Insta – it’s, like, a global disaster
WAIT. What? Oh. My. God. Like. CRISIS !!!!!!
That’s what social media influencers said when they heard Instagram is removing the number of likes from posts.
After all, what is the point of social media if there’s no numerical proof about how much more popular you are than all the other chicks with big boobs in a bikini on the beach?
In other words: if you post a photo and no one likes it, it doesn’t really exist.
In case you’re a cardie-and-cuppa kind of person who thinks Instagram is a tiny unit of measurement and an influencer is something you catch in winter, get yourself sitting comfortably and I’ll explain.
Instagram influencers are a select group of mostly young, good-looking people who have turned their social media accounts into a full-time job.
It’s a world in which a delusional and unjustified entitlement reigns supreme. Influencers don’t work, they select a handful of contorted poses, hold a product and gaze dreamily into the middle distance. For this they may be paid many thousands of dollars.
In an ideal world, they quit their jobs and travel the world continuously, staying in luxury resorts in return for picture-perfect posts delivered directly to their 100,000 plus followers.
It’s not a freebie, it’s a collaboration. Or, as the influencers, call it, a co-lab.
In reality, most are uni students who spend their days bombarding restaurants for meals in return for a few badly-lit posts sent to their 300 followers.
Not all influencers are coping well with the removal of likes.
One is Mikaela Testa, a self-proclaimed influencer who is upset at Instagram for blocking her fans’ ability to understand how numerically popular she is.
She was really distressed and only just had time to put on a full face of makeup, a tight red outfit, buff her long fake nails and choose the right background (fresh flowers, china vases, marble-top table) before she let herself get prettily upset for the benefit of her Insta followers. She posted a video showing her crying and saying: “If you think this is okay, you can f--off, it’s actually a sad day for those who have Instagram as a job.”
Her job seems to involve wearing bikinis, posing on the edge of pools and writing captions while intoxicated such as “the quality of all these pics are trash bc we were all drunk asf xx” and “Sunday seshin”. (session?)
Crying while not smearing your makeup is a real job. Just ask Mikaela.
Mikaela may have really been crying over the new “likes policy” or the fact that her breasts appear to have been blown up with a bicycle pump and she can’t use her phone thanks to her new 10cm acrylic nails
After two long rambling videos, Mikaela concluded she needed a break from social media. The “break” lasted exactly 24 hours before she was back.
Another woman struggling with the change is Jem Wolfie, a Perth fitness and food influencer. She’s got 2.7 million followers who seem to like photos taken from behind of her bending over, showing off her Lycra-clad arse to the world.
She was one of the more honest about the loss of likes.
“It’s demotivating for me,” she said.
Well, it’s demotivating for me to discover that a post of Wolfie wearing Lycra and stretching on the grass with her bum in the air got 800,000 views.
The change is a reflection of the way Instagram has lost its soul — if it ever had one.
Remember people posting photos of ripped topless men looking sorrowful as a tribute to the Malibu bushfires which led to thousands losing their homes?
Remember model Kendall Jenner, who promised her fans a “raw and moving” personal announcement on Insta, that turned out to be an ad for acne cream?
It’s no wonder the platform has a billion active users but a picture of an egg holds the record for the most Instagram likes. Yes, really.
But there’s an upside to the new policy. It will now be harder for influencers to win friends and influence others. They might just have to go out and get a real job like the rest of us.
They’ll have to stop tramping in sunflower fields, clogging up cliffs and beaches and wrecking heritage sites with their posing and preening.
And maybe, just maybe, they’ll stop bending over in Lycra for the gratification of their million-plus followers. Susie O’Brien is a Herald Sun columnist.