Measuring our Worthiness on Instagram
I am hesitating to post my new picture from a recent trip on Instagram. Are the brightness and saturation levels good enough, or did I put too much of the sharpening filter? Of course, I have asked several friends about their opinions, before uploading it. After all, they are going to be among the ones who will like the photo once I make up my mind and post it on the platform.
Sadly, a big part of Instagram has become a flat flow of perfectly edited photos, portraying a glamorous life that doesn’t really correspond to reality. Users try to mime big influencers and publish a photo that will gather a lot of likes. Facebook’s little brother has brought us to a point where we have become more people pleasing and approval seeking for what we post.
In spring 2019, Instagram started testing hiding the number of likes a post receives. Users will still be able to see who double-taps their photos, but the number of likes gathered will not be public. The new approach was originally introduced in Canada and now there are randomly chosen accounts, operating with this feature in almost every country.
At first, I thought that this new suggestion was admirable. Instagram would turn to be less quantity oriented and people would focus more on the quality of the content they post. Then I realized that in fact it’s not going to change almost anything and it turns out to be almost pointless.
Famous influencers and celebrities are having their reason to oppose to this innovation. They perceive it as a threat to their profit-earning accounts. In November 2019, American rapper and singer Nicki Minaj tweeted, that she would stop posting on Instagram “cuz they removing the likes. ”
One of those affected Instagram accounts happens to be Boyan Todorov’s. He is a 17-year old Bulgarian YouTuber and Instagram influencer among young teenagers and children. With more than 50k followers, Boyan claims that this is indeed a good practice. He explains that Instagram would still let you have a business report of your likes, that could be presented to sponsors. Therefore, influencers are not going to be out of the marketing game any time soon.
So why do we happen to care so much if we’ll have likes or not? I don’t think that removing likes from Instagram would significantly improve the application. It’s highly unlikely to make it more about the content we post, rather than the appreciation we aim to receive. The truth is that it is psychologically satisfying to receive validation, to be appreciated and admired for what you produce, especially online.
Boyan adds that a positive aspect of removing likes is that it will lower the distribution of services that provide fake likes.
According to the influencer marketing platform HYRP, almost 64% of influencers admitted to buying likes. Boyan also believes that this would be beneficial for preventing younger teenagers and children from comparing and judging each other based on the number of likes they have.
Of course, this toxic habit of comparison is relevant for most of Instagram users, regardless of their age. And I think that this is where it all lays. Things are fundamentally wrong with how we interact online. People tend to always find a way to measure their worthiness. If it’s not the likes, we will alert our attention to the number of followers, shares or saves posts have. It’s in the way we perceive the purpose of our media performance. You post something for your “friends” to see and how they reacted then to be seen publicly.
The real issue with likes is that they are a measurement of our worthiness as people. If we remove them there will be only a moment of chaos until another unit is given meaning to.
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Sofia Drenkova studies Journalism and Mass Communication at the American University in Bulgaria. Sofia enjoys taking pictures and sharing them with her friends online.
