Stop Sending Memes, Start Sending Flowers
in this economy
Someone said if your reflections of the year gone by are just endless criticisms and points for improvement, then you’re not doing it right. As arbitrary as the Gregorian calendar might be, this time of year always creates a flurry of sentimentality within me, a flurry that has been difficult to tame these past few days when spending time with people and especially when journalling in the morning (a habit that once came with great ease and excitement).
ICYMI, I’m not on Instagram anymore and I’ll probably stay away for the whole of 2024 (New Year’s res??). I’m curious about continuing to reduce the pace of my life and through that, ridding my brain of unnecessary fodder. I have this working theory about the correlation between posting on Instagram and some kind of untapped desire to connect with our parents (lol not in a Freudian way). We post because we want attention/validation, right? But from who? Instagram stories would be quaking at the knees, read: out of business or full of Facetime screenshots ft Mum and/or Dad if we all just called our parents on the regular*. There are many more layers to the theory but that’s not what this is about.
This also wasn’t supposed to be about being off Instagram, I was supposed to (will eventually) share an excerpt from the journal entry that I wrote the other day reflecting on the year. But first, back to Instagram. It’s almost comical to write about being off an app as if I’ve decried cult-member status or am the first person to ever go vegan, it’s not that deep, I’m just a February Aquarius. I still take pictures of stupid things (weird clouds, weird signs, unintentional innuendos etc.) and send them to my friends via WhatsApp/LINE as a sign of my love. Instagram popped into my head this morning as I wondered if ins and outs lists were going around this year. I love ins and outs lists, I love photo dumps, I love seeing people experience joy, however, I often remind myself that the performance of joy for an expectant audience is rarely a confirmation of the real thing.
This morning I woke to a string of selfies and photos — my own personal IG story so to speak — from my friend Chloe. The pictures were not only stunning but they served to further falsify one of the worries that incurred when I first decided to leave Instagram. The latent fear that connections would fade or that the absence of my icon in the Stories list would “Eternal Sunshine” me from the collective (lol acquaintances’) memory — how fruitless.
There’s something special about receiving photo updates straight from the source, feeling your smile widen to mirror that on your screen, thinking about the thought behind those buttons clicked as they opened the chat and swiped through their gallery. Three weeks ago, I received flowers in the mail from one of my best friends; stop sending memes, start sending flowers/letters/nudes/anything. While my mind could take in the beauty of the bouquet (and boy did they blossom), I kept stumbling over the magnitude of the thought behind the deed (is thoughtfulness a love language because it should be). Flowers aside, I find that since leaving Instagram, my interactions with people are imbued with so much more thought.
I recently made a new friend and after some light chat and promises to see each other again (we did!), we exchanged numbers. As I typed my number into her phone we joked about the fact that people don’t use the “add photo” function to add to caller ID. We then both took selfies (taking a selfie in front of a stranger is funny) to go along with our numbers and this is now a fun thing I’ve started doing whenever I get someone’s phone number, the thought (and funny of it all) really does count.
Phone numbers! Without Instagram, our guiding saviour, working my way into new friendships against the backdrop of WhatsApp is again a lot simpler and more intentional; my rules always being: don’t reach out if there’s no genuine desire to connect and the sooner you send the first voice note, the better. If you don’t already know about my love for voice notes see here. Again, being offline has helped to enrich my connections in unexpected ways; receiving strings of voice notes and mini vlogs from friends far away scratch an itch/warm my heart/fill me all the way in, and makes me delight in the fact that I didn’t consume this information through a story. What I’m getting at is that Instagram made interactions feel incredibly impersonal; droves of images like cold emails yearning for replies — mark as unread, delete, empty trash.
I recently sent a double-sided, heartfelt, handwritten letter to a friend that I adore. Writing letters to loved ones remains my favourite form of communication and affection. My heart began to crack after two weeks had passed and my letter hadn’t arrived less than 100 miles away. I thought about rewriting the letter but it wasn’t going to be the same; besides, I can only pour my heart out on the page once in a while. Again, I love the time and thought it takes to write a letter, I love that nowhere sells envelopes and it then becomes an always-forgotten side quest to buy a few, and I love that Royal Mail changed their stamp policy, and as a result, charged my friend to receive her letter. I’m kidding, I don’t love that but I do love that we solved the mystery of the missing mail.
I changed my mind, I won’t be sharing that journal excerpt anymore, instead, I’ll finish with a few recent photos — that if I were on Instagram, would be on my feed/story —arranged into a shoddy collage because that graphic design Skillshare class is yet to have kicked into my system.
listen to: Homage To A Friendship by The Zenmenn
(I wish that was playing gently in the back while you were reading this)
*where possible ofc