Well, it’s been another week, since I rejoined Instagram and man has this little experiment not been going the way I expected it to.
Okay, let’s talk the positive, first.
I found some really cool fitness/weight loss folks, just posting their daily routines and what not. I wouldn’t go as far as to say it’s inspiring, but where else can I easily find other men around my age who are getting into shape and sharing their journey? Not on WordPress, that’s for sure.
And that wraps it up for the positives. Let’s move on to the negatives.
After another week of following some bands, which is what originally inspired me to open up an account, I’ve found it to be not helpful. I was able to discover and follow music news way easier on a subreddit, without non-stop photos from concerts and micro video clips. This had been a huge disappointment.
Then yesterday, I realized you can now make multiple accounts from one Instagram account. So, you can have an account just for following a specific topic or maybe your friends. I like this idea and so I created a new account to experiment with. I decided to finally connect with some people I actually know. Good friends and what not. I figured it would be like the old days, but boy was I wrong.
Picture this…
You once lived in this neighborhood that was straight out of Leave it to Beaver. Everything was in pristine condition, the paints were a bit brighter, the rough edges were smoothed out. There was no negativity, just smiling faces from vacations and fancy meals. Everything felt fake, but at least people were outside participating in life.
Suppose you drive back up to your old neighborhood several years later and discover that the houses have paint peeling, the lawns are overgrown, and well… it looks like Detroit. Huge advertisements have been put up in everyone’s yards and street preachers are standing on the corners yelling and selling, while wild teenagers are running around zooming in and making dumb comments.
This is what Instagram is like right now with my friends.
My wife warned me she had only posted three times in three years or so. Then my friend JD mentioned he barely posts anymore. Then as I added a couple more friends, I realized they were no longer active either. Everyone uses Instagram as entertainment these days. They use it to watch TikTok videos and little else. I was blown away. That was totally unexpected.
So, instead of finding folks sharing their days, my front page was full of ads, viral videos, and what not. All the things I don’t want to see. The more I chatted with folks the more I realized that no one in my circle actually shared their personal life on Instagram anymore, it was just an app to share content with others easily. Within minutes of creating my account, I had a couple people sending me TikTok videos (TikTok to me is anything short and usually pretty terrible. Call it Reels or whatever, they are all the same to me.) I didn’t open Instagram to see that. I opened it in hopes of reconnecting and having a little fun, but like most social media, it seems like the fun has been wrung out of it.
This experiment has been interesting, but I don’t see much of a future with me and Instagram in it. It was worth a shot.
Be First to Comment