[The title was changed from “1AM thoughts on Instagram” to its current title on 19/01/21. “1AM Thoughts” or ‘late night thoughts’ are an interesting way of signalling — “it was late, don’t judge me, this isn’t what I actually think.” Often, the busyness of every day allows you to suppress the feelings that come arise because of everyday life. However, I do feel like this. Thus the title change.]
The thing that tires me out about social media is that it is a performance — and looking at the definition of the word, I don’t mean this in the literal sense. I, in the middle of act, have to choose to show other people that are not there, about what is happening. I construct their perception of myself. The thing that is hard about this, is that most of us, only use social media to share the exciting, interesting or relatively neutral parts of our lives. The things we are happy about. For me, this has become weird. I find myself with nothing to contribute to the social media world as there isn’t anything I know how to show.
It is my fault. At some point, around Year 11, I feel like I ‘clocked’ the general game of social media, at least the one I felt most people were playing. Up until that point social media had been a digital reflection of my life, my mood and my circumstances with very little filter. I think Instagram was the main place. I began to obsess over the right time to post a picture, getting the right caption, making sure it got a good amount of likes quickly (so I didn’t look bad) and of course, getting the right picture. It seemed natural, but there was a moment of pause on one particular night. I had dressed up in a suit for a Christmas Party and hadn’t gotten a picture beforehand. Before going to bed, I found a bathroom with good lighting and proceeded to take around 180 selfies before deciding I was happy with one. I was physically tired by my efforts. But the picture got a decent amount of likes and comments so it was worth it. I began to slow down with the amount of pictures I was posting as I got to university, for a variety of reasons, but the desire to get the same results still remained. I reasoned to myself. “Well, if I’m posting this picture on Instagram for my friends to see it, I may as well post it at a time when they will see it, and the caption may as well make sense, and if likes are a part of Instagram, it only makes sense for my picture to get a lot of them, right?”
Stories became a thing, I was a relatively late adopter, but I wanted to make Stories with purpose. I do believe that your social media is a reflection of you or at least a portrayal of you — what you put on there is associated with you, and from it, you learn about people’s habits, interests, likes and dislikes etc. I wanted my Stories to reflect that. I wanted them to be perfect. My first boomerang took multiple attempts. If I took a picture on my phone, I’d edit it in Lightroom first. My captions would be aligned on the screen properly. Spelling! As I’m writing this, I’m even telling myself that these things do matter — and I think to an extent it does. Creative excellence is something I am very fond of and I really enjoy seeing the work and excellence people put into their forms of expression — this includes how they present themselves on social media. But, I think the issue came about for me when real life kicked in. I had curated my Instagram in a way that presented me well, didn’t comment on anything particularly controversial, important, or relevant. Apart from posting some church-related bits, for most, it was very palatable. 2020 for me has been the year where real life kicked in. Real struggles, real issues became part of the everyday and my ‘pretty and perfect’ Insta account could not continue. I changed.
I don’t believe I lived a false life on Instagram before, but as I mentioned above, it is a self-orchestrated, portrayal of self. I had never had any real issues — I had a great life, which also meant I had a lot of content for social media. My life was easily converted to 15-second stories and occasional grid-posts. But when I began to struggle with depression, when the weight of racial injustice was weighing on me and no-one cared, when I began to struggle with unbelief and doubt, when there were no places to go and no lifestyle to present, I had nothing left to show.
There is no obligation to post on social media. I wanted to. This is definitely some form of bondage, but my mind is very well-tuned to trying to make my life presentable to others in words or in a visual form — it is a frequently explored and well-travelled thought-process. But, how do you present struggle to others?
My desire for authenticity has really increased. A couple of years ago, I saw a poster for a talk at my church titled ‘We’re all Influencers’, and seeing it really hit me. I never made it to that talk but began to ponder on its title. My actions influence others, and subconsciously or not, I have an impact on other people. I believe my Instagram bio at the time said “just the highlights” and I removed it, thinking, I wouldn’t want someone to look at my life and think it is perfect because I’m showing them just the highlights.
When my life became a lot more imperfect, I was faced with this again, a desire to be authentic but not knowing how because I’d never seen anyone do it. Secondly, it would mean dealing with the ‘backlash’ from people who were not trying to see my authentic self. If you followed me on Instagram, you knew what you were getting, church-related posts, incessant music recommendations, photography and then some generic stuff. I felt like I had a brand and I had to stick to it.
Writing this seems so silly — I’m talking like I’m a big influencer with brand deals on the line etc. really I have under 800 followers and around a ¼ of them see my posts/stories anyway. But I took that poster to heart — maybe I should have gone to the talk…
Anyways, this is my truth, I felt restricted and conflicted. Whenever I went to post something, I would fight myself about the image I am portraying, what is the potential backlash, can I handle it if there was any, and so on. So I just kept taking breaks. Not being on social media was freeing because these problems were not there.
Re-branding is possible, and there are people who show their true self with their highs and lows on social media. Also, these things can be a private matter for the close friends story or even just between close friends in real life. But for me, I value authenticity so much now, and to be in a place where I only show part of my life and I don’t feel free to show it all (if I so wanted) is not possible anymore. It’s not sustainable. Can you imagine I’ve written 1000 words plus about Instagram! It’s mad.
I don’t know if this is going to be public. I don’t even know what the result of this will be. I may end up deleting my account (very unlikely — do you know how much effort went into securing these likes?) or I may end up posting more freely. I don’t know what that will look like. You will see either way, but yeah!
Shout out to you if you read this all (I decided I am going to post this) it was really a stream of consciousness thing at 1AM with a few clarity edits at 2AM.
