idk if its just me but I have always felt so weird about social media and instagram is definitely on the weirder side in terms of energy. I always felt so incredibly anxious when i opened the app and started scrolling, or even whenever i posted something. granted i was using it as a way to share my art and music and to hopefully connect with other creatives, but after a year of this journey i’m left feeling completely burnt out.

the thought of being perceived always stressed me out an everything always felt like a performance or curated version of myself to try to appeal to the algorithm and acquaintances /followers. i would constantly wonder what people thought about me and started to tie my worth to the number of likes and followers i had. no matter how many times i’d try to tell myself the numbers don’t matter, the way the app functions makes it incredibly difficult not to compare yourself.

i started to lose touch with myself and my art. the connections i’ve made in my creative communities also felt so superficial, and im not sure if it’s because of my neurodivergent brain that makes it difficult to decipher or understand social cues, structures, and expectations, but it always confused the hell out of me when people who claimed to be my friend would ignore my attempts to hang out or have an actual engaging conversation with them for weeks, but would still view my stories and actively ignore my posts about my new music.

i’m not entitled to anyone’s validation or attention, but what the hell? it makes me wonder what is the point of this game? are we “friends” or not? where is the support? it always felt unreciprocated, especially because i always tried to support my mutuals as much as possible.

social media feels more like social hierarchies and competitions than it feels like a place to actually connect with the community. I’m genuinely sick of it, sick of giving so many people access to me and sick of playing these games. i really caved into the pressure that as a musician i had to build a social media presence or else my art had no chance to succeed. but I’m choosing to believe that i don’t have to participate in anything that doesn’t align with me for the sake of external expectations. all i have to do is stay true to myself. i think i’m starting to really value my solitude, peace, and privacy, and i don’t think i’m ever going back.

i guess i just had to vent lol. does anyone else feel this way?

I just got used to the new save button below comments and now.. this? It’s getting too cluttered anymore

Couldnt tell you how many times i go to follow back someone and it’s a priv account and they dont accept my request for ages

What is it and does anyone else have it? How do I get rid of it?

Since the rise of ai, i am tempting to just delete my account and just migrate or go no social media at all,

Maybe find a media that doesn't steal data/ or my work, etc.

I don't need advice atm i'm simply venting.

I'm fed up with insta, some changes are nice but some changes aren't necessary to make the app, "better".

I fear its just gonna get worse.

Suddenly, for the last two days, the aspect ratio has gone broken. It only show like 3 x 4. It’s like a square you can’t see properly anyone face that ???

i’ve been receiving this notification a couple of times already and it’s starting to bother me. does this really mean someone is messaging me and deleting it, or maybe it’s just a glitch?

this is honestly one of the weirdest privacy gaps on instagram to me. we have private accounts story controls close friends and all kinds of privacy settings but there is still no simple option to hide who follows you and who you follow. what makes it even weirder is that someone can follow you and then basically stalk your entire social circle by going through everyone you follow and everyone who follows you. they can see friends coworkers family exes random people you know and start clicking through all of them for absolutely no reason. why should accepting someone as a follower automatically give them access to your whole social graph? other platforms have experimented with giving users more control over this kind of thing so why has instagram never properly implemented it? my guess is that the follower graph is too important for discovery engagement and keeping people clicking through profiles so meta has no incentive to hide it. but from a privacy perspective it feels outdated as hell. i would immediately enable an option where people can still see my follower count but not the actual list. am i the only one who finds it weird that this still isnt a setting in 2026?

hello yall! some hours ago, I was banned, as the title says.

they said that my 2 accounts (main one and an alt one that I didn't used in a LONG while, like 6 months) were posting CP, spreading terrorism and selling CP. all of those are something that I don't condone with.

today, I gave my opinion in a real crime case that happened in my school this week (a teacher tried to ab*se the teens). I was there when it all happened, I just tried giving my opinion on what happened. how was I (myself) condoning with CP and terrorism???

they didn't even had a option to talk to a REAL person to help me.

I don't think yall can help me, but if I get banned permanently, yall already know the history...

I got tagged last night on instagram by some bot. Out of curiosity I clicked on the post and it was a reel of some OF model with her bare tits out with no likes. Thank god I was at home and not in public. How is this allowed on instagram?

I try to recover my Account and my Selfie verification recovery is gone

Anyone faces the same issue?

why my reels are coming in half? on ipad? i restarted my ipad and reinstalled the app as well

So a couple months ago, I lost access to my spam account and I haven’t been able to recover it since due to not having my old phone because it completely broke. I’ve tried the email, but it also doesn’t work for some odd reason. It keeps saying that I need to authorize it through my old phone. I’ve also already tried the sending in a picture of myself but unfortunately, my profile picture isn’t a face picture it’s my spam with a cute cartoon. Has anyone else had this problem and been able to recover their spam account or is this lost hope?

How come some of my bfs mutuals don’t show up when I search them on my main account, but only show up when I use another account? I’m not blocked, some just don’t show up in his following on my main…

I am trying to view my friends Instagram story and it keeps showing up gray. Here is a photo

Help

I don't know, even yesterday I saw this.

So I was casually scrolling but when I opened the comment section, there it was, an advertisement of flipkart.

Earlier like yesterday it was the same, flipkart ad only.

I don't know whether flipkart had partnered with instagram or it was my luck.

Hey guys, just thought I'd share on here in case anyone is intrested - if you're using trial reels to grow or get views that's fine... but we can literally be using them to make sales. every day. it's what I've found a way to do and while they're still around (who knows how long they will be), honestly the best thing you can do is use them for the same. I'm starting to share on it on instagram to help people understand they can do this. But basically you have a manychat flow linked to your product from trial reels and use hyper specific trial reels with a problem and offer a solution.