Summer 2023 UPDATE:
Dear Reader,
A decade after we first introduced the world to the satirical concept known as #instacurity — an excessive concern with one’s social media presence, influence, and/or likability — the evidence was clear — what was once a spoof ‘epidemic’ had become an actual illness plaguing society.
Did people know how to do anything without taking a photo of it?
Did people know how to make a friend without checking who they followed/who followed back?
Did people know how to do things just because they wanted to…and not because it’d be “good for the ‘gram?”
Did people know how to just…live?
In the decade following the rise of social media…mental health issues and suicides were also on the rise.
So people weren’t just not living…
They were actually dying.
The numbers don’t lie.
And perhaps it was this same preoccupation with ‘numbers’ that was to blame in the first place — followers, ‘like’ count, the ‘ratio’ – each number publicly displayed suggested a certain amount of status or worth — as if it was the digital equivalent of your bank account, on display for all too see and judge (problem? People could spend money to ‘alter’ these numbers — so I guess, in some ways, the numbers do lie.)
Professional opportunities not given based on talent, but follower count, because marketing people don’t want to do their job, and talent scouts think social media following ensures the next Bieber (translation? Dollar signs.)
Early on in the COVID pandemic, an industry rep (a literary rep, no less), told her client:
“I can’t do anything with you unless you go viral on TikTok.”
Viral.
And that’s when it hit me — the virus the world really needed to focus on wasn’t COVID — it was #instacurity.
That was the real killer.
The killer of dreams — and in some cases, the killer of actual lives.
The overemphasis on being a ‘brand’, a ‘persona’, a ‘username’ — you were trapped in an identity of your own making.
The problem? To walk away meant giving up everything you had spent a decade building.
But even if you cultivated a successful business that took 10 years to build… was it worth it…if it was destroying your own soul?
These are the questions we hope to address, and the social issues we hope to alleviate with #Instacurity 2.0 — repurposed and rebranded, keeping the intention of laughter, with the added ‘higher self’ intention of mass healing.
Because we once satirically said “we’re all living our lives to be liked… on the internet.”
And now it’s time to remind people how to be ‘liked’ in real life instead.
#INSTACURITY: Public Service Announcement (2013)
#INSTACURITY: The Support Group (2013)
#INSTACURITY: The Perfect Birthday Gift (2013)
#INSTACURITY: Couples Counseling (2013)
[VIEW entire series HERE]