From Staring at the Mirror to My iPhone Camera: Instagram and My Sense of Self

I distinctly remember when Instagram first came out. I still had a Blackberry (you know, when those were the shit) and was really jealous of everyone who could access the platform. What were they seeing that I wasn’t? Why were some of my friends on it but I couldn’t be? Why can’t I download it on my Blackberry? Why do I care so much??? Instagram created huge FOMO from the get-go and I’m a prime example of how. This was also at the height of my fangirl phase that we’re never going to talk about ever again, except for the fact that it drove me nuts that I couldn’t see absolutely everything my faves posted (unless they tweeted the links to the photos that I was able to open in a browser).

Not too long after, I ended up getting my first iPhone. The first two things I did with it? Take a selfie and post it on Instagram. That selfie has since been deleted (probably a good thing, iPhone 4s camera quality wasn’t the best anyway), but I still remember what I captioned it — “guess who has Instagram! #selfie” Little did I know, not one person gave a shit. That’s what social media does though, right? It makes you think SO many people care about you and your every move, and are potentially judging you… but chances are, they couldn’t care less. I think the latter thought is scarier to most people, myself included, because these platforms create a heightened sense of importance. The narcissism they endorse is alive and well.

So, in the world of Instagram which is intended to bring us up, what shatters the illusion of importance? Metrics. I am so guilty of caring about my metrics, and I’ll even judge people for theirs. While I obviously don’t have the time/need to dissect each and every follower and their demographics and metrics stemming from that, I do pay a lot of attention to things considered vanity metrics — likes and followers. I look especially closely at like to follower ratios, for myself and for others. If someone has over 50% engagement, I’m really impressed… and truthfully, a little envious. It’s embarrassing to admit how much these things affect me, but they do, and I’m positive that I’m not alone.

If a picture I post doesn’t get a lot of likes, I do feel bad about it and I have deleted posts for that reason before. If it does “well” (by my standards), I feel my confidence momentarily go up. These things do affect me, and I’m not proud of it. I even have an app that breaks down my engagement metrics (very simply though because I’m not yet crazy enough to pay for a plus version) and tells me who has unfollowed me. I used to search up hashtags and like everything under them to get likes back (which did work for the record, but it felt silly and wrong). I’ve since protected my account, partially so I can control who sees my posts, but also so I can make sure spam accounts don’t follow me and mess up my ratio. The measures I’ve taken to improve my metrics are so unnecessary and I’ve always known that, but that hasn’t stopped my actions.Now that I’ve outed myself and my vanity, it is important to say that the influence these things have on my sense of self is temporary. Any highs or lows I feel go away… until the next post.

My understanding of value remains relatively unaffected by metrics. I follow people who have really aesthetically pleasing feeds who may not get the most likes, and I’m well aware that their curated content is of higher quality and value than my selfies and concert pics. Logically, I know that if you’re not trying to profit off of your personal brand (which I am not seeing as I haven’t really honed in on my brand beyond consistent self-deprecation and cynicism), metrics don’t matter. The metrics that I think matter (i.e. vanity metrics) hardly even matter to people who ARE using their brand to make money. All of my ramblings aside, I think it’s important that we all disassociate metrics with our self-worth and the value of a post. The harder part is figuring out how.