I Am Not Your Influencer.

And you are not my follower.

This weekend I took a “social media detox,” something I gravely needed after the influx of people who’ve clicked the little “follow” button under the 150 characters that are meant to showcase the human behind the machine.

Recently, my Instagram community has grown to over 11k. And while I know that’s really not much in the scheme of things, it has overwhelmed me to my core. 

At the beginning of this year when I started my blog and Instagram, I did so with the sole purpose of making others feel less alone. I shared stories of my 15-year long journey with mental health disorders and therapy, as well as educational soundbites from my time as a counseling intern and mental health counseling graduate student. 

Writing has always been a way for me to process depressive feelings and relieve anxiety, and it had the two-fold effect of connecting me to other women who had similar stories.

I am becoming fully aware of the judgments I still carry about influencers or people with large followings on Instagram. 

I cringe even writing about this. 

Though I didn’t intend to amass a large social media community, I also didn’t not intend to. I was fully aware that it was a possibility, and part of me thought it might validate the work I was doing. 

When a few of my mental health TikToks went viral and my following count skyrocketed by 40k in almost a month, I noticed a quivering anxiety building in me.

I wanted people to feel less alone by sharing my story. And now that so many people were reading it, all I wanted to do was run and hide.

I spent the weekend teetering on the edge of a total breakdown. I witnessed my mind spiraling into such fear, that at one point I thought, “I should shut the whole thing down and stop everything I’m doing. Why are all these people even here? I have nothing to offer.”

I am so blatantly open and vulnerable on my social media. I talk about my mental health, my thoughts, my relationships, my failures, my fears, and my insecurities. I am comfortable with this level of transparency because it’s therapeutic for me to be completely exposed and still experience love and connection. Knowing I can be fully me, and be accepted, is utterly healing.

But as the number of people watching grew, I felt naked. 

No longer do I know the names of the people who watch me, nor their reasons for doing so. I used to know my online community intimately: we were small, we were friends offline, we were related. Now, thousands of strangers occupy the space with me, and my stories and truths are read by individuals I may never know the names of.

After several days of journaling (and a phone call with a trusted friend), I realized the anxiety I felt was not only my own insecurity but a common symptom of the social media system and the deeper, problematic functions of its framework.

Social media is a strange, fascinating, and sometimes terrifying place. I see it as a delicate interface that hinges on the vast opportunities for learning and connection, and the dangerous potential for furthering a capitalist and power-driven culture.

Instagram (and social media in general) has done wonders for our society in regards to free education, entrepreneurship, and connection. I am immensely grateful for a space to creatively express myself, connect with like-minded individuals, and both teach and learn concepts that are accessible and free.

And, it is an equally hazardous system that requires ferocious integrity and conscious consumption. Without care, moderation, and intentionality, our usage can catapult us down roads of comparison, anxiety, and perpetual not-enoughness.

Even the language Instagram has chosen for its users concerns me, and contributed to the total anxiety I felt over the weekend. 

I find it problematic that we are categorized as “followers” and “influencers,” and that the way we are discussed or referred to is reduced to “accounts” or “profiles.”

These words denounce our humanity, and create lines between “one who has power” and “one who follows.” “One who influences” and “one who is influenced.” I’ve tried to steer away from calling the humans who choose to follow my Instagram account “followers,” the same way I would hope they not to call me — the person and living human running the account — an “account.”

I am a real, breathing, living person with feelings and a life that is far more holistic than what is showcased on my Instagram account, and the folks who share the space with me are the same.

I try, to the best of my ability, to conceptualize the online community that chooses to cohabitate the same corner of the internet as me as a web, which stems and flows both outwards and inwards with a carefully, co-created fabric.

I may be the creator of the content in the community web, but I don’t claim to be any better or more powerful than the individuals who elect to weave it with me.

And, with numbers comes responsibility. I am aware of this too. 

If you are someone with a large social media community, I implore you to engage with them in ways that reflect their humanity. To remember your own humanness, and allow yourself to be just as much of a learner as you are a leader.

If you are someone who consumes content more than produces it, I invite you to remember the humans that live behind the accounts you engage with.

To use social media wisely, we have to keep each other accountable. We must check in on one another. We must lift each other up, call each other in, and demand rest and time away from our phones.

Instagram is not all there is. 

It is not where the learning and connection ends or begins: it is one thread of many, MANY threads of our lives, and we can absolutely use this thread thoughtfully while still tending to the rest of our rich and vibrant living webs.

I encourage you to take time OFF Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, and even the news. Get present in your life and see what happens. 

And when you do use these platforms, ask yourself what role you play in your social media webs. 

What labels are you using to describe yourself and the people you connect with? Have you forgotten that you are a human? That those you are connected to are people too? Have you allowed this to let you off the hook for your judgments or criticisms of them? How can you shift your awareness in this space so we can continue to benefit from the beautiful gifts social media has to offer, without forgetting the real, humanness that is happening behind the virtual representations we see in our phones?

To keep these spaces safe, informative, and collectively valuable, these are the questions I implore you to ask. They are the questions I asked myself this weekend, and continue to reflect on as I engage with Instagram responsibly and with integrity. Together, we can co-create online spaces that are full of opportunity, connection, and discovery.