Deleting Instagram: The End of a Love Story

When I first joined Instagram in 2012 I perceived it as an obscure app, with a weird logo (is that a Polaroid camera?) and one whose purpose wasn’t immediately clear to me. Without thought, I followed the steps to create an account on Instagram using my Facebook and for almost a year, it gathered dust. In 2013, I finally made my first IG post.

It was a photo of my breakfast: a yellow mug of chai tea with a small plate of a partly-bitten bagel. Some burgundy red grapes are carefully arranged in a semicircle along the bagel's curve. The backdrop is a wooden countertop in the kitchen of my friend that I was house-sitting for.

This was the small beginnings of a love story that would grow in leaps and bounds to reasonable, then concerning levels, before turning into a toxic dependence/escapism, ultimately resulting in this end that I now write about.



Peak Instagram Use
Between 2013 and 2015 Instagram’s User Experience was, to put it kindly, basic. It mainly only allowed posts, had no stories and in fact for a time had no video feature. After all, it had been invented as a photo-sharing app, think Flickr, although it morphed into a connection space for photographers and those aspiring. Today, I think it has turned into a monstrous hybrid. I would like to call it Tik-Snap-Tweet-Book-Gramenger instead of Instagram.

My peak Instagram use was in the period between 2016-2019, 3 years that I almost entirely lived on the app; spending hours posting, commenting, and viewing. I missed many sunsets, with nights spent in the glow of my phone fixated on IG.

I will regrettably never get those back. My biggest addiction to Instagram was Stories. I posted so much about my life, my thoughts, and pop culture. Food and selfies were featured most commonly. I countlessly checked who viewed my story just as much as I viewed others'. IG was a scary form of escapism from my real life and personal problems.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, a close person in my life suggested that I take a break from Instagram. I did for 2 months straight. It wasn’t my first time pausing from the app, I in fact had multiple months of lull in 2017 after I battled with an illness.

In that earlier 2017 break, leaving Instagram was one of the methods I chose for my healing process. However, fast-forward to 2020, it was the first time someone other than myself noticed how negative my relationship with Instagram was, and suggested that I detox a little.



The Relapse
Upon the end of my 2-month break, I returned to the app with a ceremonial set of videos and selfies. All were carefully staged, my face in full–I dare say excess– Sephora-bought makeup.

I mouthed Eminem’s hit Slim Shady, swaying and dancing as these lyrics played through the IG Music sticker: Guess who’s back / Back again / Shady’s back / Tell a friend / Now everyone report to the dancefloor /. Looking back, I feel embarrassed for my past self. I think this situation may be best summed up in AAVE: I thought I was slick.

Three things struck me from that 2020 break:Nobody seemed to care that I was gone. I did not receive a single message on the app during my absence.
I realized I had been offering free entertainment to friends, foes, and frenemies alike. While I wasn’t on the app, some other account offered them entertainment.
I had a massive FOMO, and in my case, the F was not for Fear, but for Feeling. I felt left out on the app more than I did while I was not on the app. For instance, I struggled to understand the memes and the new lingo everyone was throwing out in the comments. I didn’t know what Verzuz was and why there were so many live broadcasts.

Partly because I wanted to catch up with everything I missed and partly because I didn’t have other active hobbies, I threw myself back into Instagram and dove in deeper than before. Thinking it would be my saving grace, in 2021 I created an account for the Flamingo Papaya Blog where I experimented with reels and hashtagged my posts to the max.
I achieved considerable success, one time reaching 5,600 new visitors to my posts in a month, despite having just a handful of followers. I had some successful reels amassing 6K views (trust me, for a small account this is considered a success) and on one static post, 10K people saw it. Still, my app usage was unhealthy.


Hitting the Delete Button
I have now hit the delete button on Instagram because this once-sweet love has turned sour. I want to slow down. I want to live life and enjoy it, without feeling the need to post it on Instagram. Yes, not even for the haters. If you’ve ever had the desire to delete one or all social media, this is your sign. I have downloaded an archive of my content in a few easy steps. You can too. Goodbye Instagram, hello Slow Life!