when I'm gone, do I not linger?

a love letter to my meme account

The existence of my meme Instagram was once a fact unknown to anyone, bar two girls I met once in line for the bathroom at a shitty dj night and my boyfriend who firmly believes I have never made a meme because memes are supposed to be funny (he’s wrong, the Merriam-Webster definition states they can be amusing or interesting). But regardless of what my ‘text over image’ posts could be classified as I adored creating them. I loved scrolling Pinterest and my camera roll for hours to find the perfect image to match with whatever dream, fear, desire or quote I’d furiously scribbled in my diary the night before. I loved deciphering said diary entry, editing only occasionally and always forgetting to correct the spelling mistakes. I loved the feeling of sending them out into the ether, unafraid of people thinking they were bad or wrong. With my name not attached I didn’t have to worry about some stranger I went to high school with perceiving it as an embarrassing attempt to become internet famous or a future employee judging my ramblings about the sex I just had. My Instagram was a perfect secret and it was fun.

Then people started following it. Only 2000 at its peak but the idea of that many people sitting in a room caring about what I had to say was hard to fathom. As much as my intentions for starting the page did not revolve around how many likes or shares I could receive the numbers quickly became what I craved. If a post ‘flopped’ if you will, I would immediately begin to wonder what it was I did wrong. And the wondering almost always lead to spiralling. Was my grammar bad? Were my ideas that day out of touch or unrelatable? Too basic or too weird? Should I have dropped out of high school? Should I have gone to uni and studied writing? Am I stupid? Why is it that I’ve equated my love of writing to other people caring about my words? The next day I’d make another post and when it was met with 100’s of likes these thoughts faded. Comments and messages from girls telling me how I had perfectly put their feelings into words or that my post brought them to tears would leave me smiling all day. While I lied to myself that I was still doing this for me not for external validation every time I lost a follower a little voice in the back of my head would whisper, “you’re an imposter, give up, what’s the point?” I was drowning in depression and a lack of purpose. Positive (and logically meaningless for the most part) online engagement was my only form of oxygen and it was dangerously inconsistent.

I’d love to say that coming to the decision to leave Instagram was easy for me. I’d love to say that I didn’t hesitate before clicking delete but I did. It wasn’t the impending lack of doom scrolling that made me nervous, it wasn’t even the idea that I might miss out on important life updates from my friends and family. It was @idielate4you. It was the reassurance that having the account on standby brought me. Tangible proof that I could make things that made people feel things and therefore my life wasn’t devoid of meaning. It was also the people, my mutals who I wouldn’t recognise if they walked past me on the street but who I knew through their most intimate thoughts and how they showed me kindness regardless of how heartbroken, vulgar, manic or hopeful I was being online. Thank you endlessly if you were one of them.

So I hesitated, but despite of how scared I might be of no longer having silly little memes (read: incredibly important, deep and meaningful art) to hide behind and garner a weekly ego boost from, for the sake of my wellbeing and my morals I know I’ve made the right choice in taking a step back.

This is not goodbye. This is the beginning of a new chapter and I’m very happy to be here.

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