(on the left, what my desk really looks like – on the right, what I would show on Instagram)
This summer, as I was taking a break scrolling on Instagram, looking for inspiration and well, probably procrastinating on stuff I really needed to do, I noticed a few things.
First of all, I realized how somehow about 80% of the posts looked and felt the same. They had the same aesthetics, the same, well-thought layout of the pictures, but most of all, the same catchlines, emojis, what have you not. Having done my own research on how to improve visibility and reach (who hasn’t tried to understand the algorithm?), I recognized so many of the schemes that other designers were following. The reels that everybody all of a sudden was doing and that I had bookmarked, thinking I needed to do them as well (never got around that). The “presentation post” that everyone tells you you need to do, to introduce yourself to new followers. (I don’t get many new followers at all, and I definitely don’t like putting myself on the front so… nope, still haven’t done it).
And although these posts and reels all look fun and nice and entertaining, and I admire the people managing to create such qualitative content, it just doesn’t feel authentic anymore to me. It reminds me a bit of the issue of “banner blindness”, where we have nowadays the phenomenon, that we are so used to surfing on website that have advertisements, that we just block them out of our brains to read the article or blog post we intended to check out.
But basically, it feels like we’re all chasing the same rabbit: trying to grasp for attention, convince the powers of Meta to have mercy on us all and allow us some visibility, and maybe inspire knitters who haven’t seen our work before.
In my case, that would be about a gazillion knitters — given my minimal reach 😅.
And truthfully? Those designers and crafters that I see everyday in my feed are all doing a way better job than me. They already have more visibility, stronger photography skills, and more polished captions. And they are clearly putting much more effort and time into it, so completely deserve it!
But instead of inspiring me, I find it all a bit … depressing.
At first I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Was I simply jealous? Had I maybe spend too much time on instagram and tiktok that I had indeed “seen it all”?
But then it dawned on me, that it all felt too perfect, too polished and too “the same”.
I really don’t care about reading the umpteenth perfect caption — whether written by people themselves or with the help of ChatGPT (I’m not judging, I’m a keen user myself, but you can sense it).
What I really want is to know something about the person behind the post, to get to know the real person through the way they write, with their spelling mistakes, weird sentences and all.
Otherwise, what’s the point? The whole idea of social media — to create human connection — is completely replaced by a pure advertisement platform where we are all in an unwinnable battle to gain more visibility and an inkling of recognition.
So my daily work (the one that pays the bills) is in communication, so I’m not completely naive and uninformed to pretend these platforms were ever non-commercial. But what I do miss is that part that I found so amazing in the beginning, meeting knitters online, finding testknitters that would become really true followers and supports of what I did, even though it was all still imperfect and me myself being a designer in the making.
And there is a part that still works like this for me. Today, I can watch my cousins’ kids whom I only see every 3 or more years, grow up. I actually see what they look like, glimpse their lives, and feel like I get the occasion to get to know them. Even for friends that live in the same city, but whom I might not manage to connect with through simply busy life, the usual daily hassle. I love it when they share their thoughts, something that is happening in their lives, which then will make me call them up and catch up.
And I think you can only truly appreciate all this when you remember the days when family calls to Iceland or Denmark happened once a week, at carefully chosen “cheap rate” times or when I had to actually go and find a phone booth in the Icelandic winter to call my boyfriend once a week. Yes, I am that old, thank you very much!
I did own a mobile phone at the time — though “smart” it was not. It was good for calling, text messaging, maybe programming a fancy ringtone. But not something you’d use much for long-distance calls. Those were the days of real long-distance relationships. (It did not work out, by the way…)
But I guess I digress here…
Here’s my takeaway.
Even though I’m a grammar nerd in all the languages I’ve learned throughout the years, I much prefer an imperfectly written Instagram post — with wrong punctuation, awkward emojis, and no perfect SEO keywords — to the shiny, flawless ones that show me nothing of the poster’s personality. I want to read about someone’s ramblings, or unpolished thoughts.
What are your thoughts?
