16 Somewhat Embarrassing Signs You Are Obsessed With Instagram

1. It’s the first app you check each morning, even before Facebook. You know you’re not going to see any real sort of breaking news on Instagram, but you will see who’s wearing what today and cute pictures of donuts and coffee positioned perfectly next to each other – and that’s special. That is a special way to start a day.

2. You plan your next Instagram post days ahead. The idea comes to you, but you know the necessity behind taking your time to execute it perfectly on the right day, at the right time. It will look spur-of-the-moment to the untrained eye, and that’s exactly what you were going for.

3. The one day you didn’t post, at least two friends texted you: “Hey, you okay today?”

4. The days you overpost (3, 4, even 5 pictures), you know it’s wrong but you just can’t stop yourself. It’s not your fault that you have so many great things to share today. You’re sure your “likes” will decrease exponentially with each picture, but that’s a risk you’re willing to take.

5. You know all about the like-to-minute ratio. If you haven’t had at least 8 likes in 3-5 minutes, it’s a bomb and should more than likely be taken down immediately before anyone else notices it and doesn’t like it. 10-11 minutes in, you should be a few likes past the coveted 11-like mark, otherwise, you’re more than likely looking at a final like number in the teens, maybe 20, if you’re lucky. Some people don’t know the intricacies of this equation, but you do. And you live by it.

6. Unless it’s Instagrammed, a night out with your friends didn’t happen. End of story.

7. Same goes for that super impressive meal you made for yourself at home. How else is the world supposed to know you mastered a new dish tonight unless you Instagram the shit out of it?

8. Same goes for how adorable your dog (yes, the same dog you’ve posted at least 100 pictures of) looked today, just sitting on the couch.

9. SAME GOES FOR EVERYTHING EVER. INSTAGRAM PROVES IT HAPPENED AND HOW CUTE/ADORABLE/PRETTY/AWESOME IT WAS.

10. You can’t remember the last time you used only an Instagram filter and called it good. 2011? Maaaybe 2012? Instagram serves as the final vessel that blasts your deserving pictures onto your followers’ feeds. Before that, you have at least two, if not three photo apps you put your chosen picture through. One has the best filters, one sharpens better than the others, and one fits it perfectly into frame. It’s a process that easily takes a solid 10 minutes of your time with each new post and what has made countless fresh-cooked meals cold.

11. You check Instagram constantly. It’s a tick. You do it so much, you don’t even realize it’s happening. And you don’t only check it for likes – you may not have even posted something yet today, but opening the app and quickly scrolling until you see the very last picture you already saw is an unbreakable and totally pointless habit.

12. Not only do you know exactly how many followers you have, you instantly notice when one unfollows you… and you find out who it is. Iconosquare.com is your secret tool wherein you can see exactly who your new enemy is. “Oh!” You say out loud upon identifying your latest unfollower. “I see. Well, fuck you too, then.” Unhealthy doesn’t even begin to describe this action.

13. You scoff at the amateur ‘grammers who do silly things like post additional spelling correction comments under their original caption: e.g. “*of not off.” How do they not know they can delete their original comment, rewrite it, and repost it in a matter of seconds?

14. You’re pretty much convinced that direct picture Instagramming didn’t take off because you refused to get into it.

15. Very few times, you’ve known going into a post that it’ll be a total flop, yet you go for it anyway just to see how obsessed with validation via Instagram you really are. Those few times, you’ve lasted about eight minutes before swiftly deleting it and removing all traces of evidence it was ever there. You’re weak, you admit it.

16. Those nightmareish days in which Instagram has been down? In those few moments, you learned what it’s like to feel totally and utterly lost. You literally could not and will not and can never again.