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| My Instagram has been heavily lingerie focused for a long time. I often post pieces that i don't post on my blog nor feel the need to review. |
I've had my instagram for over 4 years. My Blackberry was stolen in a nightclub during freshers week in 2011 and consequently I was upgraded to an iphone. Ultimately my social media presence was upgraded too. I've never been shy about sharing my body online (I was posing in my underwear on my myspace in 2007 and thinking nothing of it) so i'm pretty sure one of my first posts was a lingerie selfie but this blog didn't pop into existence until the remnant days of 2012 and my instagram stayed relatively lingerie unfocused (that is, maybe one post in 4 was lingerie related) until early 2014. All of this is basically leading up to my statement that my instagram began as my own personal social media and ended, last week, still as my own personal social media. I never changed my persona nor, when i began gaining some sort of following, did i change my posting habits. I still maintained that social media is more about personal experience than self promotion and i backed that up by always being true to myself. And that included sharing my opinions and not putting on a front to appeal to the masses or gain fake friendships. My instagram was not only a place where i shared my love of lingerie, and promoted this blog, it was also a place where i shared my other photography and personal aspects of my life.
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| I don't take proper photographs with my DSLR often but it's always been reassuring that when i did, i had somewhere to share them. |
I've always prided myself on being capable of handling unpleasant/unwanted comments from people. I'm excellent in arguments and i'm about as self deprecating as a human being can get so the odd piece of hate that came my way was always met with amusement and eventually the block button.
But there are comments that stay with you, comments that make you realise that no matter how personal you are, there still exist people who don't see you as a human being. People who think you only exist and post to please them. Like when a couple of friends decide to have a conversation dedicated to insulting you in the comments section on one of your photos and their response? "Your instagram is public and this implies that anyone can see your pictures and therefore anyone can comment whatever they like." Or when someone attacks you for sharing your current struggles with the reasoning that you shouldn't be sharing them, you should only spread positivity. It's tiring to deal with this kind of logic and i've always had the same answer; I don't force anyone to follow me, nor do i use their social media as a platform for my opinions on them or anything else so it's easy to be rid of me and my personality, so why attack me as a person? But it's the same sense of self entitlement that tells people it's okay to comment, "i preferred you in the other lingerie," or, "every single post of yours is drama," or to desperately try to bring up their bengal kitten on every post mourning the death of your bengal. It's just people who have stopped viewing you as a human being behind an account and instead believe that you should act, think and care in the way they would like you to, and by god the proportion of your followers who believe this and act this way increases exponentially with your follower count.
I'd have survived the endless negativity that would inevitably come my way both on my photos expressing an unpopular opinion and my photos with innocuous captions but as always, my fatigue and ultimate need to step away stemmed from another reason too. I'm outspoken, and i've championed a few causes that i've been passionate about. I'd often get people privately texting, messaging, IMing, commenting, etc in support of these opinions. People wanting to hold conversations on it, to share their like-minded opinions with me, but i was still the poster child. The one in the firing range because they'd never post publicly (beyond commenting on my photos) about their opinions on the subject. And i thoroughly understand why they don't want to post about it on their own accounts (they're the smart ones). But i'm tired of being the "voice of the community" and taking all the hits. The poster child for the difficult one, the opinionated one, the one in opposition to whatever. That's the legacy i've been left with and i'm comfortable with in that i chose my battles and i stand by them. However i'm done being the person who endures the personal attacks, the endless critique, the de-humanisation. I'm not picking anymore fights but as long as i still have a personal online presence, that legacy will stick.
I'd have survived the endless negativity that would inevitably come my way both on my photos expressing an unpopular opinion and my photos with innocuous captions but as always, my fatigue and ultimate need to step away stemmed from another reason too. I'm outspoken, and i've championed a few causes that i've been passionate about. I'd often get people privately texting, messaging, IMing, commenting, etc in support of these opinions. People wanting to hold conversations on it, to share their like-minded opinions with me, but i was still the poster child. The one in the firing range because they'd never post publicly (beyond commenting on my photos) about their opinions on the subject. And i thoroughly understand why they don't want to post about it on their own accounts (they're the smart ones). But i'm tired of being the "voice of the community" and taking all the hits. The poster child for the difficult one, the opinionated one, the one in opposition to whatever. That's the legacy i've been left with and i'm comfortable with in that i chose my battles and i stand by them. However i'm done being the person who endures the personal attacks, the endless critique, the de-humanisation. I'm not picking anymore fights but as long as i still have a personal online presence, that legacy will stick.
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| And then there's the very personal aspect of my instagram. I share my thoughts, feelings and experiences on there too. Credit to @obsequies for top left photo. |
I'm breaking my own rules. Curating an online presence that is personal is hard work and demoralising. Right now i don't need to be demoralised any further, so my personal instagram will remain unmanned until further notice. But there's one thought that has been filling my stomach with acid ever since i announced my hiatus and that is the impact it will have on this blog. I've worked SO hard on this blog. I've poured money into the behind the scenes (camera, tripod, blog layout, etc all cost money) and i've never made any money back. It's a labour of love and it pains me to think that my main means of promotion, of sharing this blog with new readers, of reminding regular readers that it has been updated, is now gone. So i'm going to open an instagram solely for this blog, it will be completely blog related, no personal rubbish whatsoever (although i will still be vetting my audience to make sure i'm not being sexualised). Hopefully i can still connect with like-minded lingerie lovers who want advice, help, friendship, etc through the direct messaging and comments functions.
So announcing @lambsandlace
(because someone has decided to register @oflambsandlace and not use it, which sucks. Hey if you're reading this, can i have my username?)