Leaving Instagram
"Leaving Instagram"
I recently got stuck on that sentence while scrolling and became curious what would come next. The person speaking explained that we apparently have an Instagram problem now.
Instagram, she said, is no longer what it once was. Back in the day, you could post intuitively, from feeling, and somehow every blurry sunset reached thousands of people. People commented, liked, shared like they had just discovered a new species. Growth happened effortlessly. Virality floated through the air like pollen.
Now? Apparently everyone is suffering. Reach is limited. Everything feels exhausting. Nobody appreciates "valuable content" anymore. A small analysis followed about how you now have to pay for visibility. Which, to be fair, is not exactly investigative journalism at this point. Then came the dramatic pivot.
"We humans harm ourselves every single day!"
A revelation.
The explanation was that we keep feeding the very thing that traps us deeper in phone addiction and ultimately into our own unhappiness. The content that would supposedly help us — educational posts, grounding reflections, deep thoughts — gets ignored. Some of these words were written in CAPITAL LETTERS, because spiritual depth needs CAPITAL LETTERS, I assume.
The woman then explained that she could easily post something funny or superficial and her reach would explode overnight. She also claimed that humanity is becoming more sensitive, more energetic, more spiritually affected. And this, combined with fast reels, is poison for us. At the same time people only want quick consumption now. Nobody wants to think anymore. Nobody wants to change. Nobody wants to engage unless there's a giveaway involved.
She continued explaining that the deeper, more challenging, and more helpful a post is, the faster people scroll past it. But she, unlike the spiritually underdeveloped masses, would continue sharing her texts, her wisdom, her energy, her learnings, exactly as she feels called to do. Because her Instagram account is her personal diary.
The post continued for a while. At some point there was some obligatory disdain directed toward women in tiny bikinis and businesswomen working from beaches. A little hostility toward women who seem suspiciously relaxed near oceans.
Out of curiosity, I clicked on her profile afterward and was immediately hit by a tidal wave of "you create your own reality" New Age nonsense. The kind of content that tells you to raise your frequency with good-vibes-only, that everything you desire will become your reality (I wonder if she ever tried to manifest an apartment on the current Berlin housing market), that nobody is responsible for your happiness except yourself (I wonder what she has to say to structural racism that prevents you from getting a job), and so on and so forth.
I left fairly quickly.
And yet — somewhere underneath all of this — I think she does have a point.
Instagram has absolutely changed. Attention spans are collapsing in real time. Platforms reward immediacy, stimulation, simplification. Thoughtfulness often performs terribly because thoughtful things usually require something deeply offensive to the modern attention economy: patience.
But what made this one of the most unauthentic posts I've read in a long time was the contradiction at its center.
Because the post wasn't actually about depth. It was about disappointment.
Not disappointment that people are disconnected from themselves, or that public discourse often seems shallow. But disappointment that her version of depth was no longer being rewarded by the algorithm.
This is where a lot of spiritual or "conscious" content online becomes intellectually dishonest. It critiques the system while still desperately craving validation from it. Many people who position themselves as morally or spiritually above social media culture are, in reality, completely psychologically dependent on it. They've simply aestheticized the dependency. Instead of thirst traps, it's "healing." Instead of influencer branding, it's "sharing wisdom." And I've noticed that the algorithm only becomes spiritually corrupt once it stops distributing attention in your favor.
What's especially interesting is how often "depth" online simply means self-seriousness. Long captions. Slow music. Beige tones. Eye contact with the camera that suggests someone just returned from a private conversation with the universe. I have a feeling that actual depth rarely performs itself so aggressively. Doesn't it usually contain ambiguity, contradiction, humor, self-awareness? It doesn't constantly announce its own importance.
And the irony is that genuinely thoughtful people often understand something very basic: not everyone owes you their attention.
The algorithm is a bitch. We all know that. But still, people scrolling past your content is not evidence of collective moral and spiritual collapse. Sometimes people are tired. Sometimes people are overwhelmed. Sometimes your content simply isn't as groundbreaking as you think it is. A difficult truth, admittedly, especially in online spaces where everyone speaks as if they are delivering sacred transmissions from another dimension instead of recycled therapy language over ambient piano music.
What struck me most, though, was how much her argument resembled the way older generations talk about Gen Z. The same exhausted narrative. Young people are lazy. Nobody wants depth anymore. Nobody wants to work. Everyone is distracted and narcissistic and addicted to screens.
Meanwhile this post-pandemic generation is entering adulthood during housing crises, climate collapse, economic instability, burnout culture, endless political catastrophe and the complete erosion of work-life boundaries. Many are working more for less security than previous generations ever had to. Of course people are tired. Of course attention is fragmented. Human beings are not failing some spiritual test because they struggle to concentrate after living through permanent global overstimulation.
I post on Instagram too. I know exactly what it feels like to watch something you made carefully disappear into nothing. The platform is genuinely extractive and often absurd. But lady capital letters didn't really take her time to critique the platform and how big tech works and takes influence on all of us. Instead she critiqued the people using it — claiming people are shallow and uninterested in depth. In the depth she apparently provides. She did what New Age always does: take a systemic problem and blame the individual. That's a different thing entirely.
This is exactly why I find New Age culture so frustrating. It has a habit of taking structural conditions and translating them into personal energetic failure. Politics becomes mindset. Exhaustion becomes low vibration. Oppression becomes a manifestation issue. Your nervous system is no longer responding rationally to a collapsing world; apparently you just need to "protect your frequency" better.
New Age culture is often even dangerous. Not because mindfulness or spirituality are inherently bad, but because they are so often used to depoliticize reality. Everything becomes personal vibration instead of collective condition.
Ironically, the people constantly talking about "authenticity" online are often performing the most exhausting identity constructions of all. Entire personalities built around appearing evolved. Entire brands built around not being materialistic. Which is still branding, unfortunately. The diary that needs an audience. The wisdom that requires a reach. The depth that cannot survive without being seen.
She wanted us to witness her refusing to play the game.
If this resonated with you, moved you, or made you pause and reflect – consider this your cue. I’ve set up a virtual tip jar via Buy Me a Coffee. No monthly commitments, no strings, no memberships required.
Your sweet kindness helps keep the thoughts flowing, the energy exchange intact, and the glow of my inner goddess alive. It won’t fix capitalism, but it might buy me five minutes of joy (or at least a cortado).
Gracias. Thank you. Jërëjëf. Merci. Obrigada. Danke. Arigatō. Medaase. Grazie. Hvala. Tack. Asante. Shukran. Teşekkürler. Dziękuję.
