Let’s Talk about Instagram

It’s August of 2022 and I’m back on my podcast talking all things Instagram again.

Given how much Instagram has changed and the users’ outcry over how badly the platform sucks right now, I’m here to offer my thoughts, plus some tips to customize your user experience and try to get back that loving feeling, if even just a little bit.

Listen to this and all episodes of the podcast on any platform.

There’s a big part of me that feels that talking about the changes to Instagram of late, and how I’m actually in mourning over them, seems incredibly ridiculous.

Like, “who am I to complain about this free app that I’ve been using for a decade and enjoying?” Is this really a problem in the scheme of things? I understand that my problems are petty in relation to the far worse problems that people all over the world are enduring right now.

So after having put this problem into it’s proper context, I feel that I can now safely write about my feelings about Instagram.

For the past four or five years, Instagram has been a daily, enjoyable part of my life. The community of artists there has provided immeasurable artistic inspiration that I immediately tapped into once I discovered it for myself. The connections that I have been able to foster as a result of showing up on IG daily are no small part of my life. Those connections got me through the pandemic without going bonkers.

Instagram allowed me to start a new small business when I thought I would never be a business owner again. It provided me a way to communicate with people who wanted the products and then the art instruction that I was able to provide.

It appears that Instagram is now changing the platform so much that those days are over, at least for me. I’m definitely not in the age range or the type of person to create short, funny videos for the new Instagram. Sure, I can create a pretty reel. But it will not get the type of engagement that Instagram now demands.

Nor will it continue to show my posts (whether they be photos or reels) to the Instragram users who have chosen to follow me. The new Instagram feed is the place for Instagram to show the user posts from people the don’t actually follow, plus advertisements. That’s quite a shift.

If we want to see posts from the accounts that we follow, Instagram has enabled the chronological feed again, if we remember to choose it each time we log into the app. The issue for me is that the chronological feed is not nearly as entertaining as the Instagram algorithm of three years ago was, so even though everyone thinks that they “just want chronological feed back,” I’m not totally convinced that this is what most of us really do want.

I think we all want Instagram to be fun again.

Perhaps what I think is fun, and quite possibly you if you are here reading this blog post, is not on offer anymore on Instagram and we are all just going to need to adjust.

I don’t know about you but I’m finally ready for life after Instagram. What that will look like is the big open question for us all.

Let me know what you think in the comments (as soon as I can figure out how to get the comments section enabled on this blog! LOL!!!)