Why I'm Sticking To Instagram, Thanks Very Much
Over the last three years, I’ve largely ignored Facebook and Twitter. It wasn’t anything personal, at least I didn’t think it was at the time, it was simply a way of managing my time smartly. As a blogger, I had a larger audience on Instagram and, when I started making money through it, it just made sense to not allow myself to be distracted by Twitter and Facebook.
Various things have happened recently - I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s some virus going around - and in my unquenchable desire for knowledge, I have dusted off Facebook and Twitter (once I remembered where I’d put them on my phone) and found myself in a brave new (old) world.
Well, fuck me if it didn’t remind me exactly why I’d left them in the first place. I know Instagram is not perfect - trust me I’ve seen some pretty despicable behaviour on there - but it’s nothing compared to the torrent of rage and bullshit that exists on Facebook and Twitter. Truly. Twitter, frankly, is like the Daily Mail of social media sites. I have no doubt the dumbfuckery is exacerbated by the current Coronavirus shit show but still, while everyone Instagram is encouraging people to donate their loo roll to the elderly and cut up old towels and use them to wipe your arse instead, people on Twitter are calling you a ‘dumb c*nt’ because you suggested that people shouldn’t be stockpiling. Over on Instagram people who disagree with me send me a polite DM explaining why they feel let down by my view point while, on Facebook, I’ve got friends of friends suggesting my kids deserve to get it because I believe in sending them to school despite Covid-19.
It explains a lot. It explains why, on Instagram, we are so quick to label people trolls and said trolls are so outraged. The expectations and the boundaries are different. Vicious and cruel comments on Twitter get thousands and thousands of like whereas on Instagram, they’re shouted down immediately. What’s ok on Twitter is not ok on Instagram and it’s led to a divide between the two; it’s led to a perception of Instagrammers as whiny woke snowflakes when really, we’re just not hardened by the soullessness of Twitter.
I am tired of Instagram in so many ways. I’m conscious of the effect it has on my mental health and my presence in real life for my family but, if I have to work on any social media platform (and currently with all JImmy’s gigs being cancelled left, right and centre, I do), the I’m delighted that it’s Instagram and not the vapid cesspit of speedy hatred that is Twitter. I’ve found real life friends on Instagram. Friends that have not just been ready with a DM but on the end of the phone when I’ve been losing my mind, or struggling with my mental health. I’ve built a business (somewhat inadvertently) and Instagram has forced me to confront my own flaws and grow thanks to people who were willing to give me a chance to change.
Nothing’s perfect, but for now, especially while the end of the world rages on, I’m deleting Twitter for my mental health, and the goodness of my soul.