Instagram is Broken. Now What?

creativity

Jul 27

Whether you mostly consume on Instagram, or, like me, regularly create for Instagram, I believe we ALL are feeling a shift in that space. I come to you today as a friend, a writer, an artist of sorts, a person who “creates content” for all intents and purposes, even though I refuse to call myself a “content creator” because that phrase makes me want to gag. This is my story, and these are my thoughts. I speak for no one but myself. I welcome your opinions in the comments, always.

Deep breath. Let’s jump in?

Instagram launched on October 6, 2010, and I joined Instagram on October 22, 2010. In other words, I have been using the app consistently for almost twelve full years.

When Instagram first came out, I used the app just like everyone else: I posted random pictures of my shoes, lunch, and ordinary life, all enhanced with the Valencia filter. Phone cameras weren’t what they are today, and the quality of my photos were—I don’t say this lightly—terrible.

But nobody cared about photo quality back then, because back then, Instagram was fun and candid and posted in real-time. I did not run my photos through the VSCO app (which didn’t even exist in 2010). Heck, I didn’t edit my photos at all. I did not craft meaningful captions in a Google doc, and then copy and paste them into an Instagram planner. I did not spend any time whatsoever making anything seem more impressive than it actually was—my words, my photos, my life. I simply snapped pictures, swiped till I got to the Valencia filter, punched out a caption in the app, and hit publish. My entire Instagram feed, way back when, was a real-life time stamp, carved initials in a tree. Hello, world. Ashlee was here.

(Sidenote: I have a few friends who, upon getting book deals and/or establishing well-respected careers online, went back to the beginning of their IG feeds and archived all of their older posts, scrubbing any and all evidence that they, too, once upon a time posted photos of their lunch with the Valencia filter. I am far too lazy to do this. If you scroll all the way back to the start of my feed, I assure you it’s just as awful as I’m describing.)

Today, in 2022, Instagram is so tangled up with my work and my writing, it’s difficult to even remember a time when I regularly shared something in 30 seconds without giving a great deal of thought to both the quality of the image and the quality of the caption. And yet, I know plenty of people use Instagram today the way I used it in 2010. People who have private accounts and just use Instagram to keep in touch with family and friends.

But for me, and for other creatives—that is, people who use Instagram to share their art with an audience—the platform, and the way we use it as artists, has noticeably shifted since its inception.

Honestly, I cannot remember when this shift began, either for myself personally or for Instagram as a whole. I cannot remember the exact time, or even the exact year, that people started taking Instagram more seriously. Upping their game. Editing their photos. Crafting well-written captions. As far as I remember, this shift happened gradually. A slow evolution.

As for me, I went right along for the ride. In 2014, I started a collaborative blog about motherhood called Coffee + Crumbs. At the time, my whole dream for that space could have fit in a shoebox. It was nothing but a passion project. I wanted to write honest stories about motherhood with my friends. The end. I was six months pregnant with my second baby. There was no podcast. No book. No revenue streams. We put out two stories a week, and that was it.

Right away, three of our essays went viral. This was back when anyone could go viral on Facebook at any time. Call it a fluke. Call it an act of God. Call it whatever you want, the next thing I knew, I had my own profile on the Huffington Post. (For any young people reading, in 2014, being published on the Huffington Post was A Very Big Deal.) Suddenly, I had a lot more eyeballs on my writing, and a lot more eyeballs on my Instagram.

Without scrolling all the way back and scanning my own profile for clues, if I had to guess when I, personally, started using Instagram more seriously as a “writer”—that was it. 2014. Me. Coffee + Crumbs. Huffington Post. I started writing longer captions, giving more thought and attention to what I posted and how I showed up in that space.

Suffice it to say: I approach Instagram wildly differently today than I did in 2010. And I’d actually go further and say I even approach Instagram differently than I did in 2014. These days, I have more concerns about privacy and discretion. I am not so quick to share a zillion photos of my children. I am not so quick to rehash something happening in my marriage for all the world to consume in a 30-second scroll. If I started taking Instagram more seriously in 2014, I’ve done nothing but slow down since then, regularly re-evaluating how I use the app, both as a consumer (as more research has emerged about the negative effects of social media) and as a creator (as I’ve leaned into the idea of using the app to promote my art, as opposed to posting pictures of my lunch).

This feels like a weird thing to admit, but I believe it’s worth mentioning: I spend a lot of time crafting the words and photos I put on Instagram. Which is maybe saying a lot, considering I currently delete the app 30 weeks/year. I very rarely open Instagram, punch out a caption, and hit publish on a whim. On the contrary: I have an ongoing Google doc where I write long-ish captions, and then sit with them, and edit them, and edit them some more. Occasionally, I will take something I wrote elsewhere (for a blog post, another publication, or a newsletter) and attempt to condense or shrink my longform writing down to fit inside the character boundaries of an Instagram caption. Even this takes time.

In addition to being a writer, I am also a photographer, so while I wouldn’t say the visual component of Instagram is difficult for me (as it sometimes is for other writers), I would say, again, that producing high-quality beautiful images for Instagram also takes time.

I want to be clear: the fact that I spend heaps of time creating art for Instagram is not something I mind. I love to write. I love to take pictures. At this point in my life, I consider Instagram part of my job. It is, as they say in the industry, part of my “platform” (gross). But more than that—my Instagram feed is an extension of my creative work. I consider my little corner of Instagram to be part of my creative portfolio, something that works alongside my actual website, blog, and other online writing. I put forth effort and time and energy into my Instagram feed, just like I put forth effort and time and energy into my other creative endeavors. If someone stumbled across my account, and read a handful of my posts, I would hope they’d get an accurate sense of who I am as a writer and artist. If they were so inclined, that same person might click through to the link in my bio, sign up for my newsletter, swing by my blog, and (!)—maybe buy my book someday.

That someday is coming. In March of 2023 to be exact. And the book, at this point, is part of the story and part of the wrestling and part of the saga.

To give credit where credit is due, Instagram is part of the reason I am able to write a book through traditional publishing. Because when I pitched the idea for Create Anyway, an entire page of my book proposal was dedicated to “platform”—which included the number of followers I have on Instagram. That’s another complicated and nuanced blog post for another day, but for those of you who may not know how this works, in my particular genre—Christian Nonfiction—publishers don’t just want to know you can write, publishers also want to know you can sell. They want to see that you have an audience, eyeballs on your work, human beings with beating hearts and full wallets who are already listening to you, who already care about what you have to say and would be willing to drop $20 to read more from you.

Instagram, no doubt, provided a place for me to grow a readership. I don’t want to blow past that like it doesn’t matter. Utilizing Instagram, I have been able to share my writing, and pieces of my life, that, cumulatively over the span of twelve years, have resonated with a community of people. That same community has generously contributed to the ways in which I now earn a living through the art I create—through Coffee + Crumbs, through my book, my photography, etc.

Having said that, this relationship is not one-sided, for I have given Instagram plenty in return.

And I want to dive into that for a minute, because I myself have often spoken about Instagram in a manner that suggests I am the primary beneficiary of this relationship. I’ve said things like, Well, Instagram is a business. They get to do what works for them. I’ve said things like, Well, Instagram is free, I guess I shouldn’t complain about it. *Shrugging girl emoji*

But if Instagram has given me the space and platform to cultivate a readership, and the opportunity to share my writing with the world, I have surely given Instagram something as well. Not only have I given Instagram my own time, my own attention, and my own eyeballs (which see their ads every single time I use the app)—I have also given Instagram some of my best creative work. Creative work they have used to keep users engaged. Creative work they have taken and sandwiched in between advertisements. In 2021, Instagram made 47.6 billion dollars through ads. Those ads show up before, after, and all around content.

Which begs an essential question for artists and creatives: do we need Instagram? Or does Instagram need us? Who is actually benefiting the most?

Instagram first put ads in our feed in 2013. Back then, I would have considered Instagram to be a mutually beneficial relationship. But today I’m starting to see this a bit differently. Because over the years, I have given Instagram tons and tons and tons of free content, posts and captions that have, at times, engaged people using the app. Instagram has taken that free content, along with the free content of every other creator, and slapped ads all around it, making billions of dollars in the process. (This is, perhaps, an oversimplified view, but for the sake of time, I’m going to move on.)

Now, in the spirit of full transparency, I currently earn money through my creative endeavors. So when I say I give Instagram “free content”—I need to clarify: I do not earn money through Instagram, or my Instagram content. I earn money by way of my creative work, which I promote and share on Instagram. In the same way an Etsy shop owner might use Instagram to promote products, which people would then go purchase outside of Instagram, I use Instagram to promote my creative work, which people might go on to support outside of Instagram as well (i.e. becoming a Coffee + Crumbs Patron, signing up for a course I’m teaching, booking me for a photo session, buying my book someday, etc).

For a long time, I would have said that both Instagram and its creators were reaping benefits from one another. Roughly two years ago, though, in my opinion, that changed.

But first let’s back up for a quick history lesson. By late 2014, Snapchat was growing in popularity. After Zuckerberg tried to buy Snapchat and failed, he moved to the next best thing: copying them. Here’s how that went down, per this article at Wired:

In the summer of 2016, he told company employees at an all-hands meeting that they shouldn’t let their pride get in the way of doing what is best for users—even if that meant copying rival companies. Zuckerberg’s message became an informal slogan at Facebook: “Don’t be too proud to copy.” And it certainly wasn’t.

TikTok emerged in 2016, but, according to most Internet reports, didn’t really skyrocket in popularity until 2020. And, well, what do you know? In August of 2020, exactly two years ago, Instagram launched Reels, a feature that many people considered a direct ripoff of TikTok. Why did they do this? Because they were “facing serious competition for user time and attention.”

The interesting thing about both of these features—stories and reels—is that they are consumed completely differently than static content. They are fleeting, they move fast, they scratch an itch, give you a hit of dopamine and leave you hungry for more. They are scientifically proven to be more addictive, like “a pacifier for our brains.”

Once you start watching Instagram stories, it’s hard to stop, because the next one is ready to play, on an endless loop. Once you finish a reel, a new one pops up in its place, feeding the urge to consume, consume, consume, just one more, just one more, just one more.

These new features speak to a general cultural shift toward short-term, addictive entertainment. Instagram does not want you to sit still, read five captions, and then leave the app. Instagram wants you sitting on a couch with a giant bowl of popcorn, Netflix style, auto-playing episode after episode after episode, without so much as a bathroom break.

Because that’s how they make more money.

This ongoing, ruthless desire to keep you in the app for long periods of time means Instagram is always on the hunt for the next best strategy to capture your attention. When they saw Snapchat become successful, they adopted a Snapchat-like feature (stories). When they saw TikTok become successful, they adopted a TikTok-like feature (reels).

(Makes you wonder … if someone launched a simple photo and caption sharing app that suddenly got popular, would Instagram revert back to what it was? Probably.)

It feels, to me, like Instagram doesn’t even know what Instagram is anymore. Their priority is ad revenue, which is based on keeping people engaged and entertained. Instead of doing this by leaning into what sets them apart from other social media platforms, Instagram is simply looking around and copying what works for everyone else.

Instagram is trying to be everything to everyone, and in pursuit of such, is losing itself.

At this point, Instagram is doubling down on videos, claiming even if they make no changes within the app, people want to consume videos anyway. According to Instagram, they are simply bending toward what we ourselves have expressed interest in.

Now, nobody can deny that people are interested in videos. TikTok has over 1 billion monthly users. The data points to an interest in video, undeniably.

But are people actually interested in watching more videos … on Instagram?

Prior to reels coming on the scene, I hardly had any videos in my feed. Once reels came out, though, my entire newsfeed was bombarded with them. Instagram claims it will only show me reels if I engage with them, watch them, like and comment on them. But in my personal experience, this could not be further from the truth. I very rarely watch reels. I scroll right past them 90% of the time. And yet: my feed is full of them. I have particularly noticed this when I re-download Instagram after deleting it every other week. Every time I first load the app and log in, I have to scroll past 15 reels to get to any static content.

You know when you’re feeding a baby their first bites of real food, some kind of mashed up vegetable and their little face scrunches up in disgust? And you just keep spoon-feeding them, saying, “Isn’t that good, sweetie? Aren’t these room temperature mushy peas soooooo yummy?!”

Right now, Instagram is spoon-feeding us videos on a constant, never-ending loop, and when our faces scrunch up in disgust, they insist we actually like it.

The difference, of course, is this: a parent spoon-feeding nutritious food to a baby knows it is good for the health of the child. Meanwhile, Instagram is spoon-feeding us video content because they know it is more addictive, and thus, better for their wallets.

Here’s where I need to pivot real quick and tell you about another change that has happened by way of reels taking over instagram: hardly anyone sees my posts anymore. This has been confirmed, everywhere, by way of public complaint and also data. Since Instagram started pushing reels, the average feed engagement has decreased by 44%.

Here are screenshots of my own insights to give you an idea of what is happening:

I have 28k followers on Instagram. This is the reach on my last six posts, aka the number of unique users that saw each one.

These are the “plays” on the two reels I have shared to my feed. The general reach comes in just under this, at 23k and 21k.

In other words, when I post regular content to Instagram, the number of people who actually see my posts is somewhere between 3,000-7,000. When I post a reel, though, between 20,000-25,000 people see it.

So many of us are complaining about reels, saying we don’t want to see them anymore. Meanwhile, creatives and artists are starting to pivot and create more reels, simply because they feel like their backs are against the wall. This is a weird chicken and egg situation, or, as I heard someone else describe it: the algorithm chase. The algorithm pays attention to what people want to consume, and then serves that content to them. The creators pay attention to what the algorithm serves people, and then create content accordingly.

According to Instagram, we moved first. People started expressing interest in video, and Instagram responded. Personally, I beg to differ and think the opposite is true. Yes, people started migrating to TikTok. But in the same way I can love both In-N-Out and Starbucks, without wanting to order coffee where I get my burgers and ordering burgers where I get my coffee, people can use two apps for two different things. We do it all the time. We did not ask for a one-stop shop. We did not ask Instagram to become TikTok. We did not ask for any of this.

In an effort to keep our attention (i.e. ad revenue), Instagram started shoving videos down our throats, rewarding people who made reels and punishing those who didn’t. Creators responded to that shift simply to stay afloat.

Which begs the question: what is influencing what? Who is influencing who? If we all simply … stopped watching reels, would the algorithm reset and start serving us the regular photos we want to see? Or would Instagram keep clogging our feeds with videos—no matter what—in an effort to convince us that room temperature mushy peas are truly delicious?

I don’t know. Because at the end of the day, so long as Instagram sees TikTok as a threat and competitor, stealing eyeballs and attention and thus, ad dollars, it seems to me they are going to continue doubling down on whatever TikTok (or other popular app du jour) is serving up.

This brings me to the end, and to some final questions.

For the average creator, artist, writer—do we keep going? What are our options?

Sure, I could pivot to video and sacrifice the integrity of the slow art I want to make for the sake of staying relevant on Instagram and perhaps even growing my audience there. I could double down on photos and long captions, watch my reach and engagement continue to plummet, and stay there for the sake of engaging with the small percentage of people who actually see my work. I could walk away. I suppose I could also start using Instagram differently altogether. Forget the writing, forget the art, just post pictures of my lunch again. Who cares if anyone sees that.

Do I wait it out? And hope once Instagram realizes it can never beat TikTok, once the majority of Gen Z stops using it altogether, that Instagram might revert back to the photo-sharing app it once was, to appease the geriatric millennials who are still there?

Do I take every minute I’d spend on Instagram and convert that energy toward my blog? Do I send more emails? Do I launch a Substack, work toward finding 1,000 true fans and scrap everything else?

In the simplest terms, this is the question I keep coming back to: why am I wasting my time, my creative energy, my bandwidth, my mental capacity, publishing content in a space that zaps me creatively, does not pay me, and now refuses to show my work to the majority of my audience?

Is that good stewardship of my time? Of my creativity?

If there are only so many hours in the day I can dedicate to writing and (hopefully) serving others with my words, are those hours best spent on Instagram?

I have a book coming out in March, 2023. I certainly can’t jump ship now, right before a book launch. (This is another blog post altogether, but I have so much empathy and compassion for the writers out there who are being repeatedly told they need to “build a platform” when that same platform does not value the art of slow writing or the practice of attentive reading. Writers are being pushed into a corner to create short, attention-seeking video clips in order to grow their readerships. Shouldn’t we be encouraging writers to … write? Call me stubborn. Call me naive. Everything about this strategy feels backwards to me.)

Long-term, I am starting to genuinely wonder—do I even belong in this space? If Instagram is primarily promoting video content, and I have no desire to make video content, what am I supposed to do? If Instagram is going to continue punishing static content, holding my own posts hostage in an invisible queue that never gets shown to anyone, why should I bother putting it there in the first place?

Where do I go from here? Where do we go from here?

I don’t know. But I’d love to know your thoughts.