What's Your Instagram?

It’s not every time I’m out on a photowalk, but it’s often enough that’s it’s starting to piss me off—someone will see my camera and ask about what pictures I’m taking or what kind of camera it is I’m using, things of that nature. That part is nice; I enjoy talking to people about my passions and having some gear around my neck is a good way to invite these conversations. The thing that's really getting me down is the question that always comes next... “What's your Instagram?"

It's never “Do you have an Instagram?”; it is presumed I have one. I am a young-ish individual, surely I must consume Reels™️ and Stories™️ on Meta's family of apps? Surely I must be doing this to produce content to boost engagement metrics for major corporate platforms? When I tell them I don’t have an Instagram account, the conversation is basically over. There is no follow-up question because they don’t know what else to say. Sometimes I tell them I do post my pictures online, just check out my website and sometimes I will also reluctantly mention Bluesky. They ask for the URL to be polite and they don’t write it down or anything. And it’s true that I’m not doing this for online engagement but obviously I want people to see my work, otherwise I would keep it all to myself. I just don’t want to help Meta take over culture anymore than it already has.

Why should every aspect of our lives be mediated through these miserable apps? It’s not like the photographs posted to Instagram are treated as art. It’s all slurry for the content machine. You throw it a like to be polite and keep on scrolling. You’re not encouraged to linger, to study what a photo is doing to make you feel what you’re feeling. The pull of the infinite scroll is too powerful.

I was telling my girlfriend about the latest instance of this conversation happening to me and she said she heard a similar sentiment from her friend who runs a small animation studio. He resisted getting an Instagram for years but finally relented, which led to his studio getting noticed by a new client and getting some much-needed work. But part of why he was so resistant was knowing that he’d get stuck scrolling, and sure enough he says he wastes at least a half-hour a day mindlessly swiping up. Not only do I not want this for myself, but having an account and pushing people to follow me there will get them doing it too. I don’t want to be Mark Zuckerberg’s unpaid little Pied Piper. I waste enough time on Bluesky, an app nobody wants to go to. I’m mostly there because I have to be on one of these awful platforms to get any eyes/ears on my work and it felt the least bad to be on (at first).

How do we get off the apps? How do we get people to engage with stuff outside of The Content Zone? How do we destroy Silicon Valley? These aren’t rhetorical questions, I really want to know. Tell me what I have to do to defeat Zuckerberg. Anything to stop getting asked “What’s your Instagram?”

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Here's the photo I took right after I got asked the dreaded question most recently. The aspect ratio is 1:1, which I had been largely avoiding because of how Instagram-y it felt to me. But they don't get to own squares!! I'm taking them back.

Nicky Flowers - Let me know if you find Cheeto and/or know how to destroy Big Tech - 08/30/26 - (send any comments/questions to hello at nickyflowers dot com)