It’s been a little more than two weeks since Instagram decided I was a persona non grata and suspended my accounts permanently, locking me out of 13 years of posts, photos, memories and interests. I have learned many things over these past two weeks and this feels like the right place to share what I’ve learned. Leave me a comment if you’ve been through something similar or if you just want to share your own weird tricks.

1. Own your stuff–– especially online. I cannot take credit for this. It was a good piece of advice from my friend Kate, who is a Very Online Person with a sense of what’s truly important. You know those moments in a movie where we get a sense of foreboding that Something Important Is About To Happen? That’s how it felt when Kate mentioned that for things like business cards and identity, it’s best to share the contact information that you own. Own your domain. Own your website. If you pay for the service, a large company can’t push their rules on you and close you down– at least not without your being able to retrieve your stuff.
   
2. Know that your Direct Messages are being read and there is no such thing as privacy online. I got busted because I DM my kids and one of my kids happens to be 16 and some Yippee-Ki-Yay AI thought it was bad that I was dropping F-bombs in the chat. And then another overeager “Appeal” AI, scanning for the same code words, agreed with Yippee-Ki-Yay and that was it. Does Instagram follow up and make sure that actual child predators are staying offline? Lol, you must be new here. Can a banned child predator open an account with a different email? Why yes. Can a woman helping other women eat a ridiculously low amount of calories fight Meta and win because *now* she doesn’t market her bespoke anorexia to girls? Why, yes, she can. Anyway. There is no privacy on the Internet and Meta will mess around with your account if it doesn’t like the content but it will only deplatform one instance of you; they will never prevent you from opening a new account or report you to the police because, in the words of a friend who’s a cop, all that means is that they have to open up their books to police and they absolutely do not want to do that. So they monitor badly, ban, punt, turn a blind eye to your distress, place barriers between yourself and any kind of human assistance and overall DO NOT ACTUALLY GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOU.
   
3. META DOES NOT CARE ABOUT YOU. Nope. Meta doesn’t care about your causes or your unique point of view and definitely not your privacy. This is a company that started because some nerd wanted to rank women’s looks, not to bring people together and create a global neighborhood: be ye not fooled!!! If you can be monetized, you will be monetized. If you can be swayed, you will be swayed, as long as there is money to be made. Instagram used to be a throwaway app: a cute way of letting people where you were there by posting photos with faux vintage looks and geotags. It was a way to give your friends FOMO (or JOMO, tbh) until Meta bought it up and turned it into a curated selling machine. Instagram is an aesthetically pleasing beauty trap. And I find it very, very troubling to see that there are so many businesses foregoing other forms of social media presence in favor of Instagram *only.* I recently came across a bricks-and-mortar store that has a website on their bio that just redirects you to Instagram. Check out our Instagram! Want to see our website? Check out our Instagram! It’s a chilling loop of missed opportunity, and if you’re setting up a new business, my goodness, at least take advantage of a site like LinkTr.ee for your online presence. It’s cheap and streamlined and you can even set up a virtual storefront.
   
4. Beware of aesthetically pleasing things? Have you ever seen “Batman Forever,” the Batman movie that apparently not a lot of people like, with Jim Carrey as the Riddler? He was a mad scientist (obviously) and he came up with this invention called The Box, which beamed entertainment right into your mind AND stole your thoughts. SOUND FAMILIAR?! Never discount this particular Batman movie, dammit! It foretold the future! Anyway, Instagram (and yes, TikTok and all the other social mediassssss) are here to mindlessly entertain you and get your credit card number. You are now officially warned for the 32 millionth time. But being part of something and then being brutally removed from it has that effect on people: It’s like being stone-cold sober in a loud and raucuous party. All of a sudden, you can see sweaty, drooling faces and bodies that smell terrible and you can see horrible things around you and you are powerless to stop any of it because who wants a party pooper?
   
5. There is nothing like a catastrophic event to give you some clarity about who you are. On June 28, 2025, I was carefree. I probably checked Instagram an obscene amount of times. I DMed friends. I DMed my teen. I shared a vicious takedown from Jasmine Crockett on my stories. Which one? I don’t know. The woman is an Aries spitfire who’s spoken so much truth, Texas brass are trying to redistrict the state just so she and Hakeem Jeffries can’t run again. (Probably. I assume. Here’s Politico’s take.) Here, I found you some videos of Crockett being amazing, on YouTube. I love YT now. It’s soothing and I now have an attention span long enough to watch a 10 minute video. My attention span! I HAD MISSED IT. Anyway, I didn’t have to question anything that June 28: My life was as it has been for… oh I don’t know. I’ve been on Instagram for a big chunk of my adult life. I have turned at least 10 people on to Instagram, maybe more–– like, I have been there when they created their accounts and posted their first post. It’s been a daily thing with me and as I write this, I can’t help but realize that I’ve enabled this monster for free. Of course I am still angry and hurt, but I also have the stone-sober clarity of someone who’s been through the whole gamut of emotions regarding this situation over the past two weeks. On the one hand, how dare they?! On the other, I have had at least two very vivid dreams of my account being miraculously reinstated and all bad blood forgotten. But conscious me is not forgetting and I hope you read this all the way through and seriously consider your relationship with Instagram and Meta. My June 29 self was changed forever. Every time I caught a glimpse of the logo or a web address from the site, I could feel physical pain. I thought about all the friends I texted there; about all daily content I checked. I wondered where I should put up my photos, commentary, random crap. And then I wondered: Why am I sharing all the crap I share? Who is it for? Could it be more mindful? Edited? Less of it? Yes to all.
   
6. It can happen to you, for any reason. Not to brag but I was a small-time someone on Instagram. Almost 18,000 followers on my The Hill is Home account, baby! (My photography, alas, was a small-time nobody– only 2000ish). But in the time I’ve been on the app, I have seen beautiful artists’ pages get shadowbanned or taken down and their work lost. Their crimes? Doing beautiful artwork that explores transcendent sexuality. Drawing truth to power. Creating hilarious astrology memes that were sometimes raunchy. You get the picture. Did I do anything about it? Well, I was sad, but you know… it was not my page. Nothing affects you personally until it affects you personally. You’re just another mother texting her teen on the app and meeting him where he is already until a bot decides you are the enemy. And then you can try to download your content only to OOPS discover that you need to log in. Log in to get your content! Oh, you’re suspended! Click here to get your content! OOPS you need to log in. They don’t care. They don’t.

You don’t have to do anything at this moment. Just getting to this place is enough, and I thank you. You perhaps have already cut the cord and are wondering why I’m making such a big deal out of this. Or perhaps you’re finding yourself scrolling too much and not devoting enough time to reading a book or watching a whole video or actually having conversations with people. Maybe you’re just sending reels back and forth because it’s soothing and releases dopamine and you’re not actually checking in with your loved ones because your attention span is so fried because we are inside a dumpster that is on fire. If you’re that last kind of person, I’d like to help you. Please, consider cutting back or cutting the cord. Or at the very least, make sure you’re not giving some money-making behemoth years of content and creativity for free, that they will not ever appreciate nor care about. Do it for yourself.