I’ve hit 69 …Instagram Followers

The most hilarious amount.

I still don’t know what my plan for Instagram is, or if I really like it as a platform for my blog.

Sometimes I think I should post more blog content to it and not only my mini reviews… but then CBA with having to make an Instagram friendly image every time! And I don’t want to have to twat about changing my blog image sizes either.

Also do I want to give myself a third place to post? (after WordPress and Mastodon).

#Bookstagram

On the #Bookstagram side there are a couple of cool accounts I found but I’m still feeling it’s overwhelmed with people all reading the same stuff (much of it I don’t like, I am too old now to enjoy Sally Rooney¹) and Sarah J. Maas² over and over. And over.

The aesthetics focus can be a little irksome too.

It does feel in some cases it becomes about taking pretty pictures of books, pictures of buying lots of brand new books, and prettily designed graphics recommending books based on tropes rather than quality of writing and content.

It often feels like performance of being a Reader rather than actually reading and discussing books.

But, maybe I’m getting grumpy about it because I’m not a fit and I’m not in the club.

I don’t enjoy the washed out filters and pastels, the books sprinkled around with tangentially related objects and the trope arrows. I don’t see the point of posting a photo “challenge” of a stack of books that all have green covers or a bird on them – are you recommending them or just showing off what you own?

There is definitely a FOMO element because I also primarily read eBooks and eAudiobooks these days so I can’t participate in taking nice photos. There isn’t much you can do to dress up a basic black and white Kindle screen!

I also am struggling to find people really talking about books. I would like more thoughtful reviews as to what a read did or didn’t like that would help me decide if I might like it. The 2,200 character limit is a bit of an issue, and that Instagram caption editor just isn’t designed with large blocks of text in mind. It’s not an app designed for text. Writing a lot of text into the mobile app is not a good time so it is hard to find users who persevere to provide that depth!

I think I probably need to put more time and effort into curating the accounts I follow and engaging more with the ones that I do like. I definitely don’t engage enough because I’m not finding content that inspires me. I have started to look to #Over30Bookstagram³ instead to try to weed out all the Sally Rooney loving 20 year olds who’s book tastes no longer align with mine!

I keep thinking I will change up my approach to posting as well, I’m just not yet sure how this looks.

Do you use Instagram/Bookstagram? Any tips?

I’d say follow me on Instagram if you like… but then would break my perfect 69!

---

1. After reading two Sally Rooney books I decided I’m too old at 35 to enjoy them. I probably would have loved them at 20, but now see them as very shallow books that pretend to be deep and use mental health issues as aesthetic dressing. And all her characters are the same based on Normal People and Conversations with Friends. ↩︎
2. I once read A Throne of Glass many years ago and came away feeling Sarah J. Mass must have done a deal with the devil for her popularity for how mediocre-at-best it was. ↩︎
3. You’ll still find a proliferation of Sarah J Mass on there too! ↩︎