Alternatives if I quit IG?

I haven't seen many of those photos in my IG feed. Maybe you need to edit the people you follow. 🤷‍♀️

@northrigg I don't think there's a good alternative unfortunately. I would suggest maybe just cleaning up your feed to remove women that don't inspire you?

I keep two instagram accounts (it's super easy to switch back and forth). On my personal account I follow people I know in real life & post regular life photos (I don't update that often honestly) and then I have a crafty feed where I post my scrapbook/craft projects and follow crafters who inspire me. I can easily choose which account I want to scroll on.

I've found that facebook is okay for groups... I don't follow crafty people on there, but sometimes I get some good inspiration in crafty groups, like the Craft the Story group for AE products, but it's not the same as instagram. I also enjoy watching videos on youtube, but I only have a handful of creators I really like and they don't post enough... I get a much wider range of inspiration on instagram. I wish pinterest was better, it used to be, but it seems to have fallen out of favor with scrapbookers because I can't find anything very new on there... I do use it for other inspiration, like interior design, and I love to look at non-scrapbook posts to inspire my scrapbooking, such as "magazine editorial design" is a good search term.

I too was kinda annoyed when I saw these posts originally but... I would also add that I've seen a lot of people learning about the origins of it and changing/deleting their original post. Regardless, just like all other trends, this will pass... if this one really gets under your skin you could take a short break and when you come back it'll be a distant memory

I PMed anyone who posted the b/w photo. On a few I also posted details about the reason behind the b/w photo.

I was a bit miffed that several crafters I follow "accepted the challenge."

This is where as humans we need to step back and research before taking on another stupid social media challenge (the original meaning is NOT stupid. But the way so many of these look at me challenges are).

A friend made a good point. A lot of these challenges and hashtags are a good way for stalkers to follow you.

I told many posting a b/w photo isn't going to fix anything. You are just another sheep following the cool kids. So over it.

I deleted my original IG account last year and took a 4 month break. It was sooooo nice. BUT IG is where I found the best inspiration in one place. No following a bazzillion blogs.

The B&W photo challenge has been used several times over the years including for a cancer awareness campaign in Brazil several years back. This wave, however, is in support of the victims of the femicides in Turkey. Hope this clears up the mystery. 

I thought I was just a judgy bitch because my eyes were rolling so hard at all the B&W taking over my feed. Not one of them mentioned anything other than #challengeaccepted and #supportwomen with an artfully posed, good picture. It could not have been more vague or vapid. I did see later that the original hashtag was the support of Turkish women. Then I saw people getting all butthurt (someone must have clued them in to what they were supposedly coopting) and they were then posting a canned reply that they were fully in support of endangered women and if their post educated just one person... WT ever loving F? Would have been nice for you to mention that in the first place instead of making sure you picked the right photo and tagged the right people to boost your profile.

Most of the people I know personally are taking the BW thing seriously. One posted a stark shot of herself after her first chemo treatment, her eyes haunted, her hair freshly shaved after it started coming out in clumps. Others have also posted unglamorous selfies speaking of the strong women they know.

There are of course, exceptions. The ones who have hunted down the most flattering photo of themselves they own, and converted to BW. I can easily tell from the depth of focus and focal length that these were taken with real cameras, and not selfies at all. Yes, eye rolling here.

But very few know what the original challenge was about, which is a shame.

Happy IG break! May it be the refresher you're looking for.    Don't hesitate to unfollow the accounts that get under your skin too regularly when you return. Something-something about the benefits of digital decluttering... 

Yeah... a break might be the thing. And a little housecleaning...

I hated that “challenge” from day one because it started out so cliquey and secretive - just a hashtag, no explanation. It was clear that if no one had tagged you you weren’t loved or cool enough to be in the know, which doesn’t seem like women supporting women. I figured it was a “get yourself in the frame, see your own beauty” thing, which I can support, but then I realized it wasn’t that either.

And then just as I got tagged and saw the whole message I read a couple of posts that clued me in to where this had come from. The messages I got were well intentioned, so I wrote a private message back to those friends to thank them for thinking of me and tell them why they were important to me. And then I posted separately about the Turkish anti-femicide campaign. I’m still seeing posts but for the most part I just scroll past. Some people don’t know, some people don’t care.

But one of my friends got a pissy message from someone in her feed who announced she was being untagged because she clearly “didn’t support women” and that’s the kind of bullshit that gets my back up. An IG celeb also got tons of angry DMs after she tried to educate people about this “challenge” and told them that the idea of women not supporting women was a myth of the patriarchy - no one seemed to see the irony of yelling at a woman for “not supporting women.”

Also, fucking chain letters. I’m sorry - if I have to send anything on to 20 people it’s a chain letter, and I hate chain letters. They’re viral nuisances. They primarily exist to perpetuate themselves. If they have some good to them I might find a way to go along with the spirit of them - that’s why I sent kind messages to the people who tagged me. But again, that just pisses me off.

Anyway... I love Instagram for the most part, and hate every alternative platform, but I need to do some digital decluttering too. My feed has gotten out of control and I need to reshape it into what I want to see.

This is me. Noscript, adblock, no cookies unless I personally allow each one in, NO facebook cookies of any kind, no google cookies except on my chrome browser, which I use sparingly. I don't like being creeped on.

Reminds me of all the teen-ager-y stuff on FB back in the day. Like the "where your purse is" coded stuff.

Ugh. Got off FB years ago and never looked back.

IG is a bit easier to take - esp. cuz it's mostly crafting, doxies and old-timey fashion follows.

To me challenge accepted was always Celeste Barber. I noticed she uses hashtag celestechallangeaccepted. Love her.