I had just gotten back from spring break and posted a slew of pictures from the adventure. I was so excited to show everyone what I did over spring break! Oddly, only a few minutes after I posted I got logged out of my account and couldn’t log back in. At first, I was wildly confused… Instagram never logs you out by accident? I clicked on forgot password – even though I was sure I was entering the right one – and a notification came up saying that they sent an email to an email that looked nothing like mine. For privacy reasons, they asterisk out the whole email except for the first letter and the ending, but the email they had on file didn’t start with a D and and ended in a weird .ru rather than a .com or .edu. So, then I knew I had been hacked and probably would never get back into the account.
I went on my finsta to see if the account had been deleted or if the pictures changed, but I came to find out that the username was changed to a jumble of letters and the account that had been set to private was now public.
My first course of action was to contact Instagram and either get my account back or get it deleted. Let me tell you, Instagram does not make it easy. Firstly, there is no customer service to report a hacked account, you simply just have to keep reporting it and hope it eventually gets taken down. As for trying to get a hacked account back, you might as well not even bother. There is literally no one to contact about getting an account back… Instagram, do better, please.
I started to get all my friends to report the account and in the process, I was so angry with the app that I wound up deleting my Finsta account and the whole app altogether.
Little did I know, getting my Insta hacked was a blessing in disguise.
Since getting my Insta hacked I have made a new account, however, I’ve been more selective with it. The other account eventually got deleted and at first, I was upset that I lost all my followers and likes but now, about a month later, I realize it really wasn’t that big of a deal.
I made a new account and now I only follow the people I really know and care about, which is helpful because I also see pictures that mean something to me. It is no longer an app I use to scroll through because I’m bored but because I am genuinely happy to see my friends enjoy their college experiences.
It has also gotten way easier to not worry so much about my Insta. I don’t fret over what photos I post, how many likes they get, or how many followers I get. It sucks that I lost the Insta I had since 6th grade, but in reality, most of the people I followed I won’t really ever see again other than maybe in passing.
So, yeah, it sucked while it happened, but getting my Insta hacked could’ve been much worse and it really helped me restart and cleanse out my social media presence.
Want to keep up with HCBU? Make sure to like us on Facebook, follow us on Instagram, check out our Pinterest board, and read our latest Tweets!