Yes, Instagram Sucks. Both metaphorically, and literally as it sucks your time away from you and the things that really SHOULD be taking priority in your life.

Yes, it’s the photographers social media epicenter. “My Heavens, you cannot build a photography presence without IG”.

How many times I have heard from people “You know, you have to have it”.

So, I have acquiesced. 4 Times now.

I hate Facebook and I hate Social Media in general. Youtube is my chosen direction. I have to do one, and that’s where I am going to stop…in spite of the fact that building my Youtube channel is laborious and slow…as frustrating as watching molasses move up hill in the month of January.

The “Influencers” as the world calls them now are everywhere. Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, and on.

It’s ridiculous.

Knowing the way the algorithms are written, knowing the way they are censoring people, knowing all the evils they participate in, and the negative effect they have on our relationships and the families and the children, it becomes more and more difficult, in my view, for anyone with a moral compass to say “yeah, I’ll ignore all that and participate”.

Because “everyone does it” and “you have to in order to survive”.

You know, as a small business owner, in retail, with a storefront, I have lost track of how many times I have had other business people tell me they don’t report all their cash sales.

“Everyone skims”. “Taxes are so high, it’s the only way to survive”.

Maybe. But in my book, this is in no way a reason to do it myself.

It’s on this path and road that I find myself with Instagram and Facebook.

They are both a sewer of people living like they are still in high school, quite frankly.

Yes, there are a bunch of folks that are wonderful on there, sharing their lives with the world in the way they want the world to see them.

(For Example Officer Brandon Tatum built his entire Youtube and the on line life he lives now from the explosion of a single video he made and posted to his Facebook page the day he went to the Trump rally in 2016. Publicly stating that this rally changed his view so drastically he would be switching parties. That video propelled him to how you see him now with millions of followers and TV appearances on national shows all the time. That fateful day in 2016, he was just a cop in AZ, living his daily life like you and me.)

But I just am not going to do it any more.

A couple things happened to cement this for me.

1) I watched a video just last night about the #vanlife community with interviews of a bunch of van lifers, many of whom are VERY popular on both Youtube and Instagram. Every one of them said IG is a landscape of fake lives on display. In other words, it would seem all of them admit it’s a façade that everyone willingly participates in.

and

2) I do not and will not make time for it, nor try to any longer.

Having a retail flower business, a Youtube channel I am trying to grow, a photography website, and adding to that trying to managa IG and FB…something has to give.

I have a home to take care of, a body to work out with, and other responsibilities. I only have so much time to commit to things.

Example, editing a video for posting on Youtube will take 4-6 hours of my time, not including the shooting portion. for a 12-15 minute vid.

If you own a small business, you know your days can be as long as 12 or more hours.

I can’t stand sitting at a computer all day to begin with, but to then be captive to a phone so I can post IG photos for people to “like”. Who really gives a shit? I sure as hell don’t. In fact, it annoys the living crap out of me…it infuriates my mind whenever I try and “make a post”.

And that’s more the bottom line.

No, I don’t need a surface level, fake world, sewage heap, family destroying, time wasting website to promote my work.

If I am in line with what God has planned for my life, he can, and will direct my steps. He says so countless times in scripture.

He is bigger than all of it. And one touch from him can change the world for me. IG and FB free, for sure!

If it means I have 10 people watching what I do, well, Ok. There must be no bigger plan for me then. Notoriety is overrated…I think. (I vacillate on that one…for sure).

Thanks for letting me get this off my chest.

I’ll be back again soon with more content from our September Road Trip.