The other day, I was talking to my friend about Instagram and what it means to share news these days. The conversation was sparked after a popular designer shared the news of her pregnancy online in what I thought was the most dramatic way possible, no shade to the party rejoicing (actually, maybe a tiny bit of shade, iswis).
Our talk flowed, as it often does whenever we’re in the zone, into privacy, ghosting and people who choose to live their lives off the internet. In my younger years, I had a show-and-tell personality. I posted on my Facebook wall weekly and my WhatsApp status popped constantly with all the frivolities I used to enjoy. I shared everything and anything. Heck, I even started a blog to reach a wider audience so I could share more of the goings-on in my life. I operated from a place of liberation and free will that the me of today is almost envious of.
When I say envious, it is for lack of a better word to describe my current stance which is neither full-on admiration nor a complete detachment from the person I once was. It’s more that I now carry the burden of self-awareness. I wish I didn’t do it all the time, but I don’t completely blame myself. The world I once identified with is no more and while I overthink that fact, I am very accepting of it.
What I don’t find okay, however, is how everything has become only observable through the lens of curation. I left Instagram in 2022 and returned at the end of 2025 to the quiet admiration of myself and my 500-ish followers. It was nice at first and then I realized I was no longer a fit for this giant social app that once told you who your friend has just started following (wild times, haha). Turned out when you spend enough time without something, you get used to its absence. Somehow in my three years of self-imposed exile, I had gotten used to a life without IG and in a way, I enjoyed the peace of mind that came with being offline.
More importantly, it was the agitating noise of curation that eventually pushed me over the edge. I get that life has evolved and there are literally people that currently make a living out of content creation, which I find extraordinary, by the way. It’s just the endless performance of it all that I find unbearable. I have started to refer to it as the pandemic of “too”. A world where everything exists only in the extremes: grapes becoming too sweet, strawberries too sour, TV too cringe and social media too curated. Nothing feels organic and there’s just too much thought going into posting something as random as your photos from a casual night out.
Some would argue that it’s simple Darwinian evolution theory and, as such, represents the principle of survival of the fittest; but I don’t think we were all born to become content creators and I wish more people would be accepting of this reality, however harsh it may seem. I suppose this is where I find my own middle ground. I am no longer the show-and-tell girl and I am far from being a social media ghost (especially because I be posting, just not for everyone lol). It’s challenging learning to exist on this ground alongside the pressure of maintaining visibility. Perhaps the cure to the pandemic of “too” is simply choosing a little less. The most amazing news doesn’t need a lens to mean something; it just needs you to be there to witness it. I hope we try to remember that things are still real even when they don’t have a million views.
Follow the channel.
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