Donuts to Cats

The Instagram Test

"OMG bae, you're so gorgeous!"

"Seriously, can I just be you? 😍"

"Dang😍"

"So pretty!"

"Thanks guys! ILY!!! ❤️❤️❤️"

Nicole types her reply on her most recent post on Instagram. Another selfie. Her hair and makeup is "on point," and the filter she used compliments her tank top and the entire picture. Her smile is one that gets all the guys, as evidenced in the 207 likes she has so far.

"cooldancer_2004 wants to follow you."

"✔️ accept"

Tapping quickly onto her profile, Nicole senses something melancholy about her now 1.6k followers.

Do they all really care? Do they all really care about me? I've gotten a lot of followers through shoutouts and things. How many actually personally know me? If I stopped posting selfies, how many would unfollow?

With determination, Nicole puts her followers to a test. Do they follow for her looks, or who she really is?

---

Nicole proudly places her aced math test in her binder. The first subject of her Instagram test. At home, she takes it out, lays it on her bed, and snaps a picture of it. She checks for quality- it's not blurry, and you can distinctly see the "100%. Good job!" scrawled on the top by her teacher. Paired with the caption "So happy! 100% on my geometry test!", she presses POST, and then waits.

One second, another second.

Normally, at least two or three likes would've rolled in by now. Smiling with satisfaction, she goes to do her homework.

An hour later, Nicole checks back. 50 likes, and one comment- "Good job". She almost laughs out loud. By now, she'd normally have over 100 likes and quite a few raving comments.

Over the next few days, Nicole posts almost anything but selfies. Her dog, her cat, the potted plants she's growing, the amazing dinner she had Tuesday night. The amount of likes Nicole receives rapidly plummets until she's barely getting 40 likes. Her follower count also drops considerably. But, she couldn't be happier. Not only does she finally have the courage to post what's really meaningful to her, but she finds out who really cares about her and her life.

---

It's week 10 of the test, but Nicole doesn't really consider it a test anymore. It's just simply her new-and-improved Instagram feed. She only has about 250 followers, but she personally knows all of them, and she knows they care. She still posts a selfie now and then, but it's always with her friends or at an event.

Nicole's gotten past the superficial aspect of social media and found the nugget of gold- sharing meaningful snapshots of life with followers who would actually follow you through your ups and downs, goods and bads.

Not just followers, but friends.

--

Second installment of my assorted writings! This one I wrote at the beginning of my eighth grade year, when I'd had an Instagram account for about two years, and was getting increasingly irritated at people who posted nothing but selfies and yet had 10k followers or something ridiculous like that. So this is basically my rant about that subject, but in a nice little story intead of a big, all caps lock paragraph :)

~megamoo

ps: there are emojis at the beginning of the chapter, if you can't see them, don't worry, it's not that important.