Tuesday 17 October 2017 / London, UK

Why I'll Never Be An Instagram Girl (And Why I'm Ok With It)


These past few weeks I've grown so tired of Instagram and I'm not talking about the whole algorithm side of things (that's for another blog post), but more the content side of things. My following list is an amalgamation of people from school who I don't particularly want to follow but feel rude for unfollowing, friends who I actually do wanna follow, relatable amateur bloggers like myself and then there's the darker side of my following list...the 'Instagram Girl'

Instagram Girl: totally unrelatable, aesthetically perfect girl who travels the world on a seemingly bottomless pit of money, representing 'life goals' in every aspect of her life. 


I feel like as the days go on, my Instagram feeds become more and more saturated with unrealistic lifestyles, unrealistic figures and unrealistic goals. There are people my age who are staying in a £1000 per night hut on stilts in the middle of the Maldivian sea and there are people my age dining in Nobu on a Monday night, whilst I'm over here still paying off my credit card debt from a Ryanair flight to Dublin I bought last year and waiting for the weekend to hit up Nandos to redeem my free whole chicken. While it's an amazing thing that there are 'influencers' my age who can afford to be staying in 5* resorts on the island of Mykonos with infinity pools, champagne room service and Balenciaga shopping trips at their fingertips, for the majority of women my age, those things couldn't be any further out of our reach if we possibly tried. What's more within our reach is an all inclusive last minute Thomson holiday package to Europe where we can rinse the pool bar for all the ouzo that it's worth and a Monday night maccy's en route home from work.

I'm sick of seeing Instagram photos of girls sat in the middle of an infinity pool with a banquet to rival that of Jesus Christ's last supper surrounding them, floating around on a table. I'm sorry, but have you ever or do you know anyone who's ever been to a hotel where they do that, because all I know is all inclusive package holidays where you waddle to the buffet each morning with last nights sleep still in the corner of your eyes trying so desperately hard to avoid the pastry section like the plague, whilst loading up your plate with eggs, beans, watermelon and a bread roll, because apparently all concept of what should and shouldn't go together on a plate goes out the window on holiday. There's certainly no infinity pools at the kind of hotels I stay at. What there is in place of an infinity pool however, is a swimming pool full of annoying little brats who insist on putting their £30 a pop swimming lessons into practice and spend the whole time 'kick, kick kick'ing the piss-infused water into your face whilst you're trying to catch some rays on your overpriced lilo. So can you see now, why I struggle to relate to girls who post photos of their strategically angled pert bum poking out the waterline of their apparently empty infinity pool situated over the edge of a cliff?
Over the last few months, I've had to unfollow so many bloggers who I have been following since the original blogging days, back when there were only a few hundred in the community and it's honestly such a shame, but the truth is, I just can't relate to them anymore.

At the beginning of my Instagram days, I used to love nothing more than following those 'Instagram girls' and screenshotting their images for 'inspo' (inspo for what exactly, I'm not sure of) and admiring their totally unrealistic lifestyles. I went through a stage where I spent most evenings discovering Australian Instagram girl after Instagram girl. I got so caught up in lusting after a life of constantly tanned skin, watermelon for breakfast, surfing on Bondi Beach on a Monday afternoon and a toned, size 6 body, that I began to resent how far from their lives my life in my hometown Barnet was. I became obsessed with discovering more 'Instagram girls' to stalk and it became a never ending vicious cycle of following a new 'Instagram girl', wasting 30 minutes stalking her 'life' and then putting my phone away and plotting how I was going to become a size 6, constantly tanned and transform into a cool chick overnight, who definitely didn't have stretch marks and cellulite. Like come on, who the hell was I kidding for fucks sake?

But as I grew up and as I began to grow more confident in myself and consequently accept and become content with the fact that I would never have immaculate skin, be slim or have manageable, glossy hair, I soon began to reject the idea of the 'Instagram girl' and one by one, I began to unfollow them. It was like somebody clicked their fingers one day and I suddenly had no desire to engage with this kind of content. It was doing absolutely sweet f all for my self-esteem and only led me to become jealous, frustrated that my life was so far from others my age and began to make me feel like a failure in so many different aspects of my life. So I unfollowed them. One by one. These people have done nothing wrong, I just simply don't enjoy their content anymore. I cannot relate to them in any way, shape or form and for me that's enough to warrant an unfollow. I can't relate to girls my age who pop into Gucci and buy a new handbag as often as I do the tights run in Primark. Gucci bags that cost anywhere between £1000-£3000, like I'm sorry what? Don't get me wrong I'm all for a bit of designer and obviously I want nothing more than to own a Chanel bag one day in the future, but at the age of 24 where I can just about afford my travelcard every month and the odd coffee from Pret on my way to work when I'm feeling boujee, Gucci couldn't be any further out of my reach if it tried. I can relate to Zara handbags, Primark coats, H&M basics, Nandos for dinner and 4* hotels at a push. What I cannot relate to however, is £3000 Chanel handbags, Burberry macs, £300 Gucci T-shirts, Nobu on a Monday night and 5* luxury resorts in the middle of the Caribbean.

When I first started this blog back in 2015, I had visions of eventually becoming a fashion blogger, where I'd share my daily outfits and purchases I'd made recently. That was before I discovered a deeper love for the writing element of blogging and for sharing my travel photography with you guys. Don't get me wrong, I love an OOTD over on Instagram and the odd cheeky flatlay of a new pair of boots I most definitely didn't need, but my blog is a chatty, un-themed word-vomit mess and to be totally honest, I wouldn't have it any other way. I'll never produce that editorial, lustworthy fashion blogger content and there's many reasons for that. One being I don't have a well-trained Instagram husband to hand who is a whizz on the old DSLR and Photoshop, another being that I don't have a bottomless pit of money to pluck Gucci belts and £90 Topshop coats out of thin air and most importantly, I'm not photogenic and a DSLR camera shows up the flaws and chins that I'd rather not have magnified for all to see. I'm not photogenic, I can't pose for shit without looking like an awkward melon and I can't seem to get my Instagram following over 1,500 and I most certainly will never make a living off my Instagram, but you know what? I'm okay with that. I'll never have girls posting fire emojiis on my pictures and I'll never have brands approaching me to wear their outfits, because my size 12 body and my curly, untamed hair with roots always peeping through somehow don't fit that Instagram mould.

I'm taking things back to basics and embracing the mediocre Instagrammer within me and posting what I want, when I want and how I want. There's no theme to my Instagram and you certainly won't find any editorial style photography on my Instagram. What you will find however, is the insights of a  normal, slightly average 24 year old girl woman who loves sharing her OOTD's in her full length mirror (which most definitely needs a dust 99% of the time) in her childhood bedroom and my day to day life in London, all snapped on an overpriced iPhone 7 which I'm begrudgingly paying for every month. The only thing Instagrammable about my life is an overpriced barista coffee when I'm out and about in London and the few times I go away a year and rinse my photos for all their worth on Instagram, and that's really about it.

I'm not an 'Instagram girl' and I don't want to be. 
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4 comments

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