We all follow people we don’t want to, either because we have been following them for so long it seems pointless to unfollow, or because they are a steady source of likes, or any other reason. Even if we aren’t the least bit interested in what they post or don’t agree with what they post, we still follow them. I did this for years, following people I didn’t like or people whose posts irritated me, until recently when I went through an Instagram cleanse. As I was going through and unfollowing people, I realized that some people deserved to be unfollowed for their posts, even if they aren’t offensive. It’s time to let go and unfollow these 5 types of people.
- Cultural Appropriator
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The cultural appropriator is someone who has basically zero awareness of their interactions with other cultures. They’re the people who wear hijabs when not necessary and caption pictures with borderline racist captions. Or they’re the people with dreadlocks who really don’t have the right type of hair for dreadlocks if you get what I’m saying. And if you try to educate them on the matter, they will either get defensive, or they just won’t see what the problem is and will continue to go about their day without a hint of remorse.Time to hit “unfollow” for sure.
- Business Promoter
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The business promoter is probably one of the most irritating people to follow on Instagram in my opinion. Almost all of their posts are dedicated to promoting either a business that they are a part of or a business that they are trying to start. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to see people taking the initiative, but there is such a thing as having multiple Instagram accounts. It really doesn’t take that much effort to create a separate Instagram for your business and keeping a main one for people who are just interested in seeing pictures of what you are up to.
- Diary Poster
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Everyone follows at least one person who treats Instagram like their diary. They write paragraphs about what is going on in their lives as captions, spilling their guts out to everyone who is willing to read it. Captions don’t need to tell your life story — they should be short and sweet. Anything longer than 2 sentences is overkill. But these people write full novels in their captions, basically detailing their entire life from birth.
- High School Reminiscer
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High school is long over for those of us in college, or at least we treat it like it is. For most of us, high school was just a stepping stone to the rest of our lives, and it either wasn’t particularly special or we wish we could scrub our brains of it. Some people don’t feel that way though, and by some people I mean the people who peaked in high school. These people will periodically post pictures taken with their friends when they were in high school, making it clear where it was taken because come on we all know what our high school looked like. It’s an unwelcome splash of cold water whenever we open Instagram and see a picture that was clearly taken during the same year we got our driver’s licenses.
- Dating App Pretender
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Okay so you know those people on Instagram that post thirst traps all the time with captions like “wife me” or something like that? Yeah those people basically treat Instagram like a dating app. They make it glaringly obvious that they want to be in a relationship, and make it super uncomfortable for anyone who comes across their posts. Instead of using a dating app, they post what they are looking for in a partner in their captions hoping someone will dm them. But guess what? That’s what a dating app is for! This just makes people want to avoid you when they see you in person.
Ever since I have unfollowed these types of people, my Insta feed has been looking way better and it doesn’t feel like a chore to open up the app. There’s no point in following people who make Instagram uncomfortable or not fun to open. And if you feel guilty about unfollowing them, like I did at first, don’t be because they brought it on themselves and you don’t owe them anything. You should only follow people whose posts you actually enjoy seeing. Trust me, once you let these 5 types of people go from your Insta feed, life will be so much better.