Mateus Asato has long had a choppy relationship with social media. As someone who could be regarded as the quintessential Instagram guitarist (though he’s currently enjoying a successful career as an artist, too), he made waves in 2021 when he announced he was leaving social media, citing burnout and a lack of inspiration.
Though he’s now back on socials, he still appears to harbour some resentment towards the way platforms end up making us behave, as shown in a new Instagram Story.
In the Story, Asato complains about the current state of the Instagram algorithm, which sees posts from accounts you actually follow enjoying less and less real estate on your feed. Essentially, just because you follow an account, it doesn’t mean you’ll see their posts, and your home page is mostly full of accounts you don’t even follow anyway.
“I miss the old IG,” Asato says. “I really do. At this point, my following section is close to ‘useless’. Everything I see is based on what I searched or spoke previously with someone or myself. Or where I am.”
Asato also complains about the need to post at specific times of the day to maximise audience engagement.
“If you’re overseas, forget it,” he continues. “Or wait until 4am to post it so your content can get the ‘highest’ amount of reach because this is the RIGHT timing where your audience is ALIVE. BS.”
And finally, the guitarist laments the “nonsense urge” social media users now have to add music and a soundtrack to their content.
“I miss just seeing pictures and reading things here without a miserable soundtrack,” he says. “Music is becoming a stupid and wrong source of distraction because of this nonsense urge to add a freaking noise over ANYTHING right now. “I really miss the old ‘meaning’ of the ordinary.”
In other news, Mateus Asato recently ended his decade-long partnership with Suhr Guitars, prompting fans to speculate as to where he was planning to go next. He was quick to dispel rumours that he was joining Fender, saying he was “single and happy where I am at this point”.
Sam is the Associate News Editor for Guitar.com and MusicTech. Thoroughly immersed in music culture for the majority of his life, Sam has played guitar for 20 years, studied music technology and production at university, and also written for the likes of Guitar World, Total Guitar, Metal Hammer and MusicRadar.