Saturday, March 7, 2015

Your Instagram Following Doesn't Care About You

They will only care about you when you post something sad, show the world something they have never seen before (which is rare), or rant about a currently trending topic. Even then, they have the slightest care about you. So, why are we so obsessed with Instagram and the people that "follow" us? What is it that drives us to post more and more pictures to the world? It may sound like common sense and then again it may not, but something called an "ego" mixed with this highly unlikely, unrealistic idea that you will one day be seen by everyone and be known by the masses is driving you to post images: it's driving you to do what you do best the first thing you wake up - grab your phone and dive into instagram to see what else everyone has decided to share from their lives.
Random group of obnoxiously annoying guys
that use Instagram to show off their new cars.




Is this wrong? No. No one in the world has a book that you can open up to a chapter titled, "What You Should and Shouldn't Do." But is it really that important for you to want to have a following of people that will endlessly scroll through dozens of images a day "liking" one or two or three they feel is "cool"? Is letting the world know about that new car you just got or the restaurant you've decided to go out to tonight really all that important?

Let's take a step back and see why this so called "ego" is making you believe your instagram followers give a single care about you or your dog.

An ego is defined as:

The “I” or self of any person; a person as thinking, feeling, and willing, and distinguishing itself from the selves of others and from objects of its thought.

The act of posting material things. The act of posting selfie. The act of bragging about how much you lift, how skinny you look, how much money you have: it's all things you know to be true, but why expose it? Because we need a sense of belonging. We need a sense of separation through our own identity and ownership, but am acceptance that what we hold true to ourselves and that what we use to define ourselves is "okay" or "right" in the eyes of others.

The example of Instagram is used just as a simple example of how likes and comments fulfill our want or sometimes even need for social and anti-social drive.

Instagram displays and almost conveys an eerily invisible group of friends full of false hope.Your Instagram friends won't be there for your funeral.

We all try to be independent, but yet we all crave attention. Interesting huh?

No comments: