You can tell a lot about someone by how they scroll Instagram when they think nobody is watching. Subways, airports, buses, and most public transportation have the best lookouts.
For the Luddites, Instagram synthesizes what posts you like, save, share, and spend time on, the algorithm swallows that data and then pukes out new posts it thinks you’ll enjoy, into an infinite grid called The Explore Page.
Once, a svelte man standing on the corner of Lafayette and Mott asked for my Instagram. I’d just seen Lost Highway, so I said only if I could look at his explore page first. With a benign compliance, he handed over his phone. It was teeming with bodybuilders (the sinister kind), washboard abs, and teenagers in bikinis. There was a kind of limp silence and then he snatched his phone away. In all fairness, I would never show anyone my explore page.
If I’m being lofty, I’d argue the explore page is a kind of digital reflection of your id. To see if that’s true, at a surprise party at Toad Hall, I asked a bunch of people to send me screenshots of theirs. I thought there would be more strongarming and subterfuge, but most people complied. Some pretended not to hear me. Enjoy!
DMs are open. I wanna see more.
ALSO fill out this anonymous survey about heartbreak:
its amazing how you can persuade people to open up (ñike in Japan) or give up this info 😎💪