Is My Instagram Run By A Real Person?

If you're as big of a fan of easily attained, potentially regrettable endorphins as I am, you should be on Instagram. Every like from a girl who visited your class in fourth grade and then decided to go to a different school but still played soccer against your school is PURE HAPPINESS. It doesn't matter who the likes are from, it just matters that somewhere out there someone is jealous of your vacation which is why you went on vacation in the first place.

I'm no influencer. I like to post the fun things I do and the good times I have as a way of updating my friends on my life and cashing in on that sweet sweet endorphin juice. There's no doubt that the account is mine, it features my trademark tipsy/I'm on a subway spelling errors, and mentions Twilight way too many times.

So it's pretty clear that my account is run by me, checked by me, and kept active by me. Yet, on any given day on Instagram, I can also expect to be tagged in at least 3 giveaways for Sheitels, strollers, and Kidichic outfits.

Unless I've been in an Uma-Thurman-in-Kill-Bill-like coma that only my Instagram knows about, I'm pretty sure I don't need any of those things.

I work in marketing and have run a few of these contests myself. You encourage followers to tag three friends in order to enter a contest where they will win said Sheitel or stroller. It's simple, it tends to increase follower counts, and it's annoying as hell.

I understand why my friends are entering these contests, there's always a chance you'll win, right? I mean sure, but from my experience the marketing team tends to pick the winner with the highest follower count or largest influence in order to fuel the promotion further. That being said I've entered contests of my own for free books or autographed merchandise. You know, the *truly* valuable objects on this earth.

I also understand why my friends are tagging me. I have a common name and if you need to tag 3 friends it's a lot easier to grab 3 friends who all have the same name.

But.

If we go past the excuse, which I totally get, that I am just an easy person to tag, we approach something a little more sinister. The hard truth of the matter is that I have friends and acquaintances who don't see me as a real person who is running my Instagram account.

Digital identities are complicated-just ask any episode of Netflix's Black Mirror. It hasn't been determined in the general canon whether or not someone's online self deserves as much respect as their actual person does.

I like to think that when the world does come down on digital identities, that I'm going to be on the right side of history with how I treated others online. I treat them the way I do in person which means I don't tag my friends who are dealing with infertility in diaper giveaways, I don't tag my friend whose husband is in a wheelchair in a giveaway for a ski vacation for two, and I don't tag my single friends in sheitel giveaways.

Except siblings. G-D and your parents provided you with siblings for the express purpose of using them to up your tags and better your chances of winning.