WHY I TOOK FEW STEPS BACK FROM INSTAGRAM

TL DR: feeling of guilt and purposeless (would’ve said pointless, but I think it’s beyond that)

Sudah banyak artikel-artikel yang ditulis oleh ex-Instagram influencer yang memutuskan berhenti atau mengurangi aktivitasnya di Instagram karena there’s too much fakery in it and mentally overwhelming. The articles usually mention how they used to take hundreds of photos just for one perfect post or aesthetically arrange their blanket, their hair, and put a no-make-up make up look for one fabulous I-wake-up-like-this pic.

Whenever I stumbled upon this kind of article, I just read it lightly and thought maybe the articles are way more relevant for fellow influencers.

Rasanya sih, toxic atau tidak, fake atau tidaknya tergantung dengan konten apa yang kita follow dan bagaimana kita merespon postingan-postingan tersebut ya...

Well. Until last month.

On early March I posted a picture without any context, nor any story. I wrote caption exactly as what I felt the moment I see the picture. I didn’t think of anything else. I didn’t even have any intention to show people where I was at that moment. I just wanted to post it because it's eyes pleasing, hence insta-worthy. That’s all.

A week later, I posted an Instagram story of my husband assembling a book shelf. Simply because I needed distraction from the agony of menstrual cramp. So, I took a video and did light editing while I lay on my yoga mat because there’s nothing else we have yet inside the house. It worked. The video editing activity helped release the cramp although a little. Then I decided to post it. Just like that.

But of course, the fact that I was suffering from agony didn’t get in framed. The fact that I did that just to entertain myself over the agony wasn’t conveyed in the video.

Kedua posting itu berhubungan dengan rumah yang nanti akan kami tempati, yang mungkin bisa jadi satu cerita blog sendiri betapa sebetulnya pembelian rumah itu melalui pro dan kontra yang sangat panjang dan melelahkan bahkan sampai setelah rumah sudah dibeli. Tapi tentu ngga semua teman-teman Instagram tahu.
Dan berawal dari postingan itu, ada beberapa reaksi dari teman-teman yang sedikit di luar perkiraan saya dan membuat saya mundur sejenak, berpikir dan mengamati.

   

Seperti mungkin kebanyakan orang pada waktu itu, saya buat akun Instagram di tahun 2012 simply just for fun and out of curiosity. Photo editing/ filter app wasn’t a common thing at that time, Instagram maybe the first and the only one for quite some time. 

I didn't follow people that I know personally, friends or family. My thought was this medium is a mean to display “creation” or to look for inspiration from others creators rather than to connect socially, much more like flickr rather than facebook. I used to use the platform as my digital gallery, with curated following, curated pictures, rather than to share pieces of my private life.

Then Instagram is getting bigger and gaining more and more users with different characters. So then came the era of hashtag abusers. The social-seller. The travel-in-style travelers. The photo-manipulator. The insta-story. The selebgram. The “follow back dong”.

Slowly but sure, cara pemakaian Instagram saya pun ikut bergeser seiring dengan berubahnya Instagram menjadi seperti yang ada saat ini. Saya mulai menambahkan teman-teman ke daftar following saya dan tanpa terasa juga jadi lebih aktif, terutama di insta-story. Dan tanpa sadar, makin banyak momen yang sama sekali ngga penting yang, post di story ah...padahal ya kalau dipikir-pikir lagi, buat apa sih...(termasuk video rakit lemari buku).

Dan setelah beberapa lama mengambil waktu berpikir dan mengobservasi, saya sampai pada simpulan:

1. The “fakery” is indeed there, despite in different intensity from one to another. It might be not as intense as hundred takes for one post, but still, it shows only the surface. We never know for sure the real feeling of the poster behind their seemingly happy smile in front of famous world landmark or what in their mind when they pose with their expensive food in luxurious restaurants. It creates illusion that the poster’s must be living a perfectly happy life, while it can be untrue at some point as the background story is not depicted.
2. We will (not always, but high likelihood) unconsciously, or consciously enough start comparing our life with others and then feel “challenged” to show back our piece of happy life. Be it glorious moment with family, fabulous food, marvelous trip, prestigious conference, happening concert, or good times with friends. In other way, Instagram becomes a tool of self-validation and a battle ground of hey-my-life-is good or i-can-do-it-better before we even realize.
3. We become so happy over likes or comments (and sad if we don’t get as many as we expected). The number of likes we get over one Instagram post is not “real”, yet we’re craving for it as if it defines how people [followers] like us in person. We become addicted to the need of constant social validation.
4.  FOMO is getting real. We can’t skip a day without scrolling through feed and opening stories. alas!

Hal-hal di atas sebetulnya sama sekali bukan sesuatu yang baru, tapi bagi saya saat ini terasa seperti sebuah major revelation. Ini bukan sedang bahas orang lain, but it was me reflecting myself in the mirror. Karena itu juga saya lalu memutuskan untuk membuat jarak dengan Instagram.

Sama sekali bukan hal yang mudah untuk menghilangkan adiksi. Dalam kurun waktu enam minggu terakhir, yaitu sejak uninstall pertama kali, saya sudah 4-5x menginstall Instagram, untuk kemudian saya uninstall lagi. Atau colongan buka akun melalui browser. BERAT.
Dan karena itu jadi semakin sadar bahwa adiksi instagram ini memang berbahaya.

Terkadang tergoda untuk mengecek feed tapi setelah install dan scrolling merasa nothing’s really mesmerize me like the way it used to be, like…influencers selling stuffs or a friend listening to certain song on spotify or posting their lunch. So, I have it uninstalled once again.

Ketika tergoda untuk posting, saya sangat berusaha mengerem dengan menanyakan beberapa “feasibility” question ke diri sendiri seperti berikut:

•   Apakah ada informasi yang bermanfaat untuk orang lain dari postingan ini?

Mostly, jawabannya adalah tidak. Apalah informasi yang bisa ditarik dari foto makan siang, foto saya dengan box-box IKEA, foto bersama teman lama yang teman-teman Instagram saya juga ngga kenal, opini-opini random yang poorly constructed karena saya hanya ingin vent it out, dan lain sebagainya.
Ada sedikiiiiiiit posting yang mungkin bisa bermanfaat, misalnya book review, tapi memang good content need effort and right now I don’t have enough energy to perform the effort. So, yah…purposeless that is.

• Apakah postingan ini bisa menghibur orang lain? Dalam artian bisa membuat orang tersenyum/ tertawa?

Mungkin bisa. Tapi kalau itu adalah internet material, saya mencoba mengatakan ke diri sendiri bahwa kemungkinan besar orang-orang lain juga sudah melihatnya juga, no need to post it just to look hipster

• Will I be suffering if I don't post it?

Apparently, I’m just totally fine, safe and sound, somehow even I feel mentally wholler. 

• Will people be suffering if I DON'T post it?

Biasanya tidak, tapi mungkin justru sebaliknya. Maybe, there'll be people who do "suffer" if I post it. Sekali lagi, curated posting, membuat semua yang terdisplay hanya yang indah-indah. All the rainbows and unicorns. 

Bahkan dengan self-questioning yang berlapis-lapis, masih ada beberapa posting yang "lolos" walaupun tidak memenuhi kriteria di atas. Seems that I just can't control it well, so scary, right?

Seperti saya belajar kembali bagaimana bernapas dengan kesadaran sepenuhnya dengan mindfulness, saya juga ingin menggunakan instagram dengan kesadaran penuh.

Now after all, if you ask me, why should I take this seriously?

I just think that the minutes per day consumed by Instagram is no joke for me and even during first few days of my withdrawal I felt so hardly resist one day without using it. Those sound like solid reason to spend some time to profoundly revisit, rethink and reflect about Instagram real benefit and drawback. Or whether it's really a matter or not.
Only then I can assure that those who don’t matter won’t destruct the existence of what really matters.

I don't stop entirely, but currently I feel the need to find a strong and more purpose-based motivation as the driver, or whatever that is!

So, see ya Instagram?