First off: I like Instagram. It's in my Core Four.* Initially (April 7, 2012), I thought Instagram was stupid. I'm not saying it's NOT stupid now, but I enjoy it. One of my first posts was a picture of my friend Hayley and I bleaching our mustaches. That is how little I cared about my Instagram persona. I'm still not particularly invested about my Instapersona, but I enjoy it. I get to see photos of my friends, live vicariously through photos of celebrities doing generally normal things, and when I post a picture it's another thing that gives me validation through notifications. You know, blah blah blah Millennial stuff.
However, there's a dark strange and seedy world of Instagram that I only dare observe and only very vaguely understand... TEENS. There are the most ORDINARY teenagers ever with 214K Instagram followers that pop up on the Popular page. I just have so many questions. How did they get so many followers? These kids do nothing. Sure, they're teenagers; they go to school and basements and shit, but they don't sing or act. They just post a dozen selfies during the course of the day. The comments on their photos are a mix of "I hate you" and "ur gorgeous I LUUUV u." Why do they hate them?? Why do they love them??
One such teen was recently featured on True Life: I'm an Internet Celebrity. He was the most regular teenage boy I've ever seen. He could literally be any boy at any high school in any state. What is this phenomenon? I'm actually toning down my reaction to this whole thing because a very small part of me is afraid of these teens finding this blog and cyber-bullying me. I'm a grown woman (Beyoncé shout out) and I don't want to incur the wrath of teenagers on the Internet.
I've never felt older than when I go on the Instagram popular page.
*Core Four is a term I just made up to describe the social media/apps I immediately check upon waking up and pretty continuously throughout the day. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat. Tumblr is a close 5th that will probably overtake Snapchat pretty soon. I bet a tech start-up in DUMBO is going to steal my definition of "Core Four."