Instagram is one of the top 3 most popular social media/app outlets these days. Its immediate neighbors are Facebook and Snapchat. I stopped being fond of Facebook when it became all about things your “friends” have liked and shared. You see, I like having the ability to filter out as much shit as I don’t give a crap about as possible. The problem with Facebook is no matter how much filtering you do, you always end up with things on your “wall” that a distant cousin of a friend of a dog’s babysitter has liked and decided to share. Why am I stuck looking at that shit? How do I get it the hell off my wall? There’s a constant overflow of posts and links by people whose names I don’t care to look at, let alone know.
Snapchat on the other hand is pretty cool. You’re never forced to look at what someone is posting; you always have a choice. Are you curious about a particular person’s road trip? View their snaps. Are you interested in a particular person’s 7-course meal at some restaurant? Go ahead and view their snaps. Similarly, if you couldn’t give a flying shit filled balloon about someone’s soundtrack as they post snaps of themselves behind the wheel, you can go ahead and skip their snaps. It really is that simple and convenient. Sure it’ll take you a little bit to learn which people post uninteresting snaps and then you can go ahead and either delete them from your friends so they don’t show up in your feed or just manually skip their stories as you already know they’ll be filled with garbage you’re uninterested in.
Instagram is all about the pictures and like it or not, a picture can be worth a thousand words. Some people post lengthy descriptions under their posts but there’s no reading required unless you actually want to “read more” in which case you always have that option. It’s great because you retain that power of choice whereas on Facebook for example all kinds of paragraphs are up in your face and as previously mentioned there’s little you can do about it. Unfortunately Instagram seems to be jumping on the “let’s be more social” Media train, in the sense that people you once started following because of their original content are beginning to post ads and links with requests and suggestions to follow others more and more. I’m already following six “best” ab workout pages; I don’t need 8 more. I’m also maxed out on hot chicks with tattoos at this point, thanks though. Also, what’s with the recent update? You have to subscribe to a particular person if you want to continue to see their posts pop up on your main wall; otherwise they’ll get trumped by more popular posts. Why should I subscribe to someone that I’m already following, which clearly is an indicator that yes, I enjoy seeing their posts on my feed? Way to waste my time; now I have to go through every person I’m following and hit “subscribe”; great.
Now on the subject of accounts being either private or public and the benefits/disadvantages behind it… There are people who are more than willing to share their posts with the world and they don’t care who sees it. These are the people that opt for the public profile; these are also the people with a million hashtags under every post as they’re trying to get as many people linked back to their page as possible. Then there are people who only want their content to be visible to a selective few that they’ve deemed worthy; these are the people with the private profiles and much fewer followers. They also tend to have fewer hashtags in their descriptions as their goal is to not lead the entire world into their private corner. They’ll throw in a couple of #purposelyextralonghashtagsthatarehardtoreadattimes for shits and giggles but mostly leave it at that. Personally, I don’t care if the whole world sees my posts. I do like knowing WHO sees my posts though… And that is why my profile will forever stay private, as I willingly accept anyone who wants to peek at the good stuff. As long as you’re not doing it creepily without my knowledge via bookmark or something cause you don’t want me to know you’re following me, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t enjoy the awesomeness that is behind my booze filled, painted life with an occasional selfie.
