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The weekend isn’t for relaxing anymore. Gone are the are the days of clearing your head, catching up with friends and errands, and having the much-coveted you-time. Nope. Those days are over.
It’s 2016, and weekends are for putting yourself in a prime position to take the perfect photo with your iPhone that has a cracked screen from the weekend before. But even though your life is in shambles, you can at least make it look like you have your shit together by posting a photo of yourself looking happy on the outside rather than empty on the inside like you really are.
But not all Instagram posting times are created equal, as evidenced by all your early-to-mid week photos sitting on the lower end of the like spectrum while your weekend photos are soaring. Luckily, there’s an explanation for all of that.
Morning Mid-Week (7 a.m. – 10 a.m.)
We live in a world where no one has time for breakfast because they’re too busy pressing snooze or coveting those last remaining minutes of sitting in bed while scrolling their feeds and checking their noties. While there’s no guarantee your photo is going to overperform because people are still lethargically glued to their iPhones, there is a guarantee that you won’t be completely disappointed in the likes you see trickling in come lunch when you check your phone for the millionth time.
Mid-Day Mid-Week (10 a.m. – 4 p.m.)
You know who post Instagrams in the middle of the day during the week? People who hate likes and are begging to get looked the fuck over. Yeah, you might’ve had a random day off and you had lunch at the most Instagrammable mid-century modern cafe you’ve ever seen, but your friends are too busy hating their jobs and gchatting one another about how badly they need it to be five o’clock to see your ‘gram with no one in it.
Night Mid-Week (7 p.m. – 11 p.m.)
The only people who post Instagrams in the middle of the week at night are 1) people who want to show off their significant others 2) people who want to show everyone else, “Hey, look at me, I’m going out on a weeknight!” or 3) people doing #TransformationTuesdays, #WayBackWednesdays, #ThrowbackThursdays.
Oh, and girls whose best friends birthdays fall mid-week, which means they are going to post a picture from spring break three years ago where they look skinny because they survived solely off mixed greens and vodka for the three months leading up to Panama City Beach.
Friday Night (8 p.m. – 1 a.m.)
You know when you’re sitting at a bar on a Friday night and everyone is face-deep in their iPhones rather than shouting over the shitty music some asshole chose on TouchTunes? You know what they’re doing? They’re liking each other’s photos in between asking their friends, “Hey, can you get a photo of me?”
The captions, they’re fun. The photos, they’re peak because everyone got fresh before going out. And the likes, they’re turned up to fucking eleven.
Saturday Morning (8 a.m. – 11 a.m.)
The traedmark “Man, I got too drunk last night and didn’t want to waste my battery filtering this photo in a third-party app” photo. And while it’s entirely possible you sat in bed FaceTuning and editing your photo because you’re desperate for some attention, you’re going to be rewarded because most people themselves are sitting in bed with a Gatorade next to them. Everyone’s scrolling Instagram with their phones plugged in because they were either 1) too drunk to remember to plug them in the night before, or 2) plugged them in the night before, but were drunk enough that they forgot to plug their charger into the wall.
But either way, welcome to Like Town, USA.
Saturday Mid-Day (11 a.m. – 5 p.m.)
Unless you’re one of those poor, unfortunate souls who are cruelly forced to slave away on a Saturday, you’re probably out doing something – brunching, park, exercising (get off your fucking high horse), napping, watching the game, running some errands. Either way, the one thing you’re not doing is parking your face in front of Instagram until you finally get some downtime between going out and going to sleep. Because like I said, talking to your friends at the bar is so 2011.
Saturday Night (10 p.m. – 1 a.m.)
Yup. YUP. Let’s roll. Saturday nights are for two things – staying in because you’re hungover, or getting hammered because it’s fucking Saturday. No matter how you skin the cat that is your Saturday night, the one certainty is that people are going to be on their phones posting and liking photos like the world’s about to end. Whether people are giving out likes because they’re drunk, double-tapping with FOMO, or liking photos to show goodwill in preparation for the photos they’re about to post themselves, just know that you’re about to stack hella likes and wake up on Sunday with a screen full of notifications.
Sunday Morning (8 a.m. – 11 a.m.)
You think this is a good idea, you really do. After all, remember Saturday morning? Instagram was like Paris in the 1920s. Just absolutely crushing it. But Sunday morning is when people think, “Holy shit, I need to get it together.” They could be at church washing away their sins, at breakfast with their parents, or simply tidying up their apartments after devastating them all weekend. Sure, you can post a photo on Sunday morning, but just know that you’re leaving some likes on the table.
Sunday Mid-Day (11 a.m. – 5 p.m.)
Why the fuck aren’t you napping, you psycho?
Sunday Night (6 p.m. – 12 a.m.)
The token “I need to make sure people still like me” post time, you’re just trying to post that photo that got away all weekend. In your desperate attempts to up your weekend likes quota, you succeed. But not if you’re too early, because hey, people are still napping or at “family” dinners with everyone they got drunk with all weekend. Or not too late, when people are drooling on their pillows in an Ambien-fueled state while HBO Now plays in the background. .
Image via YouTube
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Will
Will (Twitter / Instagram) is the host of The Sunday Scaries Podcast.
@willdefries
@willdefries
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will@grandex.co
Goddamn, the world is so fucked.
I’m almost ashamed at how all the points in this article was already sitting in the back of my mind. Truly the golden age of degenerates.
What am I supposed to do when Buffett rolls into town on a Tuesday? Sit on my pics until the weekend?
Making me feel real bad about that Monday night post de Fries.
Sunday night around 8-9 is peak likes. However, in my experience, weekday evening posts from Monday to Wednesday are the second most optimal time. Nonetheless, this dearth of Saturday and Sunday morning likes could be attributed to a solid portion of my like base playing weekend park sports.
So basically at any given point of the week you are sure to get likes. Groundbreaking.
You didn’t read this.
Technically yes but if you aren’t paying attention you might just catch a digit