I’m going to be completely honest with you: this podcast is basically a rant about how rubbish social media has become. I had a moment last week of pure, unfiltered rage about how we are expected to jump through technological hoops, and so I started taking action: I threw away my google dot (well, I put it in a drawer), I cancelled my youtube account, and I started thinking about what I use my phone for that I can replace with analogue versions (torch, watch, map). If you aren’t in the mood for fury, I completely understand if you skip this one - I’ll do a more thought-out, sensible podcast at some point about how The Algorithm conflicts with the Made At Home Ethos (actually Keith said, unironically, why don’t you make a quilt about it, and I’m going to!), but this is not that podcast. This is very much the beginning of the conversation. I promise I’m in a much better mood now, and I’ve been doing lots of excellent creative things after my Damascene Revelation! So to put this into context for you, I’ve had an Instagram account, which I’ve never really used, for years. Sometime last year, I thought I would start posting on it, because I have family/ friends who are on Instagram, and because I thought it would be a kind of neutral shop window for people to contact me if they needed to (I mean honestly you can see where this is going). So I set myself up with a professional account (this is free, you just turn it on in your profile) and off I went. And this was my mistake. This is where it drove me mad. Because what I didn’t realise was, if you have a professional account, you are inundated with posts exhorting you to get likes/ followers/ go viral. Instagram tells you you should analyse what you have posted last week and see what was most successful, and plan your posting for next week. A number of brainless, cringey template videos are suggested to you by various people. You see influencers posting variations of the same brainless cringey video time and time again. You die a little inside. Now let me stress: this is not at all a criticism of influencers: I couldn’t be an influencer (I don’t mean that in a sneery way, I mean I straightforwardly haven’t got what it takes), it’s a massive amount of work, and I also don’t imagine they’re under the illusion that they’re creating great art. It’s basically a marketing job with people criticising you all the time, no guaranteed wage, no sick pay, and no pension. There are people who have been enormously successful on Instagram and made money, and I enjoy their posts: to these people I say wholeheartedly, well done, you have done exceptionally well in a difficult system and I admire and applaud you. However, many of the people posting on Instagram are not successful. They are basically selling their soul for a tiny bit of money for a Temu promotion or some Amazon affiliate link nonsense, and we are all losing - or at least dimming the shine of - a tiny bit of our humanity in the process. I don’t think social media per se - using the internet to contact people and share knowledge - is pointless. In fact I can tell you that, as someone with a number of quite obscure hobbies, being able to access people with fairly arcane knowledge over the internet, who have been willing to share their information, process, inspiration etc through message boards, facebook and blogs has been a game changer. I wouldn’t be able to do half the things I do without it. I remember the 90s: it wasn’t better. Also I’ve met some lovely people on the internet who are now friends, I’ve been able to keep in touch with people I’ve moved away from, and felt involved in the lives of people I don’t see on a day to day basis. I think it has the potential to be wonderful. I still think it can be wonderful if we’re selective (basically, if we go back to pre - 2008 or so: message boards, computer set up in the corner of the living room, talk to people in real life, that kind of thing). But bloody hell. Instagram. Dance, monkey, dance! Do a variation of this trending video with this trending audio! Put out a political statement where you handwringingly condemn someone with exactly the same type of account as you but crucially with a few more followers for not putting out the exact same political statement and then go and do absolutely f**k all yourself to make real life better! Make more money for META! Don’t ask what you’re getting out of it! Don’t ask where your payment is! Just don’t bloody ask! You see, I really am angry. It just sums up everything for me about the enshitification of the internet. I’m sure there are people reading this who are thinking, no, she’s wrong, my experience of Instagram is lovely: and it may be: but I think it was probably lovely 10 years ago when it was about pictures, and when people were just posting a slightly nicer view of their everyday lives. If I could spend 10 minutes occasionally scrolling down a feed and looking at peoples’ cats, cups of tea and their knitting projects I’d probably like it too. I know we’ve done a deal with the devil for access to social media: we’re the product, and the price of being able to scroll through what our friends are doing is all the other rubbish that comes with it. But for me - and this is like the expensive Chesterfield coffee from a few weeks ago! - it’s just tipped the balance now. The game is no longer worth the candle. So I’m here with my delicious self-made coffee in a handmade coffee cup, working out how I can do the internet-equivalent without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Get your other monkeys to dance, META, you won’t be getting me. (Although, I’m a massive hypocrite here. I post a daily diary thing on Instagram Stories. No-one looks at it apart from mum, occasionally, and I enjoy it: but maybe that should be the first to go.) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit susiehalksworth.substack.com
