Have you all gotten used to calling it X yet?
One of the items on my to-do list for my 20s: sign up for Instagram. A record of a last-minute achievement.
Do you know about Instagram?
For a long time, I kept my distance, thinking, "It's just for popular people who want to show off their perfect lives. When they get depressed, they post emotional poetry against a pitch-black background. The caption is just a place for hashtags." But at the age of 30, I finally signed up!!!
Cake shops I want to visit, general stores I'm curious about—everywhere you look, they only post information on their official Instagram accounts. Did you know that if you aren't registered, you can't see their posts? I've been turned away at the door more times than I can count. Recently, even my dentist said, "We're on Instagram, so please follow us!" What on earth does a dentist post on Instagram? "Here's a neglected cavity from today's patient"? "We let the rookie try making a non-insurance bridge"? Does that actually help their business? If I saw a video of a dental assistant dancing around to a trendy song, I'd lose all desire to go there.
And then when I say, "I don't use Instagram," they give me this look like, "Oh..." No, that's not it. If you think I'm just making up a lazy excuse because I can't be bothered to follow you, that's truly offensive. If you doubt me, look at my phone! I don't have Instagram installed!! See!!! See that!!!
It's not that I'm bad at social media. I've been through Mobage, GREE, and mixi. I'm on Twitter, too. Wait, have you all started calling it X yet? I still feel a bit embarrassed by it, but I feel like I'm seeing the "X (formerly Twitter)" notation less and less. I'm going to keep calling pressing the heart button "faving" and calling photos taken on a smartphone "shame" for the rest of my life!! "DCM" is Homac, and "Edion" is 100 Manboruto!!!! (Is that just local?)
I don't use Twitter to interact with people online; I only follow friends from my hometown and school. Even when we lived far apart, it was comforting to have conversations that weren't quite important enough for LINE or a phone call. But before I knew it, everyone stopped updating, and those abandoned accounts were quickly hijacked, turning into lewd spam bots spreading foreign-language posts and adult content. This is the true dystopia of social media.
I heard that everyone who abandoned Twitter has moved to Instagram. Apparently, they use it to keep up with each other's lives and make plans to hang out. Wait. So if I don't master social media, I'll end up all alone in this world? That's lonely!!! So, I finally decided to sign up.
My impression after starting to use it is simply information overload.
Seriously, what is this timeline? Too many posts from accounts I don't follow are flooding in, and I can't see my friends' posts at all. What are Stories? How do you respond to them? What are Reels?? How do I post multiple photos???
In such a fast-paced world, the moment you stop trying to understand new things, you get left behind. I want to become someone who can master these things without getting tired or discouraged. I'm reaching the age where the lyrics to Taiiku Okazaki's "Ossan" really hit home. I want to be someone who can learn about the present and the future.