I remember the feeling of looking at her photos and being pierced by the beauty. Multi-coloured hot airballoons floated in the peach sky beyond the clifftop where she sat, her auburn hair flowing effortlessly down her back.

I wanted to be there, in Cappadocia Turkey where the famous hot air balloon festival has captured the imagination of millions of Instagrammers.

Yet, my travels in East Africa, Europe and Central America had taught me that there is much deeper layer to solo travel than what she was showing. It wasn’t just about snapping and editing the perfect shot. It was about the unexpected friendships and finds, the dinners and detours. It was about getting lost on the public transport system and having a total stranger lead you to your destination. It was about realizing that you could be happy without a closet packed with 17 summer dresses. It was who you became as you shed the layers of parental and social and self-imposed expectations for how your life should turn out.

It irked me that travel Instagrammers and bloggers would publish stories like the ‘Top Five Places For Crepes in Paris.” Was that really the sum of their experience? Why wasn’t anyone talking about the loss and triumph, the crackling and forging of the soul that happened on solo travels?

So I set out to capture beauty that could rival the top female Instagrammers, and to share the “real” stories, to the truth about travel.

***

I started to push myself out of my comfort zone and take pictures of myself sometime in 2014 or 2015. By 2016, I could easily emulate the compositions of my favourite instagram photos, either through taking photos on a tripod or asking a friend or stranger to take it for me.

I knew how to get the shot. I spent hours learning how to edit and experimenting with popular filters, never quite content with the teal and orange look used by top accounts. Why did they take all of the colour out? Colours were warped on the most popular accounts so that when viewed together, photos taken in different lighting and locations would look cohesive on feed.

***

Yesterday, I noticed a book at the library called No Filter: The Story Of Instagram by Sarah Frier.

In April of this year, I had stopped posting Instagram. It wasn’t one of those times that I posted publicly about “going on a social media fast.” I just stopped. The urge to post had slowly dissipated over the last two years, and I felt emptied.

As I skimmed through Sarah’s book last night, I discovered that she’s put words to why I don’t feel comfortable on the platform anymore.

“At the very least, [Instagram’s community team] tried to address the fact that the app was becoming a competition for fame.” (Frier, p.170)

There are too many strategies that someone can use to achieve Instagram “success”, some of which I had used in the past.

Instagram become a psychological game that we are all playing on each other. Whereas once I differentiated my account by posting raw and honest reflections on my life and travels, now everyone does that.

Instagram has also completed changed travel. I started travelling in 2011, when people were carrying point-and-shoot digital cameras and the smartphone was relatively new. Now, people flock to photogenic sites, scan Instagram for the location’s hashtag, and copy the composition of the locations most popular photos.

****

I’ve discovered that I don’t like reading people’s personal diaries. (And maybe people don’t like reading mine!) If I want to catch up with a friend, I’d rather have a coffee chat and pick up where we last left off, instead from our last Instagram post.

I’m fully aware that I used to be someone who wished my friends would just read my Instagram posts to stay up to day with me. I’m guilty, and perhaps I am now getting a taste of that sick behaviour. But I can sense that it’s more than that. Something about how everyone uses the app is different and Sarah’s book fleshes it all out.

Instagram is now a place where everyone is trying to create a celebrity of themselves. We treat our posts like mini magazine features, making sure that we capture the right angle, hide our faults and reveal just the right amount of vulnerability to garner gushy comments from friends.

We have been programmed to know what works and what doesn’t on Instagram, and when we post, we are opting into a set of social rules that are out of our control. In fact, every facet of the app has been meticulously designed. Sometimes the designers knew what they were doing, and sometimes they did not. Human nature — our greed, lust, pride — can take any tool and use it for harm or for good.

Instagram’s is no different. Sarah’s book outlines many ways that Instagram and Facebook have come to harm our society and mental wellbeing, but I’ll just write from my personal experience.

***

Why don’t I want to go on Instagram? Why don’t I want to post anymore? I’ve been asking myself these questions. Will I ever want to post again?

Last night, I even had a dream that my “following” (I really don’t like that word now) had dropped to 8,000 and all of my photos and posts where gone. In my dream, I didn’t really care. I felt sad that the photos were gone, but I also felt free. Free of the burden to perform, to show off, to care what people think.

It’s not that I want to stop taking photos. I don’t. I enjoy photography, the practice of seeing and capturing scenes through an artistic eye. I intend on continuing to take photos throughout my life, but I can no longer keep up with the pace of producing good photos for a “popular” Instagram account. In fact, now that I live in one location, photography has become more important to me. I want to surround my space and my life with art.

It’s also not that I want to stop writing. I don’t. Since I started writing again this autumn, I’ve proven to myself that I want to write. First the first time in my life, I have become a writer. I find clarity clarity and purpose and healing and possibility through writing. Writing is like brushing my teeth or going for a walk or making a cup of tea. Regardless of whether or not I ever get paid for writing, I will keep writing.

What I can no longer do is take these two art forms, and put them on a platform where I feel disgusting.

Most importantly, I cannot post a photo on the app where it feels like we’re all groping for likes and comments. (Engagement, as we call it in marketing-speak.) I just. can’t. participate. in that anymore. I cannot subject myself to that anymore.

The disgust comes from knowing what the pursuit of “Instagram success” did to me.

To be sure, there are accounts that have grown organically, that caught a wind of luck of they were never looking for and have ended up with Internet stardom they never expected or desired.

I know, because I’ve followed one such account for a few years, and I wholeheartedly believe that she doesn’t crave internet success. She never did. It just happened to her.

Unfortunately for me, I was not one of those people. I craved Internet success because it gave me a sense of identity, belonging and approval. Even if I wasn’t accepted in my human life, I could be okay if I knew that my life mattered to other people — online.

In order to achieve the kind of Internet success I craved, which included aesthetically perfect photos, in a perfect feed with perfect captions, I laboured over each post. I also used some of the “Instagram growth hacks,” some of which have integrity and some have less.

Internet fame was not granted to me by the “internet gods”, as I used to call them, so I had to work for it.

It’s like how the worst Hollywood superstars are those who wanted to be an famous and loved by the masses. The fame seems to eat them up, and they wind up a psychological mess, addicted to drugs, alcohol and in other self- destructive behaviour. Then there are other Hollywood actors, ones who never craved the fame but were granted the stroke of luck that made them rich and famous. They tend to remain level-headed throughout their careers, able to use their fame for good.

Unfortunately for me, I was someone who craved the fame. Although I never would have admitted it, and (thankfully), no one ever said it to my face, it was always an underlying desire. I wanted to be loved, adored. I wanted to be beautiful.

There were good intentions mixed in there, too. I wanted to work in media to spread positive messages. I wanted to be a source of good, hope and light in the world.

All of this played out on Instagram, as I struggled to have the best account I could possibly create, while hating that I obsessed about the numbers.

Why does so-and-so’s account grow by 10,000 followers a week? How have they hacked the system? Or have them just been blessed by the internet gods? Should I just give up since I’m clearly not blessed by the internet gods?

This tension held out for all those years, until I started working in a job that has nothing to do with my personal Instagram. Slowly, Instagram held less and less importance in my life.

***

Me circa 2013, before all of the Instagram craziness began.

While I am grateful for many of the photos — grateful for the experiences I had and the friends I made — I don’t want to post on Instagram anymore.

Instagram made me obsessive. It made me greedy, self-centered. (Or perhaps I was already those things, and Instagram just gave me a place to direct my energy.)

As I look ahead, I know that I will keep creating art, keep writing. But I cannot post anymore on Instagram. I need to post them somewhere where people can have a good experience with the art, so for now, I’m just writing on this blog. I hope that later I can post photos in an online gallery here, so that you can download, print or just enjoy at your pace. I don’t want them on Instagram, where you (and I) are tempted to scroll and compare.

I try not to put art on a pedestal anymore. Art is not a way to get famous or make money. It’s just like baking bread. If I was a baker, I’d bake bread and sell it or give it to people who need it. I don’t sign my name on every loaf expect people to think of me every time they eat it. It feeds the person, nourishes them for the day again, and that is enough. Art should and could be the same.

***

A few weeks ago, as I contemplated what to do about my social media, I received this hunch. Something else will come along. If I’m meant to be on the next train, I will be on it.

One day, perhaps in the next 10 years, Instagram will be obsolete. Just like myspace and MSN are now. Perhaps a new social media platform, one in it’s infancy, one that is purer and kinder like Instagram was in the early days, will come along. Perhaps that will be where the art will go, where it’s meant to be shared.

For now, it feels like the best place to put my art is on this site. At least when the winds of social media algorithms change again, as they surely will, the site may be a tiny corner of the internet that is safe.

A little, public, community garden, tended to faithfully, for the day when it is needed.

Infinite Love,
Anita

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