(I don’t know who these people are…and I don’t care. By having your profile public, you expose yourself to have your profile and pictures taken by people you don’t even know!)
Firstly, can I just apologise for any erratic behaviour in my blogging habits. My antidote to every stupid thing around me is far away from me, and, needless to say, I am irritable and bored. I am trying to find a purpose, and the wait is agonising. I have, however, tried to distract myself, and so I’ve done a bit a lot of online shopping, it’s a wonder I’m not broke yet. I’ve also completely revamped the look of my blog. I can’t believe I was using that crappy theme for so long? I mean I love minimalist themes, but that was ridiculous. Anyway, I’ve changed it up and I do like it, only I wish they had darker colours…but I’m here to talk about another media form. Not words, but photos. Instagram.
Instagram is one of those marmite apps. Depending on how you use it, it could prove to be a worthwhile investment of your phone’s memory. But, as with any website, blog, or person, abusing it for stupid purposes will fuel resentment from some. I do like instagram a lot, but there are some things that I see that really annoy me, obviously. Read on.
1. People who post multitudes of selfies
Why? We get it. You’re vain and you love your face. Why must you fill your feed up with pictures of nohing but yourself? Hoping to get spotted y a modelling agency? Hoping to find a lifelong partner who will be instantly attracted to your self absorption? Stop this. Fashion and fitness bloggers are the only people who can get away with posting pictures of only themselves. A picture of your face every now and then is perfectly fine, pictures with other people are great, pictures of you doing interesting things or in interesting places are also good. But countless pictures of close up shots of your face for no reason other than the fact that you think you look good are NOT. Leave this for the make up artists. Speaking of which…
2. MUA
Can we please stop putting “make up artist” in our biographies unless we are actually renowned makeup artists? Even better, can we all stop striving to be makeup artists? Come on. That’s something that, unless you are hella good with nobody on your level and you do something different and unique, like Kandee Johnson, you do it as a pastime. Stop reviewing that Naked palette that 9839 other women have reviewed. Stop posting pictures reviewing 20 MAC lipsticks that everybody already has. Stop playing with that eyeshadow. Let’s all put down the camera and apply our makeup whilst on our way to a job interview, or to do something fun and interesting with our lives. GIRLS. AIM HIGHER. Be GREAT at makeup, look flawless ALL THE TIME without having to centre your life around this! Girls can be good at more than just makeup, hell yeah! But girls….
3. Girls who put “no boys” in their descriptions, but have a public profile
Okay really can one of you females explain this to me because I just don’t understand. I mean your profile is public. Anybody can look at it. Boys can look at it. Is this a “look but don’t touch” policy? Like you can look at my pictures and save them and do whatever you want with them, but you can’t like them or follow me? I don’t understand, just make your profile private and only accept girls. This seems to me like an attempt to look too prestige to allow boys to follow you, because surely, if you genuinely didn’t want any boys to follow you you would just make your profile private…
4. People who want to be “prestige”
This half refers to the people who have a much higher followers to following ratio, but are not famous or known for anything. They are literally only “Instagram famous” for having so many selfies. But I’ve already spoken about them briefly, and the other one is about the people who follow a bunch of people … only to unfollow them later on, therefore deceiving people into thinking they are famous and have a following. I see you. Just chill. Instagram is a place to post your own pictures, but to also look at other peoples, and I feel like some people won’t follow another person just because they won’t follow them back. The “I have the app”, people are particularly annoying. Why would you follow someone JUST to get a follow back? You should follow someone because you like their pictures, why fill your homepage up with pictures you don’t want to see? And if followers are so important to you, maybe you should post pictures that are worth looking at….just a thought.
5. Young girls who look too old for their age
Obviously this isn’t an issue specific to Instagram, but it is definitely a platform that helps spread this disease. Much like the wannabe prestige folk, who are mostly female, there are a lot of younger girls posting pictures of themselves looking older than they actually are and recievng the age old “😍” comment from men who don’t know they are young enough to be their daughter…. At least I hope they don’t know. Instagram is allows these young girls to post pictures of underage drinking, a night out with a Michael kors bag, and snaps that are just completely inappropriate in clothes that are even more inappropriate. I think it should be a rule for under 16’s to have a private page. Better yet, to not be allowed an Instagram full stop. That’s not to say that the men who comment and follow these young girls aren’t to blame for anything…but in this argument, the responsibility is with the ones who are posting the pictures. If you have a public profile and post pictures that will receive a certain type of attention, you can’t blame anybody for their comments. It’s out there for everyone to see.
Bonus 1: Minimalist hipster instagrams
You know, those people who post an artsy farsty picture of a leaf, or a window, or something with the snapchat digital time on it. Unless you are a professional photographer who will actually make these pictures look artistic, we have too many of you, please stop. It’s not quirky, it’s not cool. It’s been done. Post ACTUAL PICTURES.
Bonus 2: Kylie Jenner
I don’t really need to say anything more. She is aesthetically pleasing to look at, although it does nothing when you’re fake and you’re appropriating the hell out of people all over Instagram. She’s not “young” and “experimenting”. She’s famous, fake and appropriating culture. Stop her.
Bonus 3: People who put their ethnicity in their bio
Why?
Bonus 4: Girls who have pictures with hijab…and also without hijab
WHY?
Bonus 5: Boys who let their desperation be known by following hundreds of girls, liking and commenting on their pictures and DMing 5 girls at a time.
WHY??????
Please, can we stop all this nonsense. I yearn for a day where Instagram will be cleaned up to become a nice, sophisticated app instead of the trashy mess it has become.
K.
Edit: please view the UPDATED VERSION of this post!
I don’t have an issue with those wearing a hijab – it’s their culture and social media is broad. It’s up to you to narrow down what appears in your feed.
I do post my ethnicity as I want to. I do to connect with others based on our cultures and I’m sure many do too.
I found your blog based on my search for “I hate people that post this type of bs” and what I was looking for…you did touch on – those that post a ton of selfies/usies daily. That shit irks my nerves, even though I like the person, but she does it OFTEN.
This post is long due a review, and I agree with your points!
But yep, I still find the daily selfie thing tiresome and off-putting unfortunately. There comes a point where self love turns into vanity/narcissism
As an trained and experienced professional make-up artist, working in the film industry, the Instagram-borne ‘Everyone can be a make-up artist now!’ is HELLA frustrating, and the dilution has producers (unfortunately) increasingly hiring based upon number of followers, rather than skill, experience and body of work. Often, because they’re also cheaper.
It turns out that extensive experience applying make-up to your own face does NOT usually equal being able to apply it as perfectly to someone ELSE, or being able to adapt to a style-brief.
Nor does it prepare you for on-set-etiquette or proper hygiene techniques. Because despite how vital they are – those are BORING.