while subtly disciplining behavior. Users, therefore, resist algorithmic recommendation systems while simultaneously making their alternative routes visible through trajectory records, map tagging, and content sharing (see Figure 5). These acts collectively generate a new, user-driven “anti-algorithmic” geography—an emergent spatial knowledge that circulates within the same platform structures it resists.

Figure 5.

Screenshot of a public Xiaohongshu post.

The post illustrates a Citywalk route along Suzhou Creek in Shanghai, skipping the overcrowded Bund. The route allows visitors to experience the city’s history while still capturing aesthetically pleasing photos. This post has received 15,000 likes, indicating its popularity among users.

As Lundberg (2025) observes, the production of public space is a process of mutual constitution between the digital and the material: digital technologies reshape spatial experience even as they become part of spatial production. In anti-check-in practices, users’ purposeless wandering and exploration of non-influencer spaces not only challenge algorithmic pathways but also reconstitute public space within the digital-material nexus. Spatial wandering as an embodied response is thus both a physical and a philosophical act of resistance. By asserting the body’s right to perceive and move, it seeks to reclaim individualized and non-commercial experiences in an increasingly mediatized urban environment.

One user articulated this sentiment most poignantly in her post: “No matter which direction you go, you always return to your own predicament.” This reflection reveals the deeper philosophical impulse of anti-check-in practices: they enact a fundamental critique of the consumerist and hedonistic values embedded in the society of the spectacle.

Discussion: The Paradox of Anti-Check-In

Based on an analysis of anti-check-in practices on the Xiaohongshu platform, this study identifies three core dimensions—de-standardization, low visibility, and spatial wandering—through which users employ bodily strategies to resist the spectacle-driven spatial order. Rather than optimizing content for algorithmic recognition, participants selectively appropriate platform affordances to minimize exposure, disrupt expected trajectories, or render their practices less legible to recommendation systems. These practices can be understood through the lens of “creative misuse,” especially when users employ platform tools contrary to imperatives of visibility, ranking, and circulation. Yet, these practices exist within a structural paradox: their effectiveness and continuity are highly dependent on the very platform algorithms and capital logics they seek to challenge.

At the micro-practice level, anti-check-in participants attempt to reclaim agency over the definition of space by emphasizing bodily autonomy. Just as Chris Hayes (2025) argues, attention has become a scarce and irreplaceable resource at the core of contemporary human existence. Reclaiming control over attention, in this sense, is not merely a matter of individual focus but a condition for restoring embodied agency under conditions of spectacle. From this perspective, anti-check-in practices can be understood as micro-level bodily interventions through which users recognize and tactically resist the disciplining force of the spectacle, seeking to reappropriate embodied attention from algorithmic visibility.

While alternative or counter-narrative content does appear on platforms, it is often marginalized and struggles to achieve significant visibility due to algorithmic biases and the dominance of visual-centric modes (Flores & Sepúlveda, 2025). Similarly, Gupta and Ray (2022) demonstrate that “instaworthy” locations are co-constructed through selfie practices, highlighting how self-presentation interacts with specific sites to produce “visible spaces.” In contrast, anti-check-in practices pursue digital invisibility and path deviation, asserting resistance precisely by refusing to become algorithmically recognizable instaworthy content. Nonetheless, this form of opposition does not sever engagement with platform logics entirely but introduces new tensions within the ongoing operation of these systems.

At the meso-level of platform mechanisms, this tension manifests as a visibility paradox. Digital platforms, as infrastructural components of the cultural industries, promote the modularization of cultural content, transforming it into commodifiable goods through circulation and recombination (Nieborg & Poell, 2018). Social media platforms, through precise tagging systems, can integrate peripheral or non-mainstream anti-check-in experiences into recommended content. Although users employ low-visibility strategies to avoid algorithmic recognition, the circulation and imitation of their actions remain embedded within the platform’s visibility regime. Photographs function as highly influential non-human actors, often surpassing textual critique in shaping the appeal of influential destinations (Yang et al., 2025). More importantly, platform algorithms can re-integrate data generated by anti-check-in behaviors, such as roaming paths, into recommendation systems, converting traces of resistance into new resources for optimizing spatial production and user management (Fu, 2025). Consequently, rather than overturning algorithmic logic, these practices often extend and update it.

A vivid illustration of this mechanism is the Xiaohongshu platform’s official “#TripNotForCheckIn” campaign (see Figure 6). By initiating an official campaign, the platform successfully incorporated users’ grassroots, dispersed anti-check-in narratives and reframed them as a standardized, platform-defined agenda (“slow tourism advocates”). This aligns with Nieborg and Poell’s (2018) observation that platforms, as infrastructure, modularize and recirculate cultural content. The campaign appropriates core anti-check-in discourses from the user community, such as “slow down” and “immersive experience,” transforming them into a competition with clear participation rules, data incentives, and commercial prizes. It transformed users’ original low-visibility resistance aimed at escaping the spectacle into a high-visibility contest driven by attention and reward. Ironically, under the platform’s orchestration, the act of anti-check-in itself became a new form of social capital, precisely recorded, shared, and quantified through platform metrics.

Figure 6.

Online campaign poster for “#TripNotForCheckIn” launched by the Xiaohongshu official account “ShengHuoShu.”

The algorithmic visibility paradox resonates with broader discussions in media and communication research on digital disconnection and selective participation. As Burchell (2015) demonstrates, embodied engagement with connective tools and platforms constitutes a central form of everyday communicative labor, through which users continuously manage time and attention while also experiencing increasing communicative overload. Building on this line of inquiry, Burchell’s more recent work reframes disconnection not as a complete withdrawal from digital media but as a partial, strategic, and negotiated mode of refusal that unfolds within platformized environments (Burchell, 2024). These works highlight how practices of connection and disconnection are deeply entangled, forming a continuum of everyday negotiations rather than a binary opposition. Taken together, anti-check-in practices do not represent an exit from social media but a mode of staying in while resisting, where users remain entangled in algorithmic infrastructures even as they attempt to reconfigure visibility, participation, and presence on their own terms.

From a macro-level perspective, anti-check-in practices highlight the complexity of spatial justice in the digital era. Cresswell (2009) argues that “place” is a combination of space, meaning, and practice. Anti-check-in is not merely the movement of bodies through physical space; it is a bodily practice that reshapes the significance of place. On one hand, by exploring non-mainstream spaces and rejecting path dependence, these practices partially challenge the monopolized definitions of spatial value imposed by capital and algorithms, bringing renewed attention to locality, everyday life, and embodied experience. On the other hand, local governments and commercial entities in China have responded to the phenomenon of excessive check-ins with regulatory measures. For example, the “most beautiful influencer road,” Cang’er Avenue in Dali, Yunnan Province, China, has banned unauthorized street photography and solicitation (Guangming Online, 2025) (see Figure 7). This indicates that the controversies triggered by anti-check-in have entered the governance agenda, aiming to protect spatial order and the rights of local residents.

Figure 7.

A public notice installed by local authorities along Cang’er Avenue in Dali, Yunnan Province, China, warning pedestrians not to sit, lie down, linger, or take photos on the roadway in ways that obstruct traffic safety.

Conclusion

This study examined the phenomenon of anti-check-in on the Xiaohongshu platform, revealing the complex negotiation among bodies, space, and algorithms in the digital era. The analysis demonstrates that anti-check-in is not merely an individual action resisting aesthetic norms or algorithmic logic but a cultural practice enacted at the intersection of platform discipline and personal agency. It reveals an agentic form of algorithmic jamming that does not necessarily arise from fully articulated critical consciousness, yet nonetheless foregrounds the tension digital subjects experience between being observed and self-presentation.

Theoretically, this study conceptualizes anti-check-in as a form of algorithmic culture jamming (Wood, 2021) that is neither outright resistance nor full compliance but a tactical, everyday negotiation. Such practices reveal how algorithmic culture permeates the most micro-level dimensions of bodily experience and spatial relations, while also showing how ordinary users can momentarily reorganize platform and spatial logic through embodied strategies. The paradox lies in the fact that these actions rely on the very tools of the platform they seek to contest, producing both localized moments of bodily agency and, sometimes unconsciously, the reproduction of existing structures of domination (Lin, 2025). The Chinese context adds a distinctive layer of significance: the interplay of algorithmic governance, spectacle-driven sociality, and consumerist affect creates the cultural field in which anti-check-in emerges, offering an important lens for understanding spatial politics and bodily practices in the global intelligence era.

This study also has several limitations. First, the analysis is based on non-participatory observation and relies primarily on textual and visual materials, which limits access to practitioners’ subjective interpretations and reflexive accounts of their own practices. Second, the research focuses exclusively on content collected from Xiaohongshu within a specific time period and therefore does not account for how anti-check-in practices may vary across different platforms, communities, or socio-technical environments. As a result, the findings should be understood as analytically situated rather than universally generalizable. Future research could integrate interviews or participatory observation to explore how participants in anti-check-in practices develop critical awareness of this paradox, as well as how different platform algorithms respond to, incorporate, or attenuate such acts of resistance over time. Such work would allow for a more fine-grained understanding of the relationships among spatial politics, embodied agency, and algorithmic governance.

Taken together, this study suggests that anti-check-in can be understood as a situated form of embodied practices within algorithmically structured spaces. Attending to these ambivalent practices allows us to rethink algorithmic power not merely as a top-down system of control but as a relational process continuously shaped through ordinary users’ bodily movements and mediated visibility.