An Ode to Instagram Stalking

Who are you, really? Are you like me?

If you know me, you know it takes about 3 seconds for me to whip out the camera and take a picture, or better yet, ask someone to take a picture of me. I’m a stickler for angles, for lighting, for posture, my perfectionist tendencies coming out full force. I am this way in part because I crave validation, and in part because when one sees only perfection, perfection becomes the only measurable goal.

I can admit that I have spent more hours than is advisable or healthy falling down a rabbit hole of someone else’s pictures. (Though of course, in this generation, those who haven’t done so are the outliers.) Sometimes I try to masquerade behind curiosity, other times observation, and other times I tell myself it is just enjoying good old fashioned storytelling, but the truth is I love to analyze people. Myself, my family, the random stranger who is talking way too loud on the metro about their love life. Luckily for me, we live in a culture of self-surveillance. Like a cat bringing a dead creature to the door, other people are doing the hard work for me. All I have to do is reap the rewards.

This is not an indictment of technology and all its ills. This is not to critique the way privacy is slowly vanishing and people may soon recognize it as a lost valuable commodity. This is not about how people feel too comfortable filming and taking pictures of strangers, or how it's unhealthy to see our own faces this much, or how nothing feels “real” anymore because sometimes all anyone in the room is doing is performing for the camera. This is about how great it feels to stalk someone’s Instagram.

Having a good, stalk-worthy Instagram takes effort. Not just the taking and editing and organization of photos, but the mental energy expended. To lay yourself out on the examination table before they bring out the scalpel, to leap the hurdle of embarrassment and self-consciousness it takes to hit post on a series of images, to brace for the sensation of being perceived. Maybe some people feel this way less than others, but we all feel this way a little. Why else would people drive themselves to literal insanity over social media? There’s hard evidence in the fact that 57% of Gen Z kids surveyed said if they had the opportunity to become an influencer they would take it, that there will be 6.05 billion social media users by 2028. But the thrill… oh, the thrill!

That’s why, in my warped, twisted, 21st century brain, it feels good, necessary even to have a perfect line up of photos ready to be viewed on command. You enjoy drugs? Try the high of the likes rolling in, the validation from peers, the satiation of that part of your brain (however small) that craves attention like no other. And if someone has done it enough, gone through this process again and again, it can be a form of time travel. Scroll down to see sepia, white borders, and single posts. Traverse through an era of snapchat filters and lowered exposure, to overly saturated images taken on a DSLR, to photo dumps and maybe even the occasional black square. We used to pore over photo albums, now we’ve simply moved to the digital space.

Can you figure out who someone is based on social media? No. But sometimes I think you can get pretty close. Take a look through someone's Instagram feed and you can see what matters to them–or what they want you to think matters to them. Do they like to read? Where do they vacation? Where do they go to school/where do they work what/where they doing on March 16th 2021? It’s so convenient, so easy, so fun to get lost in the maze, to keep watching.

Don’t look at me like that. You do it too. I know you do, not only because I’ve caught you in the act (who hasn’t made the fatal error, the dreaded like on a post from 2 years ago), but because you’ve downright told me. In conversation, across text messages, through facetime calls. We may say we like being anonymous, we don’t want to be watched, but we still hit post. We still look for that dopamine high. We still like and comment and judge and send.

And frankly, since we’re stuck with it, it's our right to enjoy social media. A generation that’s lonely, a cohort that fears that the best days are behind us, that we never got to experience them because we weren’t even born. To look at someone’s life, even a curated sanitized version, is to be let in on the fantasy of blue skies all the time. (Metaphorically, of course, if you’re the type who prefers a darker aesthetic). Even an Instagram that curates depression is still curating. We evolved as pack animals. When we stalk, in a crude, possibly counterproductive way, it's a search for connection.

Too bad it's the kind of connection that always keeps you at arms length.