Why I don’t regret deleting instagram

illustration by me | procreate — background image by Luke Chesser Unsplash

I feel like I’m the only creative that doesn’t have instagram.

‘it’s the best place to be if you create’

But if you really look deeply at the platform, there’s very little creating going on.

Most of the accounts I saw when I was on there were posting photos of retro tech taken by someone in the 80s, nostalgia is what was building their accounts of thousands of followers and it began to feel unfair.

You’d also see very talented illustrators or creators new to the platform with hardly any engagement, because they’re artists not influencers or marketing experts.

I’ve had several accounts over the years, the most followers I gained was 7k with a virtual photography gaming account, which was followed by Rockstar Games.

Several of the photos I took were reposted by them and this helped me gain most of the followers I had, but quite quickly without the reposts the engagement tanked, this was due to the algorithm changes and increase in bots. I’d say the majority of those accounts were bots.

I feel resentful of putting my creativity into a platform that doesn’t seem to give a shit; people posting other people’s work without credit, constant unknown algorithm changes, a real push towards spending money on advertising and the upsurge of bots.

The effort that goes into growing an account seems pointless if there’s cheap tactics being used, bots, follower buying and unknowns about when the algorithm may or may not change.

Does it even exist?

Michael Mouritz | Unsplash

I decided to slim down my followers, so I took away about 5k of them keeping the ones I knew engaged, it took about a day to do that 😅.

Things didn’t improve and my rage over the nostalgia accounts was getting on top of me, so eventually ditched the gaming one, to concentrate on my work account.

Eventually a similar thing happened with engagement, and the need to play the ‘instagram game’, so earlier this year I deleted the work one too.

When I first left the platform I felt a bit bereft, I thought that I’d just give it a break for a while, leaving the door open for a potential return — that was months ago.

Now I feel oddly freer — I don’t intend to go back, unless things drastically change, or Facebook sell to someone with morals 😌

That’s my story, what have your experiences been with Insta? Similar or completely the opposite?

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