My Quitting Instagram Manifesto

Seven years ago I posted on my old blog about leaving Facebook. Facebook had owned Instagram for two years at that point, but I took a leap out of the fire and into the frying pan- I kept scratching the social media itch on Instagram as I finished college, enjoyed post-college life, got married, and had my first child.

Well, Instagram is going now.

If you’re following my Instagram pages, then you’ll see a trickle of this “manifesto” out over the next several weeks. It’s my goodbye letter to the platform, and my own little game with the way Instagram displays content. Rather than linking to this post (which might be reasonable) I decided to handwrite, photograph, and break the letter up in square snippets that would take up the full width and height of my Instagram pages. I’ll leave them up for now. It will likely be annoying while it happens and then quickly forgotten about, and I’m hoping that anyone who actually wants to keep seeing images and writing from me will have followed my newsletter by then.

Which, by the way, if you came to this post from the newsletter link, welcome! If you’d like to sign up for the newsletter, click here!

I can’t keep a secret well for long, so I’m going to copy the body of the goodbye letter below (partially for legibility) and say a bit about it. Below is an image of the letter handwritten on two hand-ruled 13 x 19” sheets of paper, which was a pain.

GOODBYE TO INSTAGRAM

If you’ve been reading this in real time as I’ve been posting, welcome to the end. If you’re reading this long after I’ve finished, welcome to the beginning. And, sorry about my handwriting, but it felt important to leave a note on the table on the way out to let you know where I’ve gone.

This will likely zoom by your feed. I’m guessing the algorithm sees no reason to spend much time with a strange, sanctimonious note (from someone with only a few hundred followers, no less). There’s loads more visually interesting, sensational things to see, so the algorithm will continue to drag your eyes along with as little friction as a thumb over glass. I’m not mad, but if you’re reading this, let’s think for a bit about what these platforms do to us. If you’re not reading- I don’t blame you. I doubt I would read this from someone else.

Almost everything I did in photography was at some point mediated by a Meta (née Facebook) product. My earliest photoshoots landed on Facebook within a day of shooting. I field-tested my college work on Instagram. I got work through both platforms. Ultimately, my desires to explore and share were mediated, reinforced, and amplified through these platforms. The desire and compulsion to make were feuled [sic] by ever like and heart.

I’m surely not unique in any way. Facebook, Instagram, Meta got rich off this desire in people- the desire to see and be seen. Meta got so rich it decided to try to remake the world in its image, bringing people experientially closer to the fantastical projections of themselves and others.

But life does not consist of the the consumption and dissolving of the self in facsimile images. It consists of knowing and being known by actual people. So, I quit. I’m leaving Instagram, but I’m leaving this note.

This may seem like a coy or hypocritical compromise, especially as I’m about to promote what comes next. This is not an anti-social or judgmental gesture of thumbing my nose at those still on Instagram. I’m merely trying to find what platform best fulfills the desires I have to connect to others and share my work of words and photographs.

I’m not pure pragmatist, but Instagram just ain’t working. I have no intention of trying to ride this ship into the Metaverse sunset. I’m not going to tell you what to do, but I can promise the world out there is better than whatever Zuck’ is selling. I quit. I’m no longer going to pour myself into this platform.

What comes next? My intentions are not to unplug or disengage. I’m just looking for new methods. So far, this is what I’ve come up with:

First, I’m starting a newsletter. It will be sent out a few times a month and contain photos and words that are not found anywhere else. It will cost me money, yet it will be Free.

Second, I’m going to start blogging more. I stopped for many years, but I feel that this more formal output of images and words is important, even if it will take some time to find my voice again.

Finally, once per diem will move to Flickr and my website. It haas been a fulfilling practice, and I want to continue. So, if you want to keep seeing my photos every day, you’ll have to go there. Sorry it’ll be a bit harder. This was the hardest thing to convince myself to take off of Instagram.

All these things are going to cost me more time and a bit of money. I have no immediate plans to monetize these things, but like I said, they will always be free. I would love for my newsletter and blog to grow. I hope to sell prints and books. There is in this a desire to better connect to a meaningful audience, but at the same time, I do hope to see this work grow and support to come out of it. It would be much easier to swim with the current and develop a base of patronage on Instagram, but I’m just tired of it, Instagram is awful. It’s why I’m leaving. People are not awful, just Instagram. I’m just hoping there are better ways to connect and share with people.

And, look, I’m not such a Luddite or so stupid to think that the most virtuous or safe technology was from 20 years ago. I don’t think using Instagram is morally wrong and I’m not leaving in disgust over what I see on here. The only reason I’m writing and posting this like I am, ironically, is because I want you to see it. I want the people that want to see my photos, read my writing, and want to hear from me to have that access, and that’s why I’ve started a newsletter. I just need to try something else than Instagram, because the tool itself is flawed. Technology & media are not transparent.

It would be far less work to continue to cast my content onto the Meta sea, content with some likes, continuing to do as I’ve done. Yet, so many photographers I’ve known have all wondered “surely, there must be something better than this.” They call instagram a necessary evil. Yet, if you take away “necessary”, it’s just evil. So, I’m going to try something else.

I have loved sharing photos on Instagram. On 1nce per diem, I rediscovered the joy of spontaneous, daily image make, and I’ve loved hearing from people what something really clicks for them. I have gotten paid for image-maaking and hired off of seitz.photo- that is hard to give up. Most of my college career aand early marriage are on just.been.busy. These platforms have been an outlet for me, but it’s time to stop. Everything in this world must end.

So, now you’re at the end of this tedious goodbye note to I.G. Or, of course, maybe it’s the beginning? Time only goes in on direction, but who knows how this’ll be seen in the upside-down Metaverse. I do earnestly hope you’ll join me for what comes next as I write, photograph, and share. Thank you, Instagram, for eight decent years. If I know you and you care to see what comes next, here’s to whatever the future holds.

For one last time, to see what comes next, check the link in bio. :)

Nick Seitz

And, I’m out

So that’s that.

I recently saw a video by Destin Sandlin (aka Smarter Every Day) about YouTube and voice. You can watch it here, and I think it perfectly encapsulates the issues that I was experiencing on Instagram. The conclusion he reaches is not quitting YouTube, but being cognizant of how different platforms prompt and modify our voice as we anticipate how others will receive what we say. When you become a celebrity from content creation, the problem becomes even larger. Another one of my favorite YouTubers, William Osman, recently quit (or, at least, is taking an indefinite hiatus) from YouTube because the joy of making videos had been sucked out and twisted by the nagging minority of voices which can only criticize and tear down.

Now, I’m by no means well known. I had three Instagram accounts, and if you added the followers together you wouldn’t crack four digits. I never felt any sort of pressure to create a certain kind of content, or felt judged for the content I put out there. There was one exception, though. My professional Instagram page, where I tried to be an official-looking artist / professional photographer-guy was somewhere I tried to periodically put out photos with some thoughts. It was terrible. Even focusing for just a few weeks on trying to grow and audience felt like punching myself in the face and throwing photos and words that I had worked hard to make into a stampede of strangers. I got messages and comments from bots that must have trawled the hashtags with millions of uses that I was slapping onto my work. I guess they know how to smell desperation on the internet.

Like I mentioned in the note, I’ve gotten work off of Instagram before. I’ve licensed photos I took to large companies and gotten real money for them. There is a pragmatic case to be made for Instagram, and I don’t begrudge anyone the success they may experience on the platform. I just think there must be another way to do this, even if it’s only just for me. Because I was experiencing what Destin was talking about in the first video above- I was losing my voice, trying to water things down and slap a million hashtags on it in order to see what might attract some more followers and maybe even some business. If I was having that much trouble with a few hundred followers I already more or less knew, God forbid I ever gained some success and recognition beyond my immediate sphere.

A blog may not be any better, but to me, it’s a more relaxed space to think, write, and post pictures and images. I am hoping it’ll be a fruitful endeavor for me, and an edifying thing for other people to read- but who knows! It’s a little something old to try new.