Whose space is Instagram anyway?

When a large following makes you lose your identity and leaves you exhausted, it is time to choose between popularity and sanity

July 20, 2018 08:32 pm | Updated July 21, 2018 12:11 pm IST

Illustration: Prathap Ravishankar

Illustration: Prathap Ravishankar

Earlier this week ago, international pop sensation Miley Cyrus, without warning, deleted all the photos from her Instagram, sending her 76 million followers and the internet into a tizzy. Was something going on with her? Or was it a publicity stunt? As I type this, the reason behind her Instagram disappearance continues to be unknown. But this is not about her.

You see, in a strange and vastly under-reported coincidence, I had also deleted my Instagram account on the same day. Except, unlike Miley who only deleted her photos, I deleted my entire presence, with over 1,500 photos and 20,000 followers. And I have never felt more liberated.

Nosy followers

When I joined the photo-sharing app back in 2010, there were not many people using it and so, I did not think much about keeping my account public. On most days, I used it like a photo album of my favourite things. Slowly, a community started building and I got acquainted with women who had similar interests to mine — fashion, travel and food. It was a great fun and pushed me to share more. It was when my follower count increased that I was exposed to a nasty side of social media’s acclaimed ‘happy place’.

It began with innocuous questions about whatever I had posted — where did you buy that kurta, what recipe did you use for those brownies, which restaurant is that. Initially, the queries made me feel important, like I was an influencer. I began stressing about how my photos looked — were they Instagram ‘worthy’? I began wondering if I should cultivate an Instagram aesthetic, despite not fully knowing what it meant. I stopped enjoying experiences because I was so concerned about getting the right pictures.

Thankfully, this regrettable phase of “people need to know what I’m eating for breakfast” conceitedness was brief. Because the spike in my follower count was also accompanied by vicious judgement and unwarranted intrusion. When I shared a photo of a bag that I’d bought after saving up for months, I was accused of “flaunting” my privilege and acting like “an aristocratic superbrat”. Another time, I posted about cake, only to be told that I was “the ultimate hypocrite” because I had earlier posted about how I enjoyed salads. My favourite message, however, is the one I got from a man who firmly reprimanded me for talking about pregnancy weight gain because “it is part of the beautiful phase of life called childbirth”. Easy for you to say uncle, you are not the one with the uterus.

FOMO feelings

While all this drama sounds juvenile, it throws light on how those with public profiles are treated like micro-celebrities, answerable to everyone who follows them. People also seem to possess a sense of entitlement when it comes to asking for information — I have been asked a wide variety of incredibly personal, almost offensive, questions ranging from how much I earn (“You spend so much!”) to what I feed my baby (“He seems quite big”), without the slightest hesitation.

Yes, you must ignore messages that are hateful, judgemental and intrusive and take in only the positives of social networks. However, processing these comments takes up a lot of mental space and I found it criminal to waste whatever little I had, mulling over the words of strangers. The most significant reason why I pulled the trigger on my account was because I realised I was censoring myself to come across as a person that my audience preferred, as opposed to who I really am.

“Instagram is a gutter,” says Sahridaya (@sahridaya), an engineer from Chennai (who I ironically befriended through the ’gram). She went on a six-month Instagram break for her own sanity after havimg a similar experience. “It was also cloying to see people act like their lives were so perfect,” she says, adding, “I’m not proud to say it, but looking at the lives of others made me question my own worth.”

When you scroll down filtered photos of scenic holidays, perfect friends and exciting parties that you are not a part of, it is hard not to feel like your life is not going the way it’s supposed to. Sahridaya felt it, I felt it and thousands of others do too — studies show that Instagram is the social network most likely to cause depression among young people. The endless barrage of beauty that assaults our feed almost never makes us happy. Instead, it makes us feel like we are not good enough to be experiencing that life — that filtered, staged, probably fake life.

For all my problems with Instagram, the truth is that I haven’t really left it — I have a new, private account whose following is restricted only to people I know, and it has been liberating. The fact is, there is nothing wrong with the app. It is us. We have allowed the platform to influence us, to shape our thoughts and opinions, and impact our world. And the more we force ourselves to see through this square-cropped frame, the more we are missing the big picture.

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