Social Media Disease

I have to quit Instagram for awhile.

I turned my Instagram page into a repository for anti-Trump memes - two posts of anti-Trump memes with every third post a picture of a beautiful woman to provide relief from MAGA.  (Instagram pages show posts in rows of three.)  I posted pictures in threes twice, sometimes thrice a day at times, because the memes bashing Trump and MAGA were too clever to resist.  I was going overboard and spending way too much time on Instagram, but hey, it was fun.

Then two embarrassing things happened.  One was that I reposted the original post of a friend who also posts on Instagram - that is, it was an image my had created himself - and he was a tad miffed by my failure to credit him.  (I credited Go-Go's rhythm guitarist Jane Wiedlin for reposting memes on her Instagram page that she had likely not created herself, even though I don't know her from Eve, but not my friend.  Embarrassing indeed.)  The other embarrassing thing was this meme I posted not on Instagram, but on Facebook.   And I had found it on BlueSky.  

The hearing referred to above did take place, and yes, Pete Hegseth did in fact say that to Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI).  Senator Slotkin's comeback is masterful.  Except for one thing.   She didn't actually say that.   Someone I know who had seen the actual Senate hearing told me that Senator Slotkin simply replied "Oh, my God!" and rolled her eyes in response to Hegseth's inane comment.  I was already going to post this meme on Instagram, but after I found out that the Slotkin quote was made up by someone other than the senator herself, I didn't.  

And so I have decided to stop posting anything on Instagram - for the time being.  It might be a long time being.  Because, after these two faux pas, posting anti-Trump, anti-MAGA memes on Instagram - or anything else - stopped being fun.  And I don't think I was enlightening any Republican-leaning voters with my posts.  

I'm not big on social media these days.  I still go on Facebook and I'm active there because, well, that's still fun.  Instagram, Facebook's sister platform, has become a grind.  Threads is just boring.  And if not for the ability to post links to my blog on LinkedIn, Mastodon, and BlueSky, I wouldn't bother with any of those platforms.  (Yes: Meta platforms still won't let me post links to my blog there.)  So I'll just wait until I really want to post something on Instagram before I do so again.  And with all the time I save not going on platforms not named Facebook, I have more time to write blog posts here. 

Not that I will.  I need more time to enjoy being with my cats.