You know the feeling. The shot of anxiety that courses through your whole body when you open up your Instagram app and something is wrong with your account.

You hold your breath when you check your status

and see the orange or red icons where it should be green checkmarks

your content “can’t be recommended to non-followers”

You have several posts flagged as violating community guidelines

You have to archive or delete the offensive post that you probably spent a good chunk of time and energy editing and putting it together or pouring your heart into the caption. Goodbye hard work. Goodbye art. Goodbye comments.

That’s a good day.

A bad day is when you open up your app and that dreaded window pops up with an exclamation in the triangle thingy that reads:

Your account is suspended.

FUCK.

If you create spicy content, you’ve probably been there.

You know that purgatory.

More on that later

~

 

I’m writing this because I think we need some guidebook on how to navigate IG and at the same time, I’m tired of not having no outlet to talk about my frustration with IG.

Because the first rule of Instagram is

YOU DON’T TALK ABOUT INSTAGRAM

as in you can’t talk shit about IG on IG.

Which leads me to the words you shouldn’t be using..

BANNED WORDS / BAD WORDS / DANGEROUS WORDS 

First off, don’t say you’re SHADOWBANNED, don’t say your friend’s ACCOUNT got SUSPENDED or DELETED or DISABLED. Meta doesn’t like it when you get meta about their shitty algorithm and impossible rules of engagement and their vague “community guidelines.”

Instead use safer words to describe deletion like “erase” or “cease to exist.”

Lately I’ve been using “deemed too hot for this platform” because I think (but am not sure) “hot” and “platform” are still safe.

I’ve seen some friends get creative and say “forever on the naughty step” or “yeeted” to talk about the deletion of their previous accounts

But it’s best to abide by the rule:

DON’T GET META ON META

because Meta will most likely squash you if you try to call them out on their ridiculous rules.

.

So that means we’re all playing this absurd game of trying to exist on a platform that we can’t talk about its bad behavior. We all know this is shitty and wrong but can’t talk about it because it has so much power over us. We have to pretend like everything’s okay. It’s like being in a very toxic and gaslighty relationship with someone or something that has control over your livelihood.

In other words, we’re all in digital feudalistic relationship with IG.

 

 

 

 

 

and the digital feudalistic that we all