it’s 2016: do i still need instagram, or better yet - does instagram still need me? (and does anyone even care about that, except for me, i think probably not and that’s totally fine)
hello! i’d like to rant a bit about my experience with instagram these past few years after having used the app since 2010, becoming moderately succesful on there for a while, and now struggling to stay calm and not freak out about using it these days because so many things have changed and it’s become more stressful than fun. maybe others can benefit from my sharing this, and maybe not. it’s not like you have to read it! spoiler: may contain self-indulgence.
i’ve been struggling with instagram for the past two years, almost to the date. my relationship with someone i’d shared instagram intimately with for nearly 4 years had ended. we shared a passion for photographing the small, every day things we did together. simple, but fancyful breakfasts. portraits of each other in the natural light streaming in from the window in our small 5th floor apartment, william morris wallpaper in the background. pretty dresses, nice shoes and hammershøian dreamyness. a perfect world. i look at them sometimes, look at us. together in the kinfolk table, walking in the woods or on the beach. i revisit our life in photos.
when our relationship ended and strangers were commenting on my instagram profile saying, “i’m so sad your relationship ended, you seemed perfect for each other” i wanted to remove myself from it completely. that felt surreal. they didn’t know us, they didn’t know me. it was such a hurtful reminder of that life and that pain behind the scenes. now reduced to an actual dream that strangers were commenting on. tiny scale people magazine.
i lost track of who i was. instagram had given me so much. so many wonderful opportunities of travel, new friends, support from all over the world. i was pretty cool, right? i have always liked taking pictures, but i never though of myself as an actual photo maker. my blog was my visual diary, and instagram was just an easier way of continuing that diary, once i actually found a field i felt interested me and wanted to work in. school has taken up a lot of my time the past 3 years, while at the same time traveling for instagram and shooting small campaigns on the side. the past year i’ve even had two student jobs on top of that, so i might have overextended myself a bit.
but these past two years? i feel like i have lost it. the it. i’m not sure what it was, but i just never found a way back to the pretty dresses and shoes and portraits or breakfasts or even the pretty house on the countryside. i can’t see myself in those types of photos. i’ve tried, but they don’t feel right, even if i miss the idea of them. it’s given me a lot of anxiety seeing “my numbers” aka engagement drop to less than half of what it used to be, my heart would race just uploading a photo and i’d be completely immersed in that world, quietly slipping out of presence into an app, another world, and what if people don’t even like it!? i lost my confidence and my self worth. it was not a nice experience anymore, and it made me really unhappy. perhaps the worst was feeling embarrassed about it all. who cares, right? well, i do. i made an effort, and suddenly that effort was not being rewarded anymore. that’s life, of course, but that fact doesn’t make it feel any better, at least not for a while.
i don’t feel the need to share the life i have with my husband today - a life that is pretty amazing, just to be clear - because it’s mine. there was no hashtag for our wedding, or a youtube video of his proposal (which was on the side of a cliff overlooking the ocean and another majestic cliff in sweden - just to be clear that it was totally grammable). i used to really over-think it and worry so much i couldn’t sleep, what will all these people all over the world think if we get divorced? what an awful thought! it is not their business. i don’t want our relationship to be a dream or an idea. i want it to be real.
i feel so removed from the profile, despite having changed the name from halfgirl to my full actual real life name. that’s weird, right? maybe the illusion was easier to maintain as “halfgirl”. now i have to live up to my name and produce something i can feel proud of. with the commercialisation of my instagram profile and having clients with some expectations, i can’t be the only one liking what i upload. people say it’s just an app!, but it’s also actual work that pays bills and puts food on the table. my interests, and thus my life, have changed quite a lot and not as many people enjoy seeing a dead squirrel as much as they enjoy seeing a the back of a girl in a hat in the middle of a never ending mountain road. it’s a little exhausting when you are just a person, trying to figure out who you are and what you want in life. maybe you are someone who doesn’t want to be a photographer. why doesn’t everyone just like dead squirrels!?
i’d like to keep shooting nice pictures and share them with people who appreciate them, as long as i am content and happy and can control the anxiousness i sometimes feel about it. i’m struggling with the balance of personal-but-not-too-personal, trying not to over-think it. but perhaps my time is just over? halfgirl had a pretty good run, but youngmeerim feels a bit like a worn out piece of clothing that someone would sell at a flea market or give to refugees (please do this if you have lots of unused clothing lying around - purging also feels good!). it’s a nice piece of clothing, but maybe it’s not your style anymore, maybe your boobs got too big or your ass too fat (not your boobs and ass, but mine, obviously, those dresses don’t even fit anymore).
maybe it’s time to start over from scratch, or at least with a clean pallet? maybe a slow death is fine. maybe something completely different. who knows!
