A Cute Experiment

I’ve been wondering… Can I place an Instagram video here?

Let’s see!

Several edits later, after a few experiments…

View this post on Instagram

Dogs just wanna have fun, part 2 #dog #dogs #dogstagram #dogsofinstagram #dogseverywhere #cutedog #dogplaying

A post shared by Ivana Milakovic (@ivana.angel011) on Sep 14, 2016 at 2:46am PDT

This is my father’s (and my brother’s) dog, playing with his favorite toy: my brother’s old slipper. A real beast, isn’t he?

Silly Instagram Bots Are Silly

Actually, it’s the people using the bots who are silly.

I’ve been spending some time on Instagram, exploring it, enjoying it (if you wish to follow me, here I am, and you can mostly see the stuff I’m doing, and the books I’m reading, lots of books!), and noticing silly stuff.

For example, follow-for-follow accounts. Err, why? If you don’t like what I post, why would you follow me? And if I’m not interested in the stuff someone posts, like countless motivational pictures, why would I follow them? Just for the numbers game? Numbers mean nothing if there’s no genuine desire to support them.

Or, the accounts that are not openly follow-for-follow, but treat that dreadful growth hack marketing advice as if it was the Word of the God Almighty. You know the advice: follow people on social media, and if they don’t follow you back, unfollow them, because why would you follow people who don’t follow you? How about: because you like what they’re posting?

And then, there are bots. I follow Gary Vaynerchuk because I like what he says about marketing and storytelling, and because I feel that I can learn a lot from him and then adapt it to my needs (hey, we all need to know how to market our stuff!). Whenever I like his pictures/videos, I gain a few new followers, all entrepreneurs with a ton of motivational quotes on their profiles, many of them leaving vague comments on my pictures.

Comments that make it obvious that they haven’t even looked at the picture, so it’s clear that they’re using bots for it.

“Great shot”, “Awesome”, “Cute!” and such are supposed to be vague enough to fit most posts, but if I post a picture of the book I’m reading at the time, and make it clear in the hashtags that it’s The Exorcist, and some people comment “Sweet”, “Aw nice”, “Spreading good vibes”, or “Very cute”, it’s painfully obvious that they’re bots, and that the account owners couldn’t care less.

Or, if I post a picture with a Snapchat filter, state that I’m not feeling well, but at least my hair color is awesome, and get comments like “Super nice!”, is that really a human who saw the picture, or is it a bot?

The thing is, Gary Vaynerchuk is as successful as he is because (among other things) he takes the time to answer in person. His comments are his own, and so are his replies. Well, either that, or he is using bots that are so good that they can pass for actual caring human beings, the world as we know it has ended, and we can all go home now, thank you for the attention. And he talks about it, and his followers admire him… And then they use bots.

Don’t get me wrong: this isn’t a rant, and the bots don’t bother me. None of them are rude in any way, and they’re easy to ignore. The accounts will stop following me on their own as soon as they see that I’m not following them back, and it’s not like I’m going to miss the people who have zero interest in me or in what I’m doing.

I just see it as silly, and I don’t see the point. It’s like spam comments on blogs, except that people do manage to get followers that way (mostly those who are in the numbers game too, I guess).

How about you? If you use Instagram, how do you feel about that kind of comments?

Instagram Makes Me See, Err, Notice Things!

I take my camera with me on impulse; or, if I feel too lazy to carry it around, I don’t. However, Instagram has inspired me to take photos more often, and it has inspired me to pay more attention.

A few months ago, I posted some photos of street art. It’s just the stuff I see in my neighborhood, but people liked it, so I started paying attention, and I started noticing it everywhere. And taking photos of it. And recently, one of my followers tagged me in a photo of street art she’s taken.

Some things are classics, of course. Cats, dogs, birds… People like pictures of them. Sunsets, too, or the sea. Or flowers. But who knew that there are so many people who enjoy in photos of clouds? I expected a photo of popular cosplayers to get noticed, but my fencing mask?

The more time I spend on Instagram, the more I realize just how diverse the interests of people are, and that, in turn, inspires me to be more curious. To pay attention, explore, and notice more. To capture it. To share it. To keep coming up with interesting stuff. And to have fun while doing it.

It still surprises me when people I’ve never met like my photos on Instagram. I’m glad, of course; it means that I’m doing something good. But it’s steel a feeling of Someone liked that? But it’s just… And I like that feeling. It reminds me that there’s always something interesting around us, if only we remember to notice it.

And Instagram and the wonderful people there keep inspiring me to notice.