The journey to removing all my Instagram posts
Photo by Miguel A Padrinan via Pexels
Summer is the season for all kinds of projects or improvements. Each year, decluttering is the first on the list. Top to bottom, day after day of sifting through drawers, closets, totes, under and behind furniture tossing what no longer serves. From there the focus shifted to digital clutter. Phone, iPad, laptop, and social media feeds.
Since first creating an Instagram account some fifteen years ago, the goal was promoting a new self published children’s book, events and reviews about it, and other doodles. As time went on, my content became more centered around my young son’s and life as a basketball mom. After discovering the writing platform Medium, I began sharing my blogs as well.
Engagement was admirable being a new account and getting a little push by the algorithm. However over time, without being consistent or having a real niche, engagement began to decrease along with the motivation to post.
Decluttering my page, restarting from scratch with a different strategy was a thought. But, why bother? The platform hasn’t seemed the same since Tik Tok blew up. So instead of decluttering, the best course of action would be to remove all 555 of my posts.
Going through my feed brought back memories. Basketball games, road trips, birthday/holiday celebrations, vacations, dining out; so many events I’d forgotten over the years. Instead of deleting, my youngest son suggested to archive my posts so they’re not gone forever.
Removing them felt like a death.
Rarely did I scroll my own timeline. All the likes, comments, and posts themselves told a story. They are part of me. Removing them felt like I was removing a part of myself. Was I grieving the fact that my following never took off? And most posts felt like they were getting lost in the ether? No one posts for little to hardly any engagement. Without it, feeling relevant or successful at this social media thing is really hard. Pointless almost.
After all, there was a time social media didn’t exist. Nor thousands of pictures and videos in camera rolls requiring paid storage, and somehow humans were just fine. We’re not meant to live in a real live Truman show. We’re meant to live and experience real things, people, nature.
One by one, I archived some posts while deleting others till the page was blank. The laughs, reflections while doing so didn’t perish. The memories are imbedded in me forever. What did perish was feeling the need to post and get attention.
And that is not only freeing, but priceless.