The End of Instagram

my magic carpet is a rug with moths and my wings are just arms

I was posting a substack piece that I had written about spaghetti and meatballs, and the joy of reading in the bath, attempting to share it on instagram to try and get my writing work spread a little wider, getting distracted by cat videos and the like but eventually posting my piece.  As anyone on instagram will know it’s a very addictive place, you scroll and scroll, videos appear with loud sound tracks that send shockwaves through one’s spine, funny ones, serious ones, some beautiful images, some stupid things.

On this day within the space of about half an hour as I attempted to increase my reach with pictures of spaghetti and a cartoon of myself reading in the bath I witnessed a woman being shot point blank by a police officer in the US and a man having his head stamped on by a police officer here in the UK.

Two take aways immediately - 1. these are police officers living and working in what we like to think of as the first world, civilised and caring democracies, whose job it is to protect and serve. 2. this insane violence is available for anyone to see in between cat videos and photos of spaghetti with meatballs.

I am trying to find way to do more writing, trying to find away to make some money from it, and to an extent I am managing it and am deeply grateful of those who have signed up to my substack or ‘bought me a coffee’ with actual money, and also to those who haven’t paid but do actually read my stuff, and better yet, comment.  Feedback is a dopamine hit, clicks, likes, nice comments.  So far all comments have been nice, probably because I am not very controversial.  Money paid is the biggest dopamine hit - someone actually thinks I am worth it.  That feels really good.

However. I am going to try and live without these love pings on instagram.  I still want readers, new ones and old, paid and not, and comments on here please, but I am going to (try to) restrict my instagram usage to posting only when I have something to say, e.g. when I have a new piece on substack, or book deal (haha) and therefore avoid quite a lot of aimless scrolling and seeing pointless/violent/silly/unnecessary stuff (with some really brilliant bits too it must be said) being thrown around in that virtual hell hole.  I will of course also post regarding my side hustle which is renting out our beautiful Rookery Cabin (absolutely nothing but pretty pictures there I swear).  Actually I am not sure what is a side hustle and what is primo hustle, but I will hustle on as the need to make living does not go away.

Instagram is of course owned by Meta, owned by the Zuckerberg bot.  Add ‘cam’ to meta and you have metacam which is a cat medication, an opioid I believe.  It soothes, calms, removes the feline from pain and the ability to think for itself so it becomes passive and malleable.  I expect it is addictive but our moggy hasn’t had the opportunity to find that out and is now back to its usual ornery self.  My point, obviously, is that Meta is a drug - let’s call it Meta-phor.  I suppose I should be grateful that I saw those violent videos - they have shocked me into choosing to remove myself from the meta-phor.  Or at least restrict my use of it.  There are so many brilliant ‘content makers’ (what dismal description for artists) on there but it’s not worth the risk of stumbling across horror or endless algorithmic targeted ads.

I have so far avoided Tiktok which like all these thing started for the youth and is now used by geriatrics (apparently).  The youth seem to be smarter than us olders, they play with these things then move on where we get stuck, thinking we are so hip, and get lost in the algorithm warren and end up buying dungarees made of eco-wheat in LaLa Land by four year old elephants.

I say that about the youth  - I don’t really know much about them anymore, if I ever did, because my youth, my son, is now 30.  He is rarely on instagram, never facebook.  He started out on Bebo (easily hacked into by his parents).  He is on his phone endlessly of course, like the entire rest of the world, but what he watches I don’t know. His avatar, which pops up on my phone when he calls (and he does call, bless him) is a cartoon octopus, which I like.

I wear a thing on my wrist that occasionally fizzes at me and tells me I have earned zone points.  I have no idea what these are or why I should want them and nor do I care.  I wear it in an attempt to keep an eye on how many steps I take in a day because, as we all know, don’t we, we need to take at least 10,000 per day in order to stay reasonably alive.  It also tells me when I have a phone call, and even who is phoning, but it’s a not a phone, so what on earth is the point of that?  Also it has a clock but when you go outside you can’t see the digits, so again, what is the point of that?

All these crappy little bits of technology we wear, access or sign up to - how in hell did we get here?  We talk about a dystopian future as though it’s in the mind of some fantasy film maker,  like George Miller with Mad Max or the brilliant brain of Charlie Brooker of Black Mirror.  But we are living in a dystopian present, right here, right now. “Dystopias are often characterised by fear or distress, tyrannical governments, environmental disaster, or other characteristics associated with a cataclysmic decline in society.” Draw your own conclusions.

How many times have we witnessed in recent years the entities meant to protect us, police and army, violently abusing and even killing its own citizens, never mind those of its neighbouring country.  How has lying become the new normal?  Black is white.  Yes it is, look it says right there.  Now black is black, I never said it was white.  Who are you calling a liar?  Lying is just alternative truthing. Dystopia, right there.

I am not one for doomsday stuff, I like to lean optimistically in general, but I feel side swiped today, my magic carpet is a rug with moths and my wings are just arms.

I have been dipping into a book called What She Ate.  It’s about “six remarkable women and the food that tells their stories”.  I started with Eva Braun who was indeed remarkable although of course not in a good way.  Stories of fine lunches set before high ranking SS officers and their wives, while Hitler ate his vegetarian mush for show, acutely aware of the scrutiny his diet was under and wanting to appear austere and monk like to his people, dedicated only to their welfare, natch.  He hid Eva from sight too when any press or foreign dignitaries were around - he did not want to be seen as a lothario - looking at him it would be hard to imagine that anyway.  They had champagne every day, bleeding France dry of its wine as well as all its food. 

It’s fascinating, hard to stop reading, aware of the horror of that time happening all around her, while she, Eva, dressed her self in different outfits, all exquisite and expensive, several times a day, drank champagne and actually ate very little in order to stay slim.  She created an elaborate fantasy in which she starred as the beautiful and elegant heroine, her one purpose was to be a decorative addition to Hitler’s arm.  She may have known what was going but chose not to acknowledge it.  And even if she had, what then?

I mention this book for three reasons.  One because I think it’s an interesting concept fro a book - when and food, two of my favourite things (the other women are Dorothy Wordsworth, Rosa Lewis, Eleanor Roosevelt, Barbara Pam and Helen Gurley-Brown).  Two because food, obviously, is my thing, what I do and write about so sharing a book I like on that subject seems to make sense.  Third is because this chapter resonates in particular with how I am feeling today.  Eva Braun is like instagram - her beautiful clothes, pretty face and delicious foods (you would have to like sausages and dumplings a lot admittedly) all wide eyed and innocent while the death camps’ furnaces roared, the population grey, bemused, fooled and malnourished and her own demise looming and her with not an apparent care in the world “How about bottle of champagne for our farewell? And some sweets?”.  Hitler chose a gun to end his own life, with Eva next to him having chosen a cyanide capsule because wanted to be “a beautiful corpse”.  Maybe instagram and all its iterations and copycats will pop a cyanide pill one day, while quaffing champagne and bon-bons, and we can go back to talking, writing letters, visiting each other or indeed doing nothing at all except smelling the roses and the coffee and just thinking about that.

This is me taking a step back from social media, but not substack (as you can tell since this is my second post in as many days).

Thank god, whoever they may be, for roses and coffee.