Why I love, but hate Instagram:
Whether its celebrating a night out, traveling, having brunch or going to a philanthropy event I always find myself looking for the most creative photo opportunities. When I ask my friends to take pictures of me, they understand the necessity of taking 20 plus photos in order for me to choose at least one. They have to be candid but not too basic. The photo edit must fit my profile aesthetic and must be posted at my “prime-time” in order to get my maximum number of likes. The mental requirements we have for posting a photo on Instagram get more specific each day but genuinely do you look at someone’s post as much as you look at your own? I’m not saying I don’t love building my aesthetic or feeling low key famous when I get lots of likes but why am I taking so much time on something that people are going to spend less than three minutes on? Why can’t I just post something because its Zen? If I don’t get more than a hundred likes why do I feel the need to delete it?
When I was touring around North Carolina with my family during Thanksgiving break my sister and I had a photo session basically on every corner. My aunt luckily put up with taking pictures of us but my Mother questioned why we try to capture moments every second of the day instead of enjoying them? Why are we pretending to laugh and show our friends how much fun were having instead of just telling them after the memories happen. The truth is I don’t even think I know the answer to that. Why is it that I care so much about one little application on my phone when the rest of the world can just meet me instead of searching for my profile? No one can judge someone based on their Instagram profile, they could be completely different personalities. I post everything happy about my life, I would never post about having my multiple mental breakdowns during exam week but I will post a bomb ass photo of me at the beach describing that I’d rather be there than studying.
I love taking pictures, editing them, and coming up with clever captions to make people laugh while scrolling through their timelines. I love showing my friends places I’ve been, my cute outfits I’m proud of putting together but it’s important to remember that these pictures we post are mostly for us. We spend time asking what others think about photos instead of making a decision on our own. If I like this quote, I’m going to post it because it makes me smile so why not spread the happiness to others. I genuinely love Instagram but it’s a creative outlet that has turned into me forcing my creativity to a point where it’s really not a hobby I enjoy the entire process of anymore.