I Miss You — Instagram
Do you remember the early days of instagram where life was simple? Open up the app, see exactly what your friends post, in “real time.” You like, you comment and you scroll to the next, unimpeded by ads or creepy breaks in the UX on who they think you should follow.
The world was open and you could see it as it was. Curated feeds existed but only in rudimental forms between users, a bit ahead of their time — algorithms, the wild dragons of death to everything organic, had not come to fruition in its full form.
It was about the sharing of things not necessarily because they were perfect but because they were real and in the moment. I miss it.
I miss this version, far more now than I ever have since truly joining the community in 2014.
Instagram has come a long way from its humble beginnings, especially after being swallowed up by the most polarizing social network of the modern era, Facebook.
Facebook itself is an interesting case because they serve as a model example of what happens and will happen to social networks overtime. Their intentions start so pure and so innocent, but in order to scale and give way to real growth, they must turn over their soul for cash.
Both as a social media marketer and as a one time avid user, it pains me to see constant articles like this:
Because, for me, what that spells out is that, my all time favorite social media channel, Instagram will at some point head down this direction. We’ve already begun seeing it, right?
The logo change, the chronological order change, the decrease in organic reach, the constant ads ever 3–5 “organic” posts, etc.
For me, one of the most offensive and rash ideologies I have heard from Instagram is this notion that their “algorithm” can properly determine what it is that I like and provide me with a “curated” experience better than I can do myself.
I love so many different things and cannot stand that fact that I am being siloed into particular avenues because of some artificial and, seemingly mythical, algorithm is determining what I want to see vs. don’t.
Sure, I do find things that I never would have been able to find but they all fit things that I have already seen in some capacity before. It has become a cyclical process where the system shows me what I like, then shows me copies of the thing liked so I will like that, only then to show me more copies of the thing I just liked. That serves no one well.
I can remember, as I was just getting into Instagram, being able to follow accounts and actually see the content I wanted and truly get inspired by every post, within my feed. Now, more than half of the posts in my news feed are not things that inspire me as a creator. They are posts from 5–6 days ago that I’ve already seen or ads for brands whose website I visited minutes prior.
The whole system has been f****** and it’s constantly sad to see. Instagram really was a pride and joy amongst creators because if you were talented, people had a higher chance of organically noticing.
Remember that explore feed with trending hashtags that Instagram did away with from 2015?
What made it so great was you could really see what other people were talking about — what other people cared about and it changed day to day which allowed for true engagement and authentic connections. If you were smart you could utilize these hashtags within posts because your content was for sure to get seen by the people who actually wanted to see it (barring that the content actually made sense for the individual tag).
I miss those days of simplicity.
Now, I fear the even as usage of instagram goes up it has become a zombie land for where we go, purely out of habit. We scroll because of habit. We watch insta-stories out of habit because content, while “curated” still is missing something vital. Something, humane, and no matter how good algorithms, get they will never be able to compare to finding something amazing and different for yourself or because someone you know shared it with you.
While listening to a podcast, I heard and interesting remark about the time spent on Instagram, which was in reference to an article they had recently read. They said that, there is data that shows that the time on instagram is going up yes, but only because people have gotten so use to being on the platform.
That is a dangerous statement, point blank, because that means that time isn’t going up because there are things to see, experience, or engage with on the platform, primarily. It is only because we have gotten accustom to being on there so much we instantly reach for our pockets and pull it up while walking to class or waiting for a friend to stop talking on their phone. It has become something of a crutch for which we use to silence those blank moments throughout our day that we do not want to listen to.
That’s one of the first signs of how and why Instagram may, in fact, falter just as we are seeing Facebook do.
People don’t get on facebook to connect anymore and as much as Facebook is trying to change their platform to get that back, you only truly have one chance to build a community as a brand/company. Once that chance is gone it is extremely difficult to retroactively get people back on board with who you are. It takes a lot of hard work, methodical planning and strategic rebrands (just ask brands like Champion or Reebok).
If you aren’t familiar with a guy by the name of Harry Bernstein, the Chief Creative Officer of one of my favorite agencies The88 (Now Annex88 after they were aquired by Havas September of last year), you should be.
He is an incredibly creative thinker, especially when it comes to social media and the digital front. He wrote a post last month which is one of my favorites I’ve read in a while:
It is crazy to think about the fact that there are millions of young children who will never know what its is like to not have true freedom to decide what they can and cannot see, because of “algorithms.”
That’s a tough pill to swallow because the world on Instagram is only going to get more curated, more ads-y, and, in the end more like Facebook than ever before.
That’s my fear as a user, a marketer, a content creator, as a one time avid fan.
And, so I say to you, Instagram.
I truly.
I deeply.
Miss you.
