The Ickiness of Instagram
My struggles to use IG rather than be used by IG.
This week I posted on Instagram for the first time in over 4 months. It was icky.
After a long hiatus, I felt like I should post something to let people know I’m still alive and open for business. It is, after all, a professional profile.
The feeling that I “should do something” should have been enough of a warning sign that I was getting myself into icky territory. (Yes, I see the irony in that statement.)
Why all the hesitation? Why the resistance? It’s just a photo and a caption. Most people probably aren’t going to look it for more than 0.5 sections before scrolling on.
Perhaps this is exactly the point. It feels pointless.
Why bother to take time to craft a message and curate an image that gets only a passing glance. All this work, and for what? Is it really worth the time and effort?
The Opportunity Costs of Posting
The 20 minutes I would spend in IG could be spent elsewhere: reading, exercising, taking a walk, being with family, etc. When I wasn’t using the platform, I had more bandwidth to reinvest energy into things that I knew were important for me.
These alternative activities have real, positive payoffs. I know that meditating for 20 minutes or taking a walk would enhance my mind and body. IG, on the other hand, is like rolling the dice at roulette. It’s a gamble that pays off in dopamine hits of comments and likes.
The problem is, unlike money that remains in your wallet when you leave the casino, social media rewards evaporate nearly as fast as they appear. You’re left standing around broke while the dealer is asking (or compelling) you to bet again. It feels like a racket.
The Problem of Performance
Moreover, having to craft a story or carefully choose my hashtags feels so preformative. And with performative platforms come perfectionism and performance anxiety.
Maybe I didn’t post for months because I was feeling anxious about performing a task at a level that will raise expectations of even better task achievement in the future. I can see some truth to this.
When I was posting regularly — because those in “the know” said that’s what I should be doing for better engagement — it was hard to create consistently high-quality material that felt genuine. I was stuck asking myself what do I really want to say and not just post for the sake of posting.
It felt like a lot of work. When compounded with my unrealistically high expectations of myself, it was crushing. I’d rather not engage at all. So I didn’t.
Social Media or Tribal Affiliation Virtue Signaling?
With any post, there’s tacit signaling of values. Sometimes it’s not always so tacit. I clearly stated my feelings and opinions in my latest post (more on that below), but doing so carries the potential for negative reactions by others.
Thankfully, I’m not too concerned with embarrassment or humiliation, but the risk of being labeled as “too liberal, too woo-woo, too soft, too elitist, too unrealistic, too__(fill in in the blank)__” remains.
Social media can easily become a venue for social phobia when trolls appear or unforeseen backlash tears a user apart. Cancel culture and the pervasive polarization of opinions online means that if my post finds itself in the wrong tribe, I might get my ass handed to me.
If I post something inflammatory or intentionally instigate a fight, that’s one thing. However, if I’m in a place of learning and trying to figure out what I truly think and feel, do I really want to take that risk of being shot down?
Why Do People Post on Instagram?
I’m asking an honest question, why do you post anything on Instagram? Why bother to craft and broadcast anything to the internet? If not for a business, for what?
Maybe it’s that IG makes everyone feel like they’re running a business — the business of self. The emergence of personal brands means there’s now an invisible audience watching, following, judging, and perhaps most importantly, waiting for more content.
Whether catering to a real or imaginary audience, this shifts the onus on feeding the followers what they want (or what you think they want) rather than sharing because it holds meaning and significance for you.
Moreover, the algorithm gods benefit those who keep posting. It makes me wonder how many posts are just fluff and filler. How much posting serves no purpose other than to keep the consumption engine up and running?
Constant posting seems to be both a symptom of and a contributor to our single-use throw-away culture.
Consume it quickly and then chuck it aside. These stories aren’t meant to last. 24hrs and they are gone. At least an IG post doesn’t end up in a landfill or floating in the ocean. Whether a throw-away post is a type of digital waste or pollutant still remains open for debate.
I’ve heard the argument for posting to help others know what I’m up to. But I’m a place in life where I don’t feel compelled to share what I’m doing all the time, even if they are my friends.
Call me. Text me. We can chat and talk about life. I love getting into real deep conversations with people.
Posting can let you know that I’m on vacation having a (seemingly) great time, but this can create a false facade of friendship. Do we really know what’s going on in each other’s lives just because I follow your feed?
My (Terrible Job) Managing Contradictions
When I went to post last week, I tried to put up something that didn’t feel superficial. At least in my caption, I referenced some of my gripes about social media sharing. I tried to draw attention to the ways Instagram flattens life to highlight reels and biases perceptions towards extremes.
I wrote:
Do the images you broadcast reflect your true feelings or your aspirational ones?
In this image I am genuinely joyful. I share it, not to feed narcissism or provoke envy, but to disrupt the negativity bias of our minds.
We all need to break the pattern of focusing on what makes us unhappy and remember the joys. Capturing this image is a reminder that life can be full of zest and enjoyment.
However, I recognize that on Instagram all this sharing gets twisted. What we often see are the highlight reels of peoples lives—The superficial façades, frozen in time, and lacking context of what’s truly going on inside.
While this picture truly captures a moment of joy, I’m not always joyful. I suffer frustration, self-doubt, and self-criticism just like anyone.
It’s OK to feel down and it’s ok to share that with others. We weren’t meant to go this journey alone. Both positivity and negativity can become toxic when done at the detriment of the other.
I want to encourage your whole humanity to be present online as much as it is off-line. I recognize that sharing it or broadcasting it to the world carries a different weight. The norms of what’s acceptable online are unclear (and at times abused).
I struggle to figure out where the line is between oversharing and hiding, between looking for pity and being honest about my suffering, between celebrating happiness and egotistically looking for admiration or validation, between projecting a singular image and displaying my many sides.
I don’t have the answer, but I’m in the journey with you. I welcome you to join me to figure it out. We all deserve to be full ourselves.
The irony is that the accompanying picture is me shirtless on a gorgeous tropical beach in Costa Rica — a highlight reel of a moment coupled with a “sex sells” sort of appeal.
I’m saying one thing about the superficiality of social media yet still subtly trying to play the popularity game of life “likes” and “comments”. I’m confusing myself.
This is why I have so much resistance around posting regularly. I wouldn’t even call it a love/hate relationship. For me, Instagram and other social media are just icky. It’s an unpleasant affair having to navigate all of these elements.
To make it even more complicated, the real payoff came later that week. I was hanging with a friend of mine and he commented (not online, but in real life) that he saw my post and appreciated what I wrote. Bingo!
This felt real. It affirmed and validated that posting has value. It was making an impact.
Yet is a similar comment left online any less valuable? If it tickles someone the right way, does it matter which medium that is communicated on? Impact is impact, right?
I’m tiring to figure out how to make sense of all this, but I don’t know if I’m doing a good job (there’s that perfectionism again.) Perhaps that’s exactly the point.
Maybe I just need to drop any evaluation of myself, my posts, my followers, and my use or not use of IG.
These questions remain:
Can I post without caring what anyone thinks?
Can I post without incurring the opportunity costs of spending that time elsewhere?
Is it responsible for me to share a message that is not well crafted, not well thought out?
How about sharing an image of me that is provocative, a humblebrag, trying to portray a reality that isn’t aligned with my actual life, or simply feeding narcissism?
Is there a good enough reason to stay on the platform at all?
Can I take down posts that no longer feel representative of who I am today?
How do I display my values online without starting a shouting match or pigeonholing myself into a particular tribe?
Is IG the right place for a real conversation? Am I trying to feed people a fine dining experience on a platform designed for quick consumption?