Let me start this off by saying I hate Instagram, I absolutely hate it. I have no graduation pictures from high school, or prom pictures. I also have very limited pictures of myself standing up. I remember when we were talking about video chatting during online school and how it affected how we saw ourselves. That was Instagram for me.
I am by no means ugly, at least not to me, but pictures have never been able to truly capture me. I just look better in person. When I first got an Instagram I didn’t think too much about the pictures I posted, I just posted whatever I wanted to. Then I saw that people had different aesthetics on their page, and their pictures looked so nice, but whenever I took pictures I never looked like that. My body never looks right and if it’s a picture I take with my friends, they always look better than me.
I was talking to a guy once and he said to me “ I’m not gonna lie, you’re hot as fuck, but your Instagram is so weak.” He wasn’t wrong, my Instagram was weak, but the process of taking pictures is a tedious one. You have to take a bunch, then sit there and go through every one. Meanwhile going through them you subconsciously pick yourself apart, and by the end, if you don’t hate yourself you post the picture, but every time you see that picture it gets uglier and uglier. So I do not take pictures. I take selfies sometimes but that’s because I can see what the end result will look like.
When I go do an event with my friends like go on vacation, or go to a formal event where we all wear long dresses I dread when they ask me to take pictures. One time I even ended up crying because I was so mad because my friend kept trying to convince me to take a picture even though I didn’t want to. Another time I left my friends because they spent 30 minutes trying to take pictures and at that point they were wasting my time. I understand that pictures are living memories, but the stress of looking at other people’s photos and comparing them to mine, analyzing my body and picking it apart is something I would like to avoid all together.
Sometimes I would like to take pictures because those memories are something I would love to keep or show my children some day. But on every app there is a reminder that there are no natural pictures anymore. Tik tok has filters, same with snapchat, and Instagram. So even if I do like a photo, it still isn’t a photo of “myself”. How is it that the world became more accepting of different types of people in terms of body type and beauty standards, yet still manages to push some unrealistic ideal of how we are supposed to look? Maybe one day I will learn how to take pictures, but for now I am content with keeping my face and my body to myself.
Unruly Bodies 
I love this post! I relate to this so so much. I do love taking pictures and love to see them pop up each year as a memory. But I for sure keep those pictures to myself. I want them on my phone and want to see them myself, just don’t want anyone else to see. I too have a “weak” Instagram. I honestly hate going on Instagram because whenever I see someone else with a cool a aesthetic or a certain vibe or flow on their Instagram I get so jealous. Even when I take a “cool” picture of something I feel like it doesn’t fit and people will just scroll and be unimpressed. I am glad I’m not the only one!!! #makeinstagramcasualagain
I deeply relate to this post. I used to try hard to post monthly, schedule time in my day to take pictures, have someone else edit it for, and wait to post when my followers were active. But at some point within the past two years, I became so self-conscious especially in comparison to my younger sisters I just stopped. I stopped taking pictures. I didn’t post for weeks, months, years. I even archived most of my pictures until I recently decided to let some pre-quarantine remain on my account. I even went on my finsta to delete over 2000 pictures over the 5 years just because I couldn’t stand to see my face, body, voice, anything related to me on Instagram. The pressure to maintain some idealized version of yourself to fit what others think are pretty just becomes so overwhelming.
Now I take pictures and keep it to myself. I cannot be on insta for more than 10 minutes at a time on my feed without becoming self depricating either. Thanks for talking about the hard aspects of Instagram and making us feel like we’re not alone either
I loved reading your post and I honestly feel the same way you do. You made some really important points that definitely agree with. I am also not one who has loved taking pictures of myself. I loved your point where you mentioned how by the end of taking pictures, you pick apart your entire body and eventually hate the way you look even more than when you began. I also definitely agree with your point about instagram and snapchat even being “real.” By the time people FaceTune or put other edits on themselves, is it really them? And that is okay of they want to do that, I feel like its mainly a personal preference. Im really sorry for your friends pushing you to take pictures when you didn’t want to, that must have been a really hard experience. By no means should you feel like you have to adhere to societies social media standards, keep doing what you feel is the most comfortable.
I fucking relate to this so much and so intensely! I’m not ugly yo. I can look in the mirror and be like damn you look good but when I see a picture of me, especially whole body I be like where shawty in the mirror go. For some reason it just don’t be looking good. So I don’t bother with posting pictures of me on Instagram. When others are taking pictures of me which is normally with my friends, I be hyper-focused on how my body (especially as a plus size women). Like do I really gotta catch a certain angle for me to look good in a picture damn. It really fucking sucks because I would like to post pictures and not feel subconscious about it. Its not even on no “you need to love yourself” shit. I really don’t know what it is, like free me please! Thank you for sharing this cause really if this isn’t what I be thinking, I don’t know what is.
This is such a great post, I relate to it a lot. The amount of energy required to maintain a social media presence is too much as it is and with the extra energy of trying to take a good picture it’s just not worth it. I love how I look in the mirror and even sometimes in other people’s photographs, but my own pictures just never hold up. I don’t have the time to dress myself up and do a whole photo shoot with an expensive camera in a park somewhere. And even if I wanted to take the time and energy to FaceTune my pics I’ll probably still hate them or even start hating the version of me that I see in the mirror. The current wave of social media and algorithms and trying to look a certain way and always have a picture for everything is super wack and I hope I live to see it’s downfall. Maybe enough gen Z or Gen Alpha kids will be taught that social media is wack by older siblings and parents and we can finally be free f