I was scrolling my @thewallflowerdigest Instagram feed this morning and came across a new post and video by one of my mutual follows @upintheairft.zurich – a rare gem who really does make the effort to like and comment on posts – where she vented her frustrations with Instagram. I followed the link to her longer, more researched, YouTube video and it sparked a lightbulb moment for me.
Here is her video. I love the editing style, and eloquence.
There are a lot of reasons why Instagram is bad now. For me, I’m sick of:
- Boring samey Content. Fucking Content. Who even likes Content aside from algorithms!? It’s the same shit over and over again. With Bookstagram, I am not interested in photos of people’s “book stacks” or videos of pretty bookshelves or how many edition of fucking Fourth Wing you have photographed and filmed for Reels 10 different ways.
- I’ve really failed to find any bookstagram accouts that resonate with me. Everything being pushed in the algorithm seems to be “Romantacy” and bloody Sarah J. Maas everywhere, which are not the kind of books I enjoy. Just this morning, before I came across this video, I was trying to search in Google for how I can possibly filter those books out my feed!
- When I have managed to find and followed someone interesting it’s hard to see their posts in the front page because of the ad focused algorithm, and even the (hidden) Following only page is unhelpful and doesn’t show you what you might have missed if you were not compulsively checking it.
Over the last week I’ve experimented with posting more blogging or just life stuff to that account, instead of only books. That did make it feel more fun for me, but I still had zero engagement. Then I realised what made it fun was just the documenting my own life. I liked seeing the things on my own feed profile and stories… which is something I can probably just accomplish on this blog without giving Meta any access to my content, or exposing myself to any more advertisements, getting spam tagged in scams, and being forced to see nonsense I am not interested in!
I wrote my list of reasons why I love to blog the other week, which was prompted by my attempt to blog more on Instagram… and now I can see how nonsensical that was. Why am I trying to bog on Instagram when it’s in general not a fun user experience, and blogging on my actual blog is fun?!
I have cooled off using Mastodon lately but when I do I find much more interesting posts and people there, and have much better interactions. Actually when I shared my Picard embroidery to my feed there is got 97 likes and 54 boosts, while on Instagram it was basically crickets!
I think I’m still trying to let go of the old social media mindset as I turn towards the IndieWeb and ‘old school” blogs which is where I am having the most fun, and feeling the most engaged and inspired these days.
So I think I’m going to think about how I can share more of that every day random crap and photos that I was sharing to Instagram here instead. It might just be that I get back into Mastodon more instead, I’ve not been as active there since I tried to give Instagram another go. It would be nice if I could link Mastodon and this blog for easier microblogging, but the integrations at the moment with ActivityPub are really all or nothing, and I don’t know if I want to federate absolutely everything. Maybe something else to think about.
I’ll still use Instagram for my personal private account that has my family and friends, and I do like seeing their stories. I also probably will keep my embroidery one because I’m yet to find another space for discovering that kind of content. But, the book/blog one I think might be making its way into the bin!
