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There are certain aspects of life that give you crippling anxiety. The thought of never being able to pay off your student loans, loved ones dying, and imagining someone scrolling through your entire photo stream when you have them look at something on your phone. My heart jumps just imagining leaving my phone unattended without locking it given how much embarrassing information is stored on it.
But the most embarrassing part of my phone isn’t even directly my fault, but Instagram’s. I don’t know how they calculate what to put in your Explore page, but I assume it’s a combination of who you follow, what you like, and what the chip secretly stored inside all of our brains sends to the servers at their headquarters. At any given time, my Explore page contains (but is not limited to): dogs, golf videos, people in Capri, sneakers, terrible memes, yoga poses, and NBA highlights.
My girlfriend’s Explore page, though? Entirely different story.
People Drinking Rosé on Swan Floats
Considering that we live in a world where Elite Daily just published a column titled, “25 Instagram Captions For Your ‘Mermaid Hair, Don’t Care’ Pool Pictures,” we all need to accept our fate of dying in a blaze of global warming-induced glory. Yes, pool float photos are so 2016, but they’re not going away for another month so we still need to keep double-tapping them in order to preserve our friendships. I don’t need anyone saying, “He didn’t even like my pool float photo” behind my back.
Concern Level: 3/10, solely because I’d like to think that our friend group as a whole would consider pool float photos to be passé.
Baking Videos
Our Netflix account’s (read: my mom’s Netflix account) “Recently Watched” section contains The Great British Baking Show, Chef’s Table, Somm, Somm: Into The Bottle, and pretty much every food documentary ever created and put on Netflix. Ergo, we’re obviously mashing the “follow” button when it comes to Martha Collison, Chetna Makan, Selasi Gbormittah, and anyone not named “Paul Hollywood,” who I did try to cyberbully when it was released that they were changing the hosts of the show.
Concern Level: 4.5/10, because I’m going to turn into the male version of the “not pregnant, just eatin’ good” meme if we don’t scale back.
Clothing Bloggers Who Wear Only Nordstrom
If I had a dollar for every revenue-driving Instagram post that didn’t feature #ad or #spon, I’d be flying private with Scott Disick while wearing an unreleased pair of Yeezy samples. Nordstrom seemingly has a similar format as “Like To Know It” has, and my girlfriend is the Michael Jordan of milking Nordstrom’s relaxed exchange policy. This all makes too much sense.
Concern Level: 9/10, because she’s going to be the real life version of the “help me, I’m poor” Kristen Wiig meme.
Home Décor
Tastemakers, influencers, whatever you want to call them. Everyone can be an interior designer these days as long as they follow enough Tumblrs, Instagram accounts, and visit Apartment Therapy on their lunch breaks. Frankly, I’d be concerned if she didn’t have design photos littered throughout her feed.
Concern Level: 0/10, because our wedding registry gon’ be poppin’. You know, if we make it that far.
Kardashian Fan Accounts
Kardashians are to basic white girls what Instagram models are to generic white dudes. Yeah, we don’t want to admit we look at them, but we all do despite knowing that they’re rotting our brain. I’m going to assume that as much as I don’t want her seeing my Explore page riddled with random college girls, she feels equally as embarrassed that there are photos on hers from KardashianFan1661.
Concern Level: 5/10, thots and prayers.
Wedding Blogs
Ha, I mean, it’s because all of her friends are getting married, right? And they’re all following The Knot and Carats & Cake for #inspo, right? And there’s no way that if I went into my girlfriend’s saved photos that I’d find a folder called “Wedding Inspiration,” right? Right? RIGHT?
Concern Level: 8.5/10, but like, everything is fine. Right?
Engagement Rings
*types in her @*
*taps the list of people she’s following*
*fervently scrolls looking for anything engagement ring-related*
*finds accounts of jewelers from across the country*
*realizes the wedding blogs on her discover feed aren’t because of her friends*
*gulps*
Concern Level: 10/10. .
Image via Shutterstock
Respond
Will
Will (Twitter / Instagram) is the host of The Sunday Scaries Podcast.
@willdefries
@willdefries
defriewf
will@grandex.co
Bend the knee
There’s a blowjob joke in here somewhere.
I don’t see it
What, she doesn’t know your mother slipped you your grandmother’s engagement ring at dinner?
Conspiracy theory: Will actually got engaged 6 months ago and is releasing these on a delayed schedule in order to take us all on a #content journey
Brian?
Assuming she reads your stuff, and actually likes you, you talking about your wedding registry while not being engaged has to be mindfucking her so hard.
She actually thinks I work as an accountant for the Austin Police Department. It was the safest possible job I could come up with. An accountant for the police department.
I could see that.
Just make sure you don’t invest the APD pension fund with a guy who owes money to the Chechans and Nigerians.
I can speak from experience, and I know (hope) a lot of this is for the content, but you toying with this idea of engagement is killing your girlfriend.
*Source: guy who finally got engaged but has had his fiancé confess she was almost ready to break it off due to all my not proposing bullshit
Hey, at least she didn’t fake a pregnancy…
Girls still do that? I hate my gender sometimes…
I had a girl fake internal bleeding and then tell me she was pregnant and miscarried. Turns out she was just cheating on me with her ex.
Same thing happened to a buddy of mine. He almost got married to her. Thank God they broke off the engagement. She then proceeded to get knocked up by a bouncer.
Conspiracy theory: Will’s girlfriend is a Tyler Durden-esque alter ego his mind subconsciously created for the content
These internet companies are implementing “behavioral self-curation” where we curate our own realities based off of what we like while omitting what we don’t. We’re essentially creating our own viewable utopian realities in a vacuum which is causing us to subsequently indoctrinate ourselves by creating a one sided viewpoint. Since the internet is open sourced, this tactic is used to prevent the complete flow of information to an individual which would allow him/her to critically think after being armed with full knowledge. The whole idea of “personalization” is becoming a full force initiative hidden behind “user experience improvements” and it’s only going to get more granular
” dogs, golf videos, people in Capri, sneakers, terrible memes, yoga poses, and NBA highlights” – you’re basically a combination of me and my little sister
Congrats on the sex
You are teasing us at this point.