Stop stressing about your next post
I first downloaded Instagram in elementary school, which, looking back, probably wasn’t a good idea. The only good thing that came from being on the app that young was getting to experience social media before it became as toxic as it can be now. While there are many amazing aspects of Instagram, like getting to connect with people that you’ll never actually meet in real life, there are so many negative parts that drag the app and its users down. The pressure to get likes and followers, and to show off a seemingly impressive life, can all be avoided if we just make Instagram casual again.
In the early days of Instagram, my feed was filled with galaxy edits, celebrities posting blurry mirror pictures, and duck-faced selfies. Without outside pressures and easy-to-download apps that made it possible to subtly change everything about a picture, no one cared about what they posted. There was no pressure to post with a ton of friends or about your expensive vacations. People definitely didn’t care as much about how many likes and followers they had. But something has changed, and now many people face the undeniable pressure to post a certain way and get as much activity on their account as possible.
I first started caring about Instagram likes during my freshman year of high school. I was with a friend, and she told me she was deleting her most recent post on Instagram because it didn’t get as many likes as she wanted. So, instead of leaving up a picture that she loved, she deleted it and posted it the next day, just so the post would get more activity. At the time, this was crazy to me, but looking back, it makes a lot of sense. The new Instagram, the one filled with strategically planned posts and captions, was designed for users to show off only the most aesthetic parts of their lives, so they can compete for people’s likes.
When I scroll through this new Instagram, my feed is full of influencers posting their newest brand deals, girls going on vacations to the most stunning beaches or beautiful historical landmarks, and sometimes even influencers with a wavy background or an extra hand due to a Photoshop mishap. Social media has gotten to a point where it’s no longer about connecting with people but highlighting only the prettiest moments of our lives. And while there is nothing wrong with only posting those pretty pictures, sometimes they’re not the parts of our lives that we truly want to share.
We suppress the urge to post pictures that we love, like pretty flower pictures or blurry pictures with our friends, and instead choose to wait until we have a picture that is “perfect for Instagram”. We pose, and we repose until we get the right shot, then we edit the pictures, messing with the lighting and adjusting the filter until we have a nearly flawless post, and then we stop to think of a clever caption that really encapsulates the vibe that we want the picture to give off. After all of that, the post might finally be perfect for our Instagram feed. And we do all this instead of posting random pictures, the kind that we love so much for no real reason because we know how toxic and focused on engagement Instagram can be. We know that pretty, posed, and edited pictures might be considered more appropriate for Instagram, so that’s what we post.
We don’t have to post only the pretty pictures that we know will get the most likes and attention. Our Instagram accounts truly are our own. We’re allowed to post whatever we want whenever we want to. Instagram can be as uptight or casual as we want it to be, so why don’t we make our own pages exactly what we want them to be?
The pressure to post the most flattering, aesthetic picture won’t just randomly go away. It’s hard to ignore everyone around you posting seemingly perfect pictures, and it’s even harder to not want to do that exact same thing, but we will never be able to get rid of that pressure of creating the perfect online persona until we just start posting what we really want, no matter how absurd it may feel. So, stop giving in to that pressure. Turn off the like count for your posts, start posting pictures of the moments that truly make you happy, and make Instagram casual again.