Para-Instagram-ing

There is something incredibly obnoxious and attention-seeking about people who post unrelated, "mini-essay" captions of their photos on Instagram.

And because of this increasing phenomenon, I am going to dedicate and entire blog post to address this issue and try my level best to give as many wake up calls as I probably can to those of you who are still doing it as of today.

See, I am all for colorful descriptions. I am. And if you know me and am familiar with my work and sense of humour, you would know that I appreciate good paragraphs of carefully stringed words.

But let's not take it any further than that, can we all agree on that please?

I am not going to name names, but I have had the unfortunate luck of following Instagram accounts that are living social media examples of delusion, pretentiousness and irrelevance.

Once a girl on Instagram posted a photo of her newly bought Chuck Taylors and she captioned it, verbatim, "This is a true world we are living in. We smile on the outside but cry on the inside. And cry is all I do. But life has to go on, and even though it is cruel, I have to do it, with only tears as company. #life #qotd #reflections"

……………what the fuck man?

How is a picture of a pair of sneakers related to the treachery of the world? are the shoes in the picture representing the journey and the steps that you make in life? Is that it? Cause I definitely didn't get that from that emo paragraph.

Are you a shoe whisperer?

Do you treat fellow human beings as shoes?

Are you harboring a deep desire to work in a shoe store?

I have so many questions to ask you. And I know I will never get that opportunity to ask you all these questions so the best thing that I can possibly do is to UNFOLLOW YOUR SORRY LITTLE PRETENTIOUS ASS.

And this morning, I unfollowed 27 people on Instagram.

My rationale on social media is this: IF YOU CAN'T STAND IT, UNFOLLOW IT.

It beats than having to sit down and read all these paragraphs of unrelated, irrelevant captions and wasting about seven minutes of your life to try and think of a possible link between "picture" and "caption".

You not only feel happier but it also brings a sense of unclutteredness (if there is such a word though I highly doubt so) in your life on social media.

"Why do people write fucking essays on Instagram for their captions? All I'm seeing is paragraphs after paragraphs of words and words. This is Instagram; I'm here for the fucking pictures!" Steve ranted just now over lunch.

"Who?" was my first question.

"One of my secondary school mates! Urgh, she seems like a cool chick but after her engagement got called of, she suddenly became this men-hating, self-loathing, emo-queen, paragraph-loving mess! And her engagement got called off two years ago! I think she is mentally deranged," Steve shook his head.

"Unfollow her then. That would end all your online misery," I laughed.

"No you know what? I'm going to retaliate and keep on posting pictures on Instagram from now on with an accompanying caption in the form of a long paragraph!" Steve said, taking out his iPhone 5.

"That is childish Steve. And if you're going to do it, then I'M going to unfollow YOU," I threatened,

"Don't be an asshole," Steve sipped his coffee.

That night, he did the unthinkable. He posted a photo of his dinner, a plate of grilled steak and potatoes and captioned it:

"We are in control of our own destiny. Let no one dictate our lives but ourselves. Like sand through the hourglass, so is the days of our lives. I know you might take this as meaningless chatter but remember that we are mere mortals and at the end of the day, God is the one who call the shots. So let us always remain humble and thankful."

To which I replied, "Not long enough. Dig deeper."

That's what friends are for.