Should I Delete My Instagram?

I have 17K followers on Instagram. I am not an influencer, I have never made money off of an Instagram post, and I am a writer.

All of the followers I have accrued over the years are through articles I have written, workshops and classes I have taught, and very funny videos, meme dumps, and political commentary I have posted. I have collaborated with actual celebrities, interviewed some of the world’s top scientific minds in medicine during the peak of the pandemic, and DM’d thousands of vaccine hesitant individuals in order to increase vaccination rates worldwide.

And I am fucking done.

It’s a platform that I have used and repurposed and grown for over a decade without buying followers or entertaining trends, and I am sick of being there.

I find myself posting “content” in the form of advocating for human rights, promoting other people’s businesses, books, and careers, and then quickly deleting the app off of my phone so I don’t have to interact with people in online spaces anymore.

My account has been restricted ever since 2021 for telling people that I received the Pfizer mRNA vaccine without labeling it as an advertisement. It wasn’t an ad, I wasn’t paid to promote a vaccine, I’m a public health advocate and I wanted people to know the vaccine was safe to take.

Just recently, it was further restricted for telling people how to incapacitate ICE in their communities by pouring sugar in the gas tanks of Nazi slave-catchers and teaching people how to use dryer lint as flame-catchers for Molotov cocktails. I can no longer go LIVE on Instagram. Oh well.

In the age of AI expansion and fascist theocracy, being online feels like complicity. And I no longer wish to interact with thousands of people in a daily basis. While I cherish the connections I have made and the community I have fostered over the years, I also really like clean drinking water and making it difficult for the government to track me.

I have stood with one foot out the door for about a year, now. I have flirted with the question “should I just delete my entire account?” And, I have had panic attacks and nervous breakdowns due to posts of mine that have gone viral, constant death threats and trolling, and scrutiny over my “political” voice from friends and family.

I have hit the bottom of my barrel of fucks. I don’t like being popular. I honestly would like to write under a different pseudonym than the one I am currently using and live anonymously.

I am not a basic millennial mom account, I don’t post pics of my family with “hashtag blessed,” and I’m not a highlight reel. I’m a fuck the government and YES, ALL MEN account. I have the phone number, email, and mailing address of the people I actually want to stay connected to; I have my own website and a substack where those who miss my online presence can find me, so what’s the hold up?

I should just go ahead and delete my fucking instagram, already.

Would I regret that choice?

Would walking away from something I worked hard to maintain leave me stranded in irrelevance?

Maybe.

Do I care enough to keep this shit rolling?

Not really.

(And yeah, the below picture says 16.9, but it keeps teetering between 17,000 and 16,999 on a daily basis.)