Why I Made My Instagram Private

Sooner or later, someone is bound to ask me (the anticipated question of) why I made my Instagram private.

After all, I am no rockstar – with less than 100 followers on the IG platform, I am not exactly a household name. Not by far.

A bit of a recap, a blast to the past if you will. My Instagram account – Wizard.Ritvik, though it has been renamed multiple times since – was created at the start of 2023, last year. Ever since then, I have opted to retain my account as public, and have been posting to it since. I even followed many celebrities and public figures in the running community, and even those listed under various personal interests I have cultivated over time, such as cooking and pursuing a healthy lifestyle.

Today, I suddenly woke up, snapped, and decided to make my Instagram account private. I also purged my list of “Following” who I did not have listed under my “Followers” – e.g. the majority of the accounts I was following, but who were not following me back – and have not looked back since (and hope to never).

Some might say this is a bit of an overkill. And yet, I have not spoken my peace yet.

I have my reasons, and herein I attempt to explain the bulk of my thought processes in this altogether terse, abbreviated blog post.

So, let this day go down in history:

August 26th, 2024

On this day, I made the hard decision to make my Instagram private.

Bad Dreams and Memories

I woke up at around 7 AM today, while I was still in Chicago, visiting family.

At the time I woke up, I recall having a bad dream. I was saying something repeatedly, to someone. I believe the phrase was, “I’m scared.” I was saying it over and over again. I was crying in my dream.

As I woke up, I remembered that, and I remembered the context of the dream, and the tears sprang unbidden to my eyes. I was crying in my dream, and I was crying in real life.

I don’t really know what triggered it. But as I said, I remember the context of it. I suppose it was spurred by the choking loneliness I feel at various points throughout my life. Friendship I do have now, and family, and appreciate them equally. What remains is the lack of companionship, the lack of love. The lack of having a basic necessity like that, almost like I was destitute, or homeless. I don’t want to compare myself to what people like that go through, but I don’t really have any other way to describe it.

When people ask me why I don’t believe. In a Higher Power, in a God, and why I won’t put my name down on any Religion. I tell them, it’s because I don’t believe in a God.

A God who loves us all equally. A God who is supposed to be all-powerful, all-knowing, all-seeing. A God who is supposed to be all-loving, all-merciful, all-compassionate.

A God like that is total, absolute fiction. A God like that is a lie.

There is nothing that explains the suffering of the world, the suffering of the people in it. There is nothing that explains why every woman I encounter hates me instantly, or feels repulsed by me. There is nothing that explains why nearly every human being is so cruel, so unkind, so unloving. There is nothing that explains why I am so alone, so lonely, so destitute.

As I cried, for the first time in a long time, I thought about many things. So many thoughts and memories flitted through my consciousness, like speedy bullets, like fleas on the beach near the Chicago Lakefront. I thought about all the females that have spurned me, that have rejected me, that have hated me, that have hurt me. I thought about all the males who have ignored me, walked away, and done the same in their own way. All those who have decided, on the drop of a hat and flip of a coin, that I was decidedly not worth their time.

I thought about this girl who I met recently, who was nice, and talked to me only briefly. I remember thinking about her for a day, waiting a whole another day, and then searching her profile on Instagram, and then sending her a follow request. She had over 1,000 followers at the least. I sent that request recently, only yesterday evening. In a moment of weakness.

I thought about her then, and I thought about how she would never accept me. How she would never even get a notification that I had sent her a follow request. How she would never ever follow me back, because she didn’t know me, and she didn’t care to know me.

I thought about all the other females that I followed on Instagram, with hundreds of thousands of followers, with millions of followers – there were even a few on the Olympic realm. Anyway, I thought about how I had been following them for such a long time, months easily by now, and none of them had ever reciprocated or made any effort to follow me back. I thought about how they would never know or care I was following them. I thought about how they would never know or care that I existed. A few of them were younger than me, certainly. All of them were good-looking. A handful of them were drop-dead gorgeous. Most, if not all, of them have boyfriends or husbands already. I remember thinking about how much it pains me to see that, when their faces pop up on my Instagram feed. Do they not appreciate what they are given? Do they not appreciate their god-given beauty? Do they not appreciate the fact that they are so popular, so well-known, so loved, so adored, and have so many fans?

My thoughts scattered, and I was thinking about my relationship status suddenly. How I’m single. How there were a few opportunities in the past, but I had never taken them. How I had been afraid to. How they had happened too fast for me to react. How I had been too slow to act. You know, they say comparison is the thief of joy. Yet even without comparison, there was a marked dearth of joy in my life, in my past. Memories and recollections, sometimes they are painful. We all wish we could forget. That we could rewind time, and do things differently. In the 30’s, one wakes up, and wonders where the time went. What would we do differently if we were still in our teens? If we were 21? But alas, we cannot rewind time. Not a one of us is granted that ability. We can only look forward, to the horizon ahead.

So thinking, my intense faith in my non-faith, in my disbelief in a God or a Higher Power, cemented me and validated me. My agnosticism, my atheism, lifted me up. Spiritually, I soar on a bird’s wings. I am free, and I am unbound. I am unchained, and I am unshackled. I am unburdened, and I am unencumbered.

Thus thinking, I wiped away my tears, and less than two minutes had passed most certainly. I had donated $25 to a charitable cause yesterday, while signing up for a half-marathon. Today, I opened up my phone, and donated a larger amount to a different charitable cause, one I have donated to in the past. I thought about how life is too short in the grand scheme of things. How we are all just specks of dust in the grand universe. How sometimes we must be the change we want to see. How sometimes we must be the light in the darkness. How money is worthless, when you’re six feet under.

I thought about Legacy. About what I would leave behind, when I was dead and gone. That day will come, whether I want it or not. It may be sooner than I think, or it may not.

Afterward, I cried for a bit more. I thought about my social media. I thought about my Instagram account. I wondered why I was following all these people who didn’t care about me. I wondered why I was looking through my Instagram feed every day. I wondered why I was even posting to it. No one cared about me. No one cared what I posted. No one cared what I had to say. No one cared about my life. These public figures in the running community, with over tens of thousands of followers, they would never follow me back. Some people and businesses there were, that I followed, and who had followed me once upon a time, I’m sure of it. But they had unfollowed me at some point, and I was unaware of it. I foolishly still had them in my “Following” list. I thought about how they must be having a good laugh at that. I thought about how they must be thinking, “That Ritvik, what a chump. What a sucker. He’s still following us, even though we unfollowed him months ago.” I thought about how Instagram, to an extent any social media, is an extremely toxic place to be in. How you have to fight to even have your voice heard. How you have to fight to even have your face seen.

So thinking, I decided to pull the plug in the bathtub, and drain the swamp once in for all. I made my Instagram account private.

Taking Action

It’s a shame there’s no way to know who unfollowed you on Instagram. I would have liked to know who on my “Followers” list had, and exactly when.

Still, this is what I did.

1. I made my Instagram account private.

Then, I went to the profile of that girl who I had met recently, who I had sent a follow request to, and I removed that follow request.

Next, I combed through my list of “Following”, and identified those people and businesses, the majority of whom were female, who I did not want to be associated with. I unfollowed them, one by one. This was an important step, as otherwise their names and profiles would be featured under my “Following” list, and I did not want that. I did not want to be associated with them, and I did not want to promote them. I wanted to wash my hands of them. Of course, I did not unfollow all females. Some of them, either those that followed me, or those who were public figures in the running community, I kept. I kept them because I wanted to keep up with their posts, or else because mutual respect is important to me.

Then, I went through my “Following” list, and unfollowed everyone who was not following me back. I had to do this manually, one by one. I was surprised by the amount of individuals on this list, who had unfollowed me at some previous, undetermined point in time. However, this was a necessary step, and I made sure to take my time with this, to ensure I did not miss anything.

Conclusion

So there we go. In summary, I did the following:

• I made my Instagram private.
• I purged my list of “Following” who I did not have listed under my “Followers”.
• I removed most female accounts from my “Following” list, who I did not want to be associated with.
• I removed any follow request(s) I had sent, from those who clearly would not reciprocate and return my follow.

Going forward, I truly believe this was the right decision to make. I feel lighter, and I feel freer. I feel unburdened, and I feel unencumbered.

As always, I have a jaded, cynical view of life – and of other human beings in general. I believe that humans – at their core – are selfish creatures, motivated purely by self-interest, or else self-preservation. I do not exclude myself from that assessment, certainly. The same concept translates to social media, especially Instagram. Humans on there are not there to make friends, or to make connections. They are there to promote their brand, to promote their image, to promote their lifestyle, and to make a name for themselves. They are there to make money.

Hence, there is no point for me, or anyone else, to follow an individual who does not follow you back. Unless you are curious about their posts, or you are a fan of their work. Only through mutual trust and respect, can a relationship be built. Hence, I have taken the necessary steps to make my Instagram private, so that only those who I trust and respect, can view my posts going forward.

All the best,
and May the Force be with you,

Ritvik