Why Instagram is so boring right now

Or how we're all just swimming around in the same pond all day

I sometimes wish I’d never discovered Instagram. I could have been a ballet dancer instead. Except a ballet teacher once told my Mum- ‘She’s too sturdy to make it as a professional dancer.’ I’m sure I could have been the first midlife ballet dancer on the stage. If I hadn’t spent so much time staring into the beige. Watching people feeding their cats. Watching them reveal the gender of their baby. Watching them trying on clothes in front of mirrors.

If someone had told me when I was a kid that I would spend a good part of my day watching a stranger trying on winter coats, I would have given up right away.

‘You mean I’m going to school each damn day so my grown up self can watch women wearing fancy clothes?’ I’d have said.

‘Yep and then you’re going to try and buy those clothes because you’ll firmly believe that they will give you a better life.’

‘What like in ‘Cinderella’? Like when she waits for the prince to arrive and then tries on the pointy shoe and it fits?’

‘Exactly but the thing is the Prince won’t show up and the shoe will get lost under a pile of stuff you don’t want.’

Instagram calls to me when I’m writing and it says - HEY COME AND HAVE A LITTLE DANCE WITH ME. Look at my nice shiny things. Look at the lady that you don’t like wearing make up that you do like. Look at this one showing you how to get a nice sheen on those Christmas cheek bones. Look at the party clothes. Think of all those parties you aren’t going to but then imagine what you’d wear to them if you did. Look at this table setting. It’s perfect. It’s actually pretty perfect.

When I look back at my old posts on Instagram, I cringe. I was always showing off - I used it to publicise books and podcasts. LOOK AT ME! I AM FUCKING NAILING IT! Inside I was a little husk as I battled through rounds of unsuccessful fertility treatment whilst holding down a high-powered job. But nobody would have guessed because my skin looked good, and I was surrounded by other women who were nailing it too. I saw everything through the lens of whether it was ‘good content.’ I would meet people and say - ‘Are you good content today?’ and if they weren’t then I’d move on.

I shudder at the amount of hours I’ve ploughed into Instagram. I could have raised a family of pigs. I could have built an entire pig farming business. I could have been Jeremy Clarkson but a female version on a tractor with my pigs running behind me.

‘I love your stories!’ women sometimes come up to me and say, ‘They’re so relatable.’

And in that moment I feel validated. The little girl who liked to hang upside down from a swing until her face turned bright red, just so others would laugh.

‘Doesn’t that hurt?’ my best friend would shout, ‘Your eyes are kind of bulging right now.’

‘The important thing is isn’t it cool?’ I’d grimace, the blood threatening to explode out of my eyes, ‘I’m holding your attention. I’m special right?’

Fast forward to the present day.

‘Why don’t you delete the app?’ a friend says when I tell her that I feel increasingly bored, that I only seem to see women who look like me selling clothes like the clothes I wear, and talking about beauty products that don’t work, and talking about menopause, but saying things that I’ve already heard other women who look like me saying.

‘I don’t think I can,’ I reply, ‘I’m in it for the long haul. Me and Instagram go way back you see. She’s like the friend you went to school with but don’t have much in common with anymore.’

My friend shrugs. The thing is that there is so much content on there, on my actual profile and if I delete the app, then what? Does it mean that all the hours I’ve spent searching for the perfect giphy of three goats walking down the street have been wasted time?

Last week after realising that a signficant amount of my life IS STILL SPENT SCROLLING, I set a time limit. I gave myself thirty-five minutes a day. It was an eye opener because it sounds like a long time, certainly long enough to make dinner or have sex or in some cases dinner and sex (when I did it have sex many moons ago it was probably fifteen minutes), but when you spend time on Instagram it goes quickly. It’s like one of those accelerated ageing films where you take a photo of a kid every day from birth to high school. I find myself panting to wade through the content - menopause meme - check, hair tutorial - check, ageing skin tweakment advice- check. Then occasionally something that really makes me laugh (usually a clip from ‘Saturday Night Live’) and then I have to get off again.

It’s not all bad. I have made friends. And I love the messages I get. And arguably staring into space is overrated. And who wants to have sex when you can look at high-necked dresses for half an hour and pretend you’re a posh person who goes to art openings?

This evening I have three minutes to make some content. I have already thought up a great idea where ‘Downton Abbey,’ characters talk about how boring Instagram has become. I will run out of time and will need to go over my limit- ideally for one minute and no more.

In a parallel universe there’s a woman my age taking the ballet world by storm. She gently bows her head as the crowd cheers, and tosses her the most perfect bunch of pink and white roses. She’s been described as ‘sturdy yet spectacular.’ She hasn’t heard of this thing they call Instagram. She listens to the applause and her heart sings.