Offline is the new luxury. 

  • Post category:Personal
Photo of a pour over coffee system with freshly brewed coffee on top of a green surface. The coffee carafe is sitting in top of a store, holding a black filter. A bag of coffee beans with a panda on it is in the background. The label if orange to pink ombre with black writing on a bag that is black ombre to white bottom to top. A plant is next to the coffee beans and the pour over system and plants seem to be in the background as well.


It’s been 60 days since I left META, and here is what I have learned about social media, social media expectations, and myself.  I am taking you on a short history trip of my time on Instagram, might as well get yourself a coffee before continuing on…


Leaving META, specifically for me Instagram and Threads, had personally and socially positive impacts that I wasn’t quite aware of while I was still trying to share parts of my days with my audience. 


But allow me to step back a bit and explain my time using IG. I didn’t jump onto Instagram as soon as it hit the market. In those terms, I was actually a late bloomer and signed up 8 years after its initial debut in 2010. I have never experienced the crappy image quality and the ability to only use images. My first ever image was a close-up of a tomato, and the experience of sharing images just for the purpose of sharing images was thrilling. 

A film photo of a glass jar of pickled cherry tomatoes on top of a white table in a backyard. A small nest made of grass is in the right buttom corner of the image, behind on the table are strawberries on a plate. A fence in in the far background of the table.
A digital photo of a glass jar of pickled tomatoes on a white table in the backyard. A nest made of grass is next to the glass jar, behind it is a plate of red strawberries and a Lindt Chocolate easter chicken. In the far background is a fence and trees visible. The sky is blue.


My little IG home grew, I connected with people from different parts of the world over home renovations, foods, coffee, motherhood, and photography. 


2020 rolled around, and the pandemic hit. I turned to Instagram to share our lockdown days. To be honest, I think 2020-2021 was the most fun I have had on Instagram. The pandemic and, with that, the stay-at-home orders kind of forced me to focus on what I have instead of focusing on what I am missing. That’s not to say I didn’t miss going to the beaches, on hikes, or just strolling shops and getting a coffee. I did miss it, but I put my focus on staying home and making the experience a memorable one in a good way. I documented my days through my lens. My kids roller skating in the living room, a picnic for Mother’s Day on the living room floor, virtual Hula lessons, and water play in the backyard. I documented it all, and I loved it. I loved sharing these days via Instagram stories, sharing that we are all in this together and we’ll come out of this together. 

a black and white film image of a person playing ukulele. The person is wearing a t-shirt with koala bears on it.
A black and white film image of a young girl with dark long hair laying on a couch, pillow underneath her head. She is playing the ukulele.
A young girl wearing a tutu is laying in a royal blue couch, her bare legs are dangling down over the armpiece. A palm tree right next to the couch, her legs seem to touch the palm leaves. The couch is underneath a window, more plants are sitting in the window.
A young girl is laying on a royal blue couch, her legs dangling over the arm piece of the couch. She is wearing white and pink rollerskates with pink rollers. A palm tree in a basket is standing next to the couch on the flor, a fossilized whale bone is in front of the plant basket. The couch is sitting underneath a window, some artwork is hanging on the wall next to the window. The floor is a light wood.
A young girl is wearing pink diving goggles, looking down into someone sprayer her with the water hose. Water droplets are splashing onto her goggles and bounce off of them. It's a sunny day, sun spots and shadows are visible in the backround.
A white bathtub outside underneath and surrounded by palm trees. The tub is half filled with water, hisbiscus blossoms of pink, yellow and orange float on the surface of the water.


Post-pandemic I had fallen into a routine of sharing a few daily images, adding more short video clips along the way. I had a few Reels go viral; my account grew to above 5000 followers. That’s not much if you consider most people strive to have at least 10k. It’s not much in terms that social media does make you believe that your follower count is your worth. 

A young girl in diving googles breaking the waters surface coming up from a dive. The water is vivid blue.
A image of five palm trees lining a rocky a rocky stretch of land going out into the ocean. In the background is a mountain visible. It's a hazy morning, the sun still sitting low. White clouds are in a blue sky. The ocean looks calm.
A young woman wearing a Lei po'o, also known as flower crown, while standing against the sun. She has brown hair, only half her face is in the image. Her eyes are closed, there is a red lens flair in the bottom of the image. The lei she is wearing on her head is multi colored flowers of pink, purple, white and yellow with green ferns.
Image of a bunch of purple Persian buttercups in front of a window. A plant if hanging in the wall in the background.


Personally, however, my follower count also had me realize that the more the follower count climbs, the more the responsibilities grow. A responsibility to my children, my audience, my morals, and my values. As the realization of this responsibility hung over my head, so did my desire to share photos and videos drop. The amount of time spent on sharing content vs. the lack of feedback received started to become unbalanced. 


My most unbalanced point, though, probably was when I was asked to participate in a giveaway at an acquaintance’s account but reviewed only a rude message when my part of the giveaway didn’t arrive in Europe in a timely manner. To this day I don’t know if it ever made it, but I do know that the followers I gained for the duration of that giveaway stayed exactly until the giveaway was over. The moments when you already know how it’s going to play out, but you still agree to something out of the goodness of your heart because you were asked to be part of something to share some kindness in this world. 

A cat sitting in a fabric box underneath a shelve. There are boardgames in the shelve, a toy car is next to the box the cat sits in.
A butterfly chrysalis of a Monarch butterfly. It's green with small golden spots, having in a little artificial stick in a clear box.


That was probably the beginning of a downhill trajectory that eventually led me to close my META accounts. 


But before we got there, I created a Threads account on its launch in July 2023. I loved Threads, and I think Threads has been one of the greatest things META has created in a long while. No advertisements, a wonderful community, storytelling through text instead of reels that don’t get shown to any audience. Threads was a wonderful thing, and I do miss it. Instead of bringing my followers automatically over to threads, I have started from scratch. Every new person to follow me on Threads didn’t follow me because they already knew who I am through Instagram. 


A fresh feeling, a fresh audience, a humorous audience. The photographers community was the absolute best, and Threads helped me to grow in ways I didn’t think I needed. Threads, however, was a catalyst in my decision to leave META, for I had learned through Threads that social media is just an extension of someone’s real life, to my real life, and I didn’t want meaningless exchanges and a quiet, observing audience anymore. While Threads engagement and growth happened through interaction, I couldn’t figure out how to translate that into IG. 

A film image of a field of sunflowers overlooking the mountains of Hawai'i. You are standing right in the middle of the sunflowers, several blossoms are facing you. Lots of white clouds are floating in the blue sky.


While trying to figure out what I wanted, I took last summer off of Instagram, and yet nothing has changed for the better when I got back. Still a one-sided interaction, but the bots have gotten more. At one point there was even the trend of 1-second reels. You know, people do anything just to grow numbers. Meaningless numbers we, as a society, attach value to. Instagram turned into AI accounts, bots, influencers trying to sell you the next best e-course, and sensationalism. None of that is anything I value, anything that I pursue in my actual life.

When META announced their new policies in January of this year, I just knew I had to jump off that train before I myself got bitter, overwhelmed by the constant pull of social media. 

It wasn’t a light decision, but it was the best decision. 

Before I left, I gave my audience a 2-week notice. Funny enough, that was when I received the most private message in years. People were sad to see me leave; people wanted to stay connected, to stay in touch. 

It’s been 60 days since I left, and it’s really only been a handful of people who have actually stayed in touch. That’s not at all surprising, but it should make people wonder how many of someone’s 10K-plus audience would actually stay in touch through other means if the end of META were to come for everyone. The number is probably rather small in comparison to our expectations. 

Leaving META has offered me the opportunity to spend my time more fulfilling and find balance again for all that brings me joy. Instead of followers, I am now growing flowers and am back again to growing and fostering authentic relationships with people in my community.

Stepping entirely away from META has brought only positive changes for me. I am glad I left when I did, and I am full of gratitude for the time I had with META, the learning and growing through social media for myself, and I am beyond blessed to have met incredibly cool people through META who have turned out to be not just nosy friends through social media but have grown into nosy friends who still check in with me in real life.  These are my kind of people.

For all that is not so great about META, making real-life friends has been the greatest thing about it all. I am glad I tried it, loved it for a while, and left when it still was somewhat cool. 

What’s been your experience with META? Has it changed over time, or is it as good as ever for you?

Drop me a line and if you are like me and haven’t completely given up on social media, find me on Bluesky Would love to see you there. If you have just come across my blog and are entirely new here, welcome. Glad you found me, hope you will be back for more of your reading pleasures. In the meantime though, click here to find my very first blog post. It’s been a year since I started this adventure.

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