You don’t have to do everything for Instagram

How we shape our realities around what we put on social media

Welcome to Gen Z Translator, where I break down trending topics on Fridays. If you’re new, you can subscribe here and follow me on Instagram. Views are my own. Happy reading!

It occurred to me the other day while traveling around London that I had no desire to post on Instagram.

Seven years ago, that would’ve been unfathomable to me. I can still go through my Instagram feed and see the meticulously curated images I made on my first go-around of Europe. It was my high school graduation trip, and I went to London, Paris, Barcelona, Rome, and some other cities in Italy.

My images reflect as such: the London Eye, Stonehenge, the Notre Dame, the Arc de Triomphe, Park Güell, the Spanish Steps, the Vatican, the Colosseum, and so on. I remember on that trip, we’d sit down every night and figure out when to post (and do the math on time zones), making sure our world travels were fresh and instantaneous, lest we fall behind at translating our travel itinerary to the mini screen.

I don’t regret it. I had a lot of fun thinking through it and scrambling for candids, but I do see how much of that trip was colored by what it would look like to other people, rather than what I was experiencing in the moment.

How many carousels was too many carousels? Did I get the right mix of single photos, group photos, and landscape shots? Was the aesthetic consistent? It had such a control on my actions, dictating what activities I’d chose to do and what spots I’d linger in. It could determine my mood too: if I felt I looked bad or my hair had blown the wrong way, I’d be in a slump about it.

(These posts are old, so I’m covering other peoples’ faces to maintain their anonymity!)

I used to be a pretty impulsive poster. From idea conception to photo snapshot to feed, I wanted less than 30 minutes. Now, I’ve matured a bit, and have largely pinpointed safety concerns with that, like haphazardly giving away your current location to the internet. I’ve also learned the hard way that it’s important to check with the people you’re posting about posting them, in case they find a photo unflattering or don’t want to be associated with a location at that time. It’s easy to think that just because you want a photo on your feed, they want it, too.

The whole concept comes down to others vs. self. Who am I trying to please here?

Upon my second London go-around, I was still taking pictures, but one thing had changed. I was mostly traveling on my own. That meant no extra hands to hold my phone or time-intensive photoshoots in front of medieval castles. If I did want someone to take a photo of me, I was intentional about where and why, wanting the pic more for my own recollection or close circle than anything else.

I can tell you what I loved about my trip. The free-roaming ravens at the Tower of London, squawking and flapping as they upheld their duty to guard the castle, lest it fall. Watching a Western-themed Romeo and Juliet in a recreation of Shakespeare’s Globe theater, no microphones or spotlights in sight as people propped themselves against the stage to stay standing in the pit. An iced vanilla oat milk latte at Café Nero in the morning when the sky was a cool gray and the city hadn’t quite woken up yet. Puffy sheep in the countryside as the megabus bumbled by.

I also saw people’s kindness: families or duos who asked me to take photos of them often offered the same thing back to me, and I was surprised but appreciative.

My friend Emily wrote this in a piece about to be or not to be a travel influencer:

“The point of travel, to the best of my knowledge, is to gain a better understanding of the world around you. It’s a time of self-reflection, to consider your own personal biases and cultural differences. In every attempt I’ve made to document my travels for the pleasure of others, I’ve found myself taken out of the moment, spending an inordinate amount of time considering the most entertaining way to present my life.” –On resisting the urge to become a travel influencer, Emily Garcia

I’ve been lucky to get to travel a lot in my life, thanks to my tour leader and world travel entushaist mom. The Instagram thing doesn’t just apply to travel, but it’s the first example that comes to mind. I’ve done the same thing in my local community and life, particularly in college when everything felt new and exciting. Planning outfits or outlooks or angles for photos when going on “spontaneous” adventures.

I’m not about to come on Substack and write some “fake-deep-self-important-pseudo-intellectual” thinkpiece about how Instagram is bad and you should delete all social media right now. (I write fun, short-form content. I am not the Trends™️ police, nor the intellectual essayist I wish I could be). This newsletter is more me talking to myself, saying, Hey, remember? You don’t have to do everything for Instagram.

I do find social media to be a form of art. That might be a hot take, but just like any artistic medium, social media can be used to convey certain feelings and ideas. What is art, if not “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination?”

(You could argue social media is more of a medium to convey art, but I think that’s thinking about it too literally. Anyway, this could probably be a newsletter in itself, so I’m going to move on).

Images can make us feel something, even if that is only subconsciously. Wanderlust, jealousy, appreciation, frustration, annoyance. We craft our feeds to convey a certain persona – to make ourselves a certain idea in the eyes of others. Maybe it’s to make ourselves seem cool. Maybe it’s to make ourselves seem edgy. Maybe it’s to make ourselves seem authentic.

How do we want to be perceived? And in reality, how are people perceiving us? We can’t know, unless we ask, so we assume, and then use those assumptions to inform our next posts, feeding back into the cycle.

natgeo

A post shared by @natgeo

“In 2023, people around the world took an estimated 5.3 billion photos, about 61,400 every second, according to photography data site Photutorial,” Emma Magnus wrote in a recent National Geographic article. “While offloading can reduce cognitive burden, studies suggest it may also weaken our ability to recall details unless we actively review the material later. As a result, when we turn to digital images to reconstruct an event, those files don’t just support our memory—they become part of it.”

I’ve never considered my memories very reliable in the first place, hence why I enjoy documenting my life online and in the cloud. It’s interesting, though, that not only do others form their opinions about our lives based on what we post online, but we do, too. When we forget, we can scroll through our own Instagram feed and reminiscence on how good that crepe in Versailles was.

“Psychologists have long recognized that forgetting is an essential part of how memory works. But in a world saturated with digital images, what we choose to capture—and what we choose to revisit or erase—may be subtly reshaping that process.” –How photo overload might be warping our ability to remember, Emma Magnus

I still took a lot of photos in London, don’t get me wrong. But this time they had a different intent. Perhaps it’s that my worldview has gotten a bit more serious too, feeling heavier fatigue while traveling and a bit more insecure about my appearance, but perhaps I have matured from high school days when point-and-shoot reigned supreme.

Whatever it was, I’m grateful I was able to take a step back and not revolve my life around how it would translate into an Instagram post. It’s not about who’s looking at me, it’s about what I’m looking at.

Read my last story: The fandom dictionary

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My weekly roundup:

😇 What I’m Doing: I have some vacations coming up, so don’t be concerned if my newsletters are a bit more sporadic this summer

🎶 What I’m Listening To: My personal vote for song of the summer is “Headphones On” by Addison Rae, tbh¹

🔎 What I’m Reading: “Algospeak” by Adam Aleksic

📱 What I’m Scrolling: Medieval Y2K?? Sign me up for a revival

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Read the full Gen Z Dictionary here.

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1. TBH: to be honest