Not the usual statement I know, some people get desperate when they first realise, and I was too, but let me explain…
Having someone post stories trying to trick people into clicking on a link pretending that I bought a brand new car? Ridiculous and dangerous if another person falls for it and gets their information hacked too.
Awful to have someone else post on my feed, logging me out of the account, preventing me from using my own email and mobile to access recovery links and codes. Annoying to say the least, to notice you’re competing against bots.
No matter how fast I click on the right buttons and follow the right thread to find the correct way to log them out, to understand meta’s account centre, profiles that now have a fake account that owns everything and has authorisation to do whatever… it’s very stressful.
I wonder what makes someone want to do this. Desperation I guess. To scam people and post shit hoping followers fall for it? To transfer them money in the hopes of getting MORE money?
At some point I was just paranoid. Thinking they were watching my screen and my every move. Trying to recover an account for 5 days does that to you.
And for those wondering if I tried getting in touch with Instagram, haha! You never had to contact IG support have you?
I tried everything I could. Accounts centre on Meta, removing their fake profile, reporting said profile, reporting posts and stories, asking friends to report, using authentication apps to get codes to get in (they hacked that too btw) and more. I changed passwords so many times I had to write down every version and ended up with 16 variations. They were logged in on more than 30 mobile phones across the UK and Amsterdam.
So yea, it pisses you off eventually. And what does Instagram do? F*ck all.
Hides their support email and when you get it with someone, they don’t reply, no instant messaging chat box, no forms for you to explain and send screenshots, nothing.
So Im taking that as a hint to leave it. I still want to remove the hack eventually but deactivate both accounts, my personal and business one.
By the way this article is not meant to help you retrieve the account and continue to scroll on your feed. Sorry if you’re here to chase help and sorry if it happened to you too, but this is not that kind of article.
...
Of course there’s the case of losing everything I worked for. Every Friday I’d plan the week to post on my brand’s account. Hours on designing the posts, editing reels, writing a good caption, syncing the screen to the song even! Geez
It’s exhausting to notice all this effort, long hours of editing and crafting things related to the brand to entertain someone on the other side only to notice 245 people watch it and 5 like the reel hahah how ridiculous. Why do I accept to be in this toxic relationship with a platform?
Sure it could be entirely my fault. Maybe my content is boring. Maybe it doesn’t entertain, engage, or inspire. But Im posting my brand’s process of creation and I don’t want to be bombarded with instagram coaches “do this if you want 50k followers” “this is why your content is not performing” “if you’re going through a follower drought, you need to do this”
Instagram is not the same as it was and we all know that. How it prefers to show us click bait posts, making us feel disgust or lust and that’s what instigates a comment. Creating AI celebrities dancing. Ads. Bloody exposed surgeries. Ads. People recording a rant about politics. Ads. People asking for donations for pets. And children. And the elderly ill. And wars. Ads. People using the wrong ingredients on a recipe just to get rage comments. Ads.
It’s not shocking Im exhausted, and that’s not my ‘for you’ page. There is a bit of that I’ll admit. But I like to think my algorithm was actually ok. Puppies jumping for a full minute, kids being funny, creatives being very creative, artists painting something amazing, new musicians releasing amazing tracks.
I’ll sure miss that. So many good posts saved on my albums.. ughhh
But even when I was watching that nice content, I felt numb a bit.. I couldn’t watch the whole video, I was noticing I got bored if someone took too long to get the video started, or if that puppy was jumping about, what else could I expect that it would do? Scroll
I felt bad by noticing I was doing this, so I started questioning so many things about me and Instagram (Im on Tumblr and Pinterest too and I don’t do that there).
Everyone’s behaviours changed on it, I already wasn’t seeing updates from who I care about and friends said they were feeling weird on it, as if they were also feeling the toxicity…
...
But then it came to me: now Im at peace! I won’t see more of that shitty content! I’ll make sure to find the good content somewhere else (if you know where let me know).
If I want to know what bands I love are touring, I go to a music streamer. If I want to get inspired to create, I’ll pin some pics.
Im not offline completely. Even though the thought of it sounds delicious. Off the grid. HMMM.
Maybe that’s why more and more millennials are escaping this. Chasing a life where they make their own jam. Plant their own lettuce. Grow their herbs.
Now I have more time to actually create.
Get all those projects I have in my thought drawers and let them out into the world. How exciting.
More time to draw, design, illustrate, paint, experiment, use different materials, knit maybe? Develop ideas, perhaps turn these into products.
I was at a chiropractor/massage session the other day and he asks me “So, do you have any hobbies?” I started laughing “Well Im trying to turn a hobby and an interest into a brand, so no!” hahah
I also mean with people that have personal accounts, you can also find yourself scrolling for hours on end, only to realise you could’ve exercised, read a book, meditated. Not everything you replace instagram with needs to be productive of course. You can just have a longer shower I guess, and use that exfoliant for the first time.
...
Some of you might be thinking “Well you won’t follow friends and family anymore, see their updates”. Yes that’s sad, truly. There must be other ways no? Only people that truly care about your updates, new trips, new projects, will get in touch.
I think the benefits to leaving the platform are far greater.
It can get lonely though.
I can always surprise a cousin sending a random photo on Wpp, maybe that even changes the way we talk, instead of not talking because when we start it will be endless paragraphs of news, maybe the new format could be “this is what Im doing today, how about you?” or “this reminded me of you and I miss you”.
People can still get access to me, only in a different way then just stalking stories and not interacting, ever.
...
Im only off the platform for 4 days and I feel pretty good. Im not just saying, really. I feel free, it’s weird because it feels like I dropped an addiction. Maybe it comes after me in a week, when I miss those silly videos, or sending a message to someone I haven’t spoken to in ages.
But for now, let’s see where this leads me.
...
For some time now I wanted to pour words into my keyboard just to share what’s on my mind and maybe find someone going through the same, or anyone in need to read what I have to say about my journey as a designer, a small business owner and just a woman trying to juggle loads of plates all at once, only to notice that one stopped spinning.