Anything trivial that tries to convince me I can't live without it, is something I should probably try live without.

This is not a blog post about whether or not you should leave Instagram. I do not believe that what applies to me applies to everyone when it comes to social media. This is just a blog post explaining why I am deleting my Instagram account, because some people have asked me and my answer is a bit long…
So let’s get right to it:

1) Too much pressure.

A year ago, back when I was regularly active on Instagram, it felt like there was a constant weight on me to produce for it. There was a voice in the back of my head reminding me to post often and telling me that I better create professional looking stuff. No messy, "bad" drawings allowed!
Well, obviously I mostly ignored that voice, but that didn’t make it go away. I love making a mess and believe that we should all create as much mess in our sketchbooks as possible. There should be no fear! So that belief was constantly wrestling with the voice and it was tiring.
And there was also the problem of pride. When I did draw something I thought was good, then there was the temptation to “share” it - though I think a more accurate term would be “show it off” or “seek praise.” And if it didn’t get as many little hearts or comments as I hoped, then I would suddenly find a hundred things to criticise about it. And thus the worth of my work became dependant on the judgements of others.
Yucky.

The kind of photo I feel inclined to take for Instagram, only for it to get a disappointing lack of attention.

2) Too few real connections.

I, too, remember when Instagram was lovely. It used to be a place to connect with artists and illustrators and do fun challenges. But it has chaaanged, as I’m sure you’ve heard. Maybe if I only joined Instagram in 2024, I wouldn’t be so disheartened because I wouldn't know what I was missing. But Instagram isn't giving me what it used to, and now I know what I want: real conversation with real people.

Since my Instagram sabbatical in November last year I’ve posted very irregularly, and - unsurprisingly - it’s felt like I'm working harder only for it to disappear into a void. I think many people have complained about this, and I’m sure you’ve heard the word “algorithm” far too often, so I’m not going to go on about that.
But Algorithm aside, I’ve found that Instagram doesn’t encourage conversation. Maybe this is my own misunderstanding of Insta-etiquette…

If someone comments “love this” on my post, am I allowed to ask them what they like about the post, or does that sound like I’m looking for compliments?
If I comment on someone’s post and they reply, am I supposed to close the conversation? I don’t feel like I’m allowed to take it deeper or further because I will be taking up their valuable time.
Is it rude to reply to other people's comments on someone else’s post?
And does everyone feel the pressure of a “give-to-get” mentality? So if I get a follow, I’m supposed to give a follow; if I get a comment I’m supposed to comment on their posts too. It feels like “friendship is a transaction, a business of flip reciprocity.”*

This is the problem, I feel like there are rules of etiquette that I don’t know so I err on the side of not-annoying-people. And, therefore, I don’t make many connections on Instagram and it’s probably my own fault.

And, since I'm feeling like ranting a bit, another thing that bugs me is the vapidity of “likes.” They don’t mean anything. They should feel nice to receive, but - let’s be honest - they are the least amount of effort we could possibly put into encouraging someone. Instagram even made it easier: “just double-tap the photo: no-one has time to waste trying to tap the tiny heart.” It’s true, there’s no time to stop and encourage people, not if we want to keep scrolling.

3) The scrolling trap:

I’m sure you saw that one coming. The trap of endless scrolling is not a big problem for me because I’m literally incapable of scrolling for long: I get motion-sick and slightly nauseous. But even before the physical symptoms start, I get overwhelmed and disheartened. They’re the emotional symptoms of too much comparison.
I think that scrolling the Instagram feed is the visual equivalent of eating junk food - not that the images themselves are junk! (The people I follow create beautiful things - hence the comparison-pains and impostor-syndrome.) But, rather, we’re flying by so fast that the images become empty calories. Maybe a better metaphor would be that we’re running past a long buffet where we don’t want to miss seeing any of the delicious food, but we’re not stopping to load anything onto our plates. There’s the same danger with Pinterest - so much great content to save for later, so many sparks of inspiration, but we’re on to the next picture before our imagination has time to digest them. How many great ideas are lost because we’re feasting with our eyes but not stopping to fill our stomachs?

We’re spending our time flipping through a magazine but never stopping to read a great novel.

(I’m writing another blog-post about something I did to “deep-read” on Pinterest, and how incredibly helpful it was… I’ll link to it here once it’s published.)

But that’s how Instagram and other social media sites are made. The bosses don’t want to let anyone get away. They want us to keep scrolling. Instagram would be a helpful tool for me if it drew people to my website or newsletter, but that would work against them. Instead, they make it as difficult as possible to get distracted by other websites.

Tasha has written an incredibly helpful post about how to market your work without Instagram. It's generously jam-packed with lists, links, and useful information.

And now for my last reason:

4) Moving pictures!

1) Adverts…

This is what chased me from Facebook ten years ago.
There were two reasons I left Facebook: I had a baby, so I didn't want to be posting photos of her on a public platform, and there were suddenly tons of adverts. I hate adverts. I am a rebel. When I see attempts at getting me to do something, I am instantly repelled. And that’s what ads are. They shout: “You need this.” “Buy this.” “Your life would be better with this.” And my rebellious heart cries, “Don’t tell me what to do!”
So it was easy to leave Facebook. I told all my friends to email or WhatsApp me, which I could do because they were my real-life friends too...
With Instagram it's different. Most of the people I'll be abandoning to Instagram are people I've never met in real life. (In fact, I don't follow many real-life friends because they're not on Instagram!)

2) …and reels.

This might have something to do with my motion-sickness I mentioned earlier, or it’s because I’m easily over-stimulated - or both - but I can’t stand seeing videos playing automatically in my feed. I’m grateful that Pinterest and Substack have a option to turn off auto-play on videos, which I immediately did. It’s utter chaos on Pinterest with horrible moving adverts at every scroll of the page. It might be slightly less chaotic on Instagram, where you thankfully only see one and a half things at a time, but I find myself scrolling ever faster because I’m trying to skip past the reels, adverts and suggested posts. All of which combines to make me more motion-sick, frustrated with being told what to do, and feeling like I haven’t been able to stop and enjoy a single picture from a person I’m actually following.

I have the feeling that Instagram is created and curated for people who are just not like me…
When the bosses think of their target market they must write down: “people who are attracted to moving images, who want to go with the flow, are susceptible to peer pressure and easily swayed by advertising, who want to follow trends and who love clutter.”
And not: “rebels who hate being told what to do, who go against the flow and hate trends, who get easily motion-sick and over-stimulated, and who want to keep life simple, calm and clutter-free.”

It's scary how well-catered Instagram's adverts are; they're either tempting art courses or beautiful books.

But do I really want to leave?

After all this you might be wondering why I didn’t delete my account years ago, and why I’m going on and on instead of just doing it already.
Well, there is a down-side to leaving Instagram, even for me. There’s a reason I stuck with it even after most people whose photos I wanted to see were overwhelmed by ads, reels and suggested posts. And that reason is simply that I will miss you!
There are two kinds of people I will miss:

Those with whom I’ve connected on Instagram: the people with whom I feel I am allowed to have genuine conversations. I’ve mostly been able to ask these people to join my newsletter or give me their email addresses, but I’m worried there are some who will fall through the cracks. Some of them won’t see my daily posts this week yelling to everyone that I’m leaving. And I may have temporarily forgotten who they are and will remember when it’s too late.
And those artists and illustrators who are well-known and have a large following with whom I’d like to keep up, but they don't have newsletters and aren't on Substack. And they probably don't want to give me their email addresses or phone numbers for some reason. And they'll forget me when I'm gone, if they ever noticed me in the first place.

Sometimes it feels to me like all my favourite creative people are at the Instagram party and if I leave, I’ll never get another chance to chat to them.

This reminds me of what I wrote in a post last year before my Insta-sabbatical:

“I think that, as is typical for me in my introverted way, I feel towards Instagram the way I feel about a party that’s been going on too long: I’m getting tired, everyone else seems to be having more fun than I am, it’s becoming a struggle to keep my mask on and have coherent conversations, and I just want to go home and go to bed.
So, although I doubt anyone will notice that I’ve slipped out of the party, I thought I’d leave a little note behind, so as not to be rude.”

Missing people really is my only hinderance. But people have asked me: "how will you market your work without social media?"

Marketing is not a hinderance.

I’m a bit puzzled by that question, but I think they must mean "how can you market your work for free without social media?" Or: “how else can you get your work in front of hundreds of people who wouldn’t otherwise stumble upon your website?”

Well, I don’t think I ever used Instagram as a marketing platform, mainly because I just follow fellow artists and most of my followers are fellow artists. It’s not really fair to expect people in the same boat to pay for my work. We’d end up being a boat full of artists all sharing our money around and never interacting with “normal” human beings (who I assume are swimming around in the ocean in this metaphor).
Maybe there’s a way to use Instagram for marketing to non-artists, but I never tried it, so I won’t miss it.

But the wonderful thing about not being on Instagram is that I can spend my time in real life instead, sending newsletters, sending physical mail, advertising locally, and getting out into my own community where I can get to know people face-to-face. And I’m being literal here, because I stare at their faces while I draw their portraits, and therefore I often recognise people on the streets as people I have drawn.
Marketing in real life is probably more important for me than for other illustrators. I need to be local so that local people can hire me for local parties and markets and so on. There’s a whole world of people, even people in my own neighbourhood, who are not on Instagram (and even if they are and they’re following me, they’re probably not seeing my posts), and I am missing out on connecting with them because I’m expending my energy on social media.

Instagram is not for everyone.

Did you know that the vast majority of people on earth are not on Instagram?
Of course you did. It’s obvious. But when we’re immersed in the world of social media, it doesn’t feel obvious. It feels like everyone important is there. But they’re not all there, and those who are, are not only there.
Maybe I should change the heading to:

Instagram is for very few.

And maybe it’s not for you either.
As I said at the beginning of this long post, I'm not encouraging everyone to leave instagram, but here’s a little quiz to check if maybe it’s something you should consider:

do you complain about instagram to your friends?
do you complain about Instagram on your Instagram posts?
do you complain about Instagram anywhere, ever?
have you created a social media account somewhere else, hoping that it will be more like Instagram used to be?
have you told your followers on Instagram that they should follow you over there?
have you announced on Instagram that you have an account over there because you don’t want Instagram to steal your photos for A.I?
do you get a yucky feeling after spending time on Instagram?
do you get a yucky feeling when you think about Instagram?
do you feel like you get caught in a scrolling trap on Instagram?
do you think that the negatives outweigh the positives?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then why not leave Instagram altogether, rather than hanging on and letting it affect you so negatively?
I'm afraid that Instagram is unlikely to change for the better, so you could either delete your account, or embrace it as it is - love it with all its faults - rather than make the place more negative for other people.
Or maybe you expend a lot of your energy trying to make it a lovely place for others, but you’re getting very little in return? Then - you might be surprised at this - I would encourage you to carry on. Stay on Instagram and continue to sacrifice your own happiness for that of others. Because the world really does need more people who do that.

illustrated bee flying with envelope mail digital drawing — Perhaps my messenger bee is the answer to everything.

Did you read all of that?! I'm highly impressed. You must be a fan of long rambles.

This is just a little postscript to let you know that there is still a way to see photos of what I'm up to and peek into my sketchbooks even though I've left Instagram: if you subscribe to my newsletter, I usually share a few photos there, and if you join The Scribble Club, every month I share a round-up of Photos I Would Have Posted on Instagram. (Though I wish I could think of a better title for it…)

* A quote from Eric Felten in his book Loyalty: The Vexing Virtue.

Why I am leaving Instagram