The Idea of Followers and Likes in the Social Media Platform, Instagram

Instagram is a social media platform in which people share photos to their followers The followers can range from people you may know to people you don‘t. This specific platform has illustrated the idea that “likes are everything” Instagram and other forms of social media have turned many people into numbers. People begin to feel as if they are only viewed and valued by the number of likes they receive on a photo or the number of followers they have.

On a scroll, through your feed on Instagram you can come across various forms of comments, most of which involve people’s desire for likes. Some more common phrases that can be seen are “Reposting because I was slept on”, “Posting only for notifications”, and other simpler ones like, “Like all my pics.” Of course, this isn’t the only way that people obtain likes and followers the most prominent way is by using hashtags Hashtags are very common and practically used by everyone.

While some people may keep it simple with their use of hashtags, others use as many as Instagram allows whether it’s relative to the picture or not. While scrolling through my feed I noticed one Instagram user with the handle “ use hashtags of all kinds when she had posted a picture of a poem. Even though most of the hashtags used did not coincide with the picture posted it was an easier way for her to receive likes. The days of the week have made their own appearance with hashtags.

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Have you ever scrolled through your feed on a Monday just to see the caption (man crush Monday) on almost every picture? Well, there’s practically one for every day of the week, and they are used so widely that it isn’t seen as a way to obtain likes anymore. One analysis I did want to focus in on though is how some users may use this known hashtag without actually tagging it.

To me it arises the question as to whether or not they know they can receive likes without the tag or do they not care for the number of likes? Most of these things are bypassed for the fact that no one looks into everyone else‘s personal aspect while using Instagram, and they are only focused on their own, and how they use their social media. It only becomes important when you notice the smaller things for the fact that there are apps in which you can download to provide you with the most popular tags for a photo you may anticipate posting. Hashtags are not our only enemy though there are more discreet uses that even if they aren‘t used by everyone it still allows other users to receive what they desire, A common way people often get likes is by posting something they know that they may never live up to. Some Instagram users tend to post photos asking their followers if they want a “TBl—l” (To Be Honest) or a “Rate.” While some people may actually do them, there still tends to be a limit at which you end up getting so many likes it is almost improbable for one to waste their time doing these comments.

A friend of mine once told me that he only posts “TBl—l’s” just to see how many likes he can get, and that he never intends on doing any of them. While browsing through Instagram once more I noticed another person who posts “TBH“ every so often. This particular user, skyleernicole, had posted a picture stating she would do a “tbh in your dm.”, if you like the photo The photo ended up receiving 114 likes, and while I cannot vouch for whether or not she did these TBH’s, I was able to speculate that she did not by her post the following day. She had posted the same exact photo, and at the time she was only at 25 likes, but what seemed odd to me was that the other photo was still up there it appears that she does this on daily basis, and it simply could be for the fact that she is guaranteed likes, whether or not she does the TBl-l’s, because on a personal basis, I feel as if no one ever remembers after they’ve liked the photo, for most people, it is in a spur of the moment thing, and typically no one goes back to check if that person is going to give them a TBH or not.

There are other ways though that are not in control of the other users on Instagram. Both the App store and Google Play are loaded with apps that allow you to “earn” followers and likes. Some apps have you like a set amount of pictures so that you earn coins that you can use in return to get likes on your photos, and other apps are designed to where you can use this same method, but by following people instead. While these apps may be free, there are some other apps and websites in which you can buy your followers and likes at a first glance it almost seems ridiculous that someone would waste money on a number, but it is pretty common. The odd thing that comes with this “buying followers“ is that the followers are usually from fake accounts and can’t actually engage with your page by liking photos. So, at that point you are almost at a standstill you now have a ton of followers who, in reality, do not exist, but no likes to show for it this particular idea begins to truly show how numbers are viewed so highly in our generation.