Instagram, is this a break up? It’s not you, it’s me (I think).
confessions from a former momstagrammer
Monday’s are usually for paid subscribers but the topic of this post is one is I wanted to be open to everyone. I would be very interested in what YOU have to say about this.
I’ve also included a voiceover for your convenience. Enjoy!
I don’t know how to talk about Instagram.
Scratch that. I don’t know how to talk about Instagram publicly. I’ve been having private conversations with mutuals about what place Instagram needs to have in my life (if any) for months. I’ve had an internal back-and-forth debate running in my mind for even longer.
If you follow me there, know that I’m grateful for that and don’t expect anything from you. The following is a confession of sorts; my way of finally pulling back the curtain on a topic that's weird to address. I don’t know how to talk about Instagram. I just know I need to.
Like most things in 2020, Instagram changed.
I always knew the people’s actions on the internet had the potential to be harmful and casually cruel, but that year was on another level. Tensions were understandably high. Most people were trying to cope through mountains of fear (including me). And then in extreme isolation, I’d log onto Instagram and watch people I’d followed and respected for years shred one another online, hurling insults and accusations like darts with no regard for where their sharp points landed. Don’t forget to add in a heavy dose of Q-anon theories and prophecies others were doggedly clinging to and using to spread fear and chaos. My page, which used to be a happy little corner to discuss ideas and share my creativity and have interactions with women in similar seasons, became a haunted house version of itself where I never knew what was lurking to snatch up my peace when I visited it.
My running theory is that people within my Instagram community witnessed the same events and, as a self-protective measure, greatly pulled back from interacting at all. You can’t be publicly ridiculed, shamed, or attacked if you aren’t showing up in comment sections and sending DMs.
But it didn’t used to be that way and that’s what makes me sad. Though I was never paid for it, I loved the writing I did for my Instagram community. It was good work, some of my best. I would spend my spare time disciplining myself to get the right words into a 2200 character limit caption, select a picture and send it out over the app. Within minutes, I’d have other women cheering me on, offering respectful discourse, sharing in solidarity about the ups and downs of life, sharing my work on their pages. My Instagram page was like hosting a communal table where we all gathered and fellowshipped together. It hasn’t felt that way in years.
That’s not to say people are rude or toxic to me, they’re just…silent. I set the table. I post my writing in the same way. I take time to film and edit a Reel. I put up a question box or share a thought in my stories. No one responds. I’m surprised if I get over 50 likes. And though we shouldn’t be doing our work for the applause of a crowd, I think it’s denying our humanity to say that it doesn't affect us to work hard to ‘put ourselves out there’ and have it continually land in an empty room.
If you head over to my Instagram page right this second, you’ll see that I have over 5700 followers. From the outside, that might seem like a pretty solid following. The behind the scenes stats tell a different story. My last three posts there (two Reels and grid post) got 194 likes combined. On a really active day, I may have between 200-300 people who view my stories (no DM responses though). If I put up a question box, I might get 5-8 responses. Over the weekend, I posted to my stories and it got…wait for it…7 views in 24 hrs. Compared to what it used to be, my Instagram is a virtual ghost town. I don’t tell you this to complain or ask for more interaction on that app. Truly. I’m sharing this because it’s a factor in me questioning why I’m showing up there at all.
Some would argue that we should show up faithfully even if it’s just for 7 people. Big numbers don’t mean big impact. And I would agree. I would also pose the question: do you keep putting your best work out there for those seven people if the majority of the time their response is silence? I don’t have an answer yet. I’m just sitting with the question.
I don’t know if I should quit Instagram.
It annoys me that this is a conversation I’m having right now. Even though my work on Substack over the past year has been the most fulfilling work I’ve done in years, I’m still holding on to what Instagram was for me then and too exhausted to figure out what it needs to be for me now. I don’t want to let go of what I wanted that space to be for so long, but at some point, does quietly bowing out become the wiser choice?
I remember when I first started taking my work on that app seriously. Around 2014-2015, I happened upon a handful of women who all had about the same size community as I did (if I told you who it was, you’d recognize their names immediately). We were the same age. We posted about similar things. We followed each other. We all had babies born at the same time. And then within months, they had skyrocketed to over 100k followings. They were making incomes online,‘retiring their husbands’, buying giant homes. Meanwhile, I was plodding along doing the same things they were and not making any money whatsoever and definitely still living in the same tiny, old, broken down house.
Was it dumb luck? Did they buy followers? (in one case I know of, yes) Did they know some magic growth tactic I wasn’t privy to? I spent way too much of my time trying to answer those questions. Not because I wanted to ‘gain a giant following’ but because I wanted some way to help our single income family get out of the situation we were in. I was watching my husband wither under a demanding job with nowhere else to go. I didn’t want to be Instagram famous. I just wanted a better life for my family, the one like these other women achieved in months. All I got were questions I still don’t have answers to.
Eventually, I just put my head down and got to work in my small corner. This method was a good track for me to run on for a while: stop comparing, just show up how God leads. But it’s different now, I’m doing the same things and it’s discouragingly quiet over there.
And it’s not just that Instagram changed, I’ve changed too.
I used to post about ‘writing and creating from the trenches of motherhood’. In fact, everything I wrote about was through the lens of motherhood and marriage. Women came to my page seeking solidarity in that and it was beautiful. Then, I got well into my 30s. I went to therapy. I was publicly and privately betrayed in a close relationship and experienced every stage of grief that brought with it. My kids weren’t babies anymore and deserved increasing privacy as their stories became independent from mine. I grew away from the twisted, patriarchal theology I’d known in my early formative years. This led to me posting less about being a wife and mom and more about being my own woman. And, as result, watching person after person quietly depart the more I shared about the Breanne I was now.
A year ago, my frustration with the reality of watching my best writing disappear into the ether on Instagram led me here, to Substack. I don’t regret it in the slightest. I could never figure out how to use Instagram to generate needed income for my family without compromising my personal values. And so I stopped trying. But the under-truth is, I don’t want to let it go. I don’t want to delete my Instagram account (or just stop showing up there) and 100% commit to a new place like Substack because that’s terrifying. Instagram, for all the woes I’ve mentioned about it here, still feels safe even if it’s no longer benefiting my life (and other’s lives) in the way it used to.
Where to go from here? I have no idea.
But I’m interested to see what the response will be to my sharing this.
Do you feel like something happened to Instagram years ago and it's wildly different now? What differences (if any) have you noticed? If you’re a ‘silent’ follower, what are your reasons for that? No judgment from me, just sincere curiosity.
Am I breaking up with Instagram? Who knows, but the lyrics of Billie Eilish’s ‘Happier than Ever’ come to mind:
“When I'm away from you, I'm happier than ever
Wish I could explain it better
I wish it wasn't true
Give me a day or two to think of something clever
To write myself a letter
To tell me what to do”
I don’t know if starting this conversation was the right choice, it could be taken in so many ways. I just know I feel lighter already.
Here’s to whatever leads to more of that.
I couldn’t agree more. Instagram has become such a dangerous space in these last years and, if I spend any extended time there at all, I can feel it eating me alive. The temptation to comparison, the weight of not showing up enough, the vitriol shared without biblical wisdom, it’s maddening. When I’m at my healthiest, I hop on to post an update about our life and dealing with a newly disabled child, when I’m not at my healthiest, it can easily consume me. I think, in many ways, this is how I end up a silent follower for many accounts. Fear of saying the wrong thing, or simply exhaustion from the mindless scroll… it’s sad! I’m so glad you’re exploring this question and inviting others to do the same.
I want to thank you, sincerely, for this post. Nobody talks about this stuff. These are discussions I have with other content creators on a 1:1 basis — it's much rarer to see a content creator dissect these issues publicly. For that, I thank you for your bravery. It's a needed, neglected discussion.
I ended up leaving Instagram entirely for some of the reasons you've mentioned in this post. I also started out creating content alongside some other creators in a niche parenting community. Initially, it seemed almost magical — every new post generated new support and I felt like I was growing something important and needed in that space. I was growing at a consistent rate with other content creators when, suddenly, others skyrocketed and I stalled out. I blamed myself — and assumed I wasn't creating content that was valuable. But, I also noticed that the mid-size accounts (20k-100k) started stalling out a year or so after that. It's almost like social media was the new gold rush and Millennials were the pioneers moving west and staking early claims. The social-media landscape, for our generation, was almost like the new American dream — and a future of stability and success seemed so possible, for a time. I've watched other Instagram accounts go from accumulating followers at a rate of 1k followers/month to those same accounts stalling out around 20k followers, unmoving for years after the initial "rush."
For me, stepping away from Instagram felt very much like my own personal Kathleen Kelly moment — an inner knowing that I'd fought the good fight for my own Shop Around the Corner and that Fox Books had, for the time being, won. My little shop, my home away from home, was closing — "and nothing can ever make it right." I have a couple of posts on this topic on my Substack and writing this comment has made me recognize that I have a lot more to say in the future. I'm grateful for writers like you — writers who are willing to talk about these complicated things, and process them with the reader in a caring, introspective way. Thanks again for this post!