That Bad You Don’t Need: Non-Linear Instagram
That Bad You Don’t Need is our opportunity to let you know what to avoid in life. Ignore this advice at your own peril.
Do you remember what it was like, way back in early-to-mid 2016, when we were so innocent? Back when you could watch the news and not feel like your brain was melting out of your skull? Back when using Uber only made you feel a little guilty? Back when your Instagram timeline was linear?
Instagram, what an app! You could upload photos and your friends would see them as they were uploaded! Instantly! They would fit into a neat little chronological feed that worked to give you an artsy snapshot of what was going on at the time. At that Instant. If you scrolled back a few days, you would see things that happened a few days ago. Then, on Thursdays, everyone posted throwbacks, which were not happening at that instant, they had happened before, see, but you used Thursdays (because people love alliteration) to show people what you had done in a previous instance. That was cool too! Instagram was even kind of cool when it wasn’t serving its main purpose.
But then, some weird things started to happen in the tech world. The Big Bad Social Network, Inc., owner of Instagram, wanted to make more money. They needed a way to drop hundreds of ads in front of you. They started to get angry that people were using a different app, a dumber, stupider app, to share photos with one another. The Big Bad Social Network, Inc. had tried to purchase that app, just like they purchased Instagram, but the app said no. And just who did those SnapChat private photo laundering brats think they were, anyway???!!??!!! And what the heck is this Stories thing all these less old than millennial people are talking about!?!? ARGGHH!!!!
And so, Instagram made a change. They decided that they knew what you wanted to see more than you knew what you wanted to see, because you’re very stupid, and there’s only one thing you’re good for, and it certainly isn’t curating an arsty feed of friends, celebrities, and memes posted at a specific time. You know what it is? Being available to sell as a datapoint to the people who want to sell you something else, because you are just a grubby little consumer!
So Instagram launched its non-linear feed, full of ads you don’t care about and photos that are out of order. If you’re not what doctors and social media managers refer to as a “heavy user”, you may see photos from several weeks ago right atop the feed. Did you once like two photos from another user? Now that person is your best friend, and you’re going to see all their photos, forever. Were you off the ‘gram for a few days, come back on, and like someone’s photo from 3 or 4 days ago? You’re a creep now, weirdo. Why were you scrolling so far back in their feed? Are you flirting with them? Ew! Congrats, now you have to block and unblock them so they can’t see that you liked their post, creep! Get out of here!
Then there are Instagram Stories. The piece of technology that was invented with the sole purpose of copying another piece of technology and putting a growing company out of business. Having 100 billion dollars wasn’t “cool” enough for Mark Zuckerberg, he wanted to have 200 billion. And not just some of your information, time spent with entertainment, and monetary value to The Brands, but all of it.
ALL OF IT. BECAUSE I WANT TO CURATE YOUR FEED FOR YOU WITH MY ROBOTS! I WANT YOU TO GET ALL YOUR INFORMATION AND WORLDVIEW FROM ME! MUHAHAHAAHAH!
But hey, what could possibly go wrong when one organization controls an enormous amount of the population’s media consumption habits, bases what it disseminates to them on their likes and dislikes, and drives them further and further into their specific perspective, encouraging them to believe that anyone who disagrees with them is an idiot?
There may be some who are happy with this version of Instagram, people who use it every day, people who are active enough to “change settings” or whatever, but I don’t like it. I think it sucks. In what was nothing more than a blind cash grab, the dinguses at Instagram made their product bad.
Bring us back. Do it for the ‘gram.
