** I am in the deep dark pit in my head so please excuse typos and grammar mistakes**
If you have been on bookstagram you’ve seen people talk about how they are/took a break for their mental health, but we rarely talk about why our mental health is bad. The truth is being on bookstagram can really mess with you. If you are on bookstagram, or are wanting to join I highly suggest keeping in mind the following to help prevent gonging into the dark place of your mind.
1. The Aesthetic
Everyone is obsessed with having the perfect aesthetic. When you are posting 1000+ pictures on Instagram your pictures start to look the same so you spend money on getting new props and they become clutter in your house. I’ve been down the rabbit hole and you can’t really get out. If you have the money to spend on this that’s great, but the average person probably doesn’t, our money is going to new books. Keeping up with the aesthetic you’ve created yourself on bookstagram can be frustrating when you want to post a life updated, change things up, or you love a picture and want to post it, but it doesn’t match your feed. Solution: Post whatever you want! Do followers like looking at aesthetic pictures? Of course, but they stay in the content is good.
2. Follow Trains and Engagement Groups
These are great for all of two days. What happens with follow trains is you do one get a ton of likes or follows and then nothing. You go from feeling this high and then hit a low and so you start the cycle over. Eventually you do it enough and you already follow everyone who is participating in the train. There are also many people who join these and will never follow you or they will follow you just to unfollow in a couple of days. Engagement groups are a little different, but can add a lot more stress. Many engagement groups will tell you how often you have to engage (many on them are everyday) and you have a list of things to do for everyone which can be over 100 accounts. If you miss one day or misread the directions the person who runs it will come for you.
3. The Follower Count
This is a big thing. You may start your bookstagram saying “I don’t care about how many followers I have” but you will. Once you get a taste of the that photo or reel that gets a ton of likes or you hit a follower milestone you will crave that feeling again and again. Watching the new followers come in is so much fun and you see the new friend you can make. It can give you so much motive to post, but also gives a little extra pressure to keep posting. The opposite can also happen. When you lose a follower, especially when you are on a high, that unfollower can bring you down. It can make you try and try to make better content until you are burnout and not want to post anymore.
4. The Pressure to Post
Going along with the point point above, bookstagram is the place of pictures and short videos. once you start the account, you will want to post over and over again because you will feel like you need to. For me at least, if I miss a day I feel like I’ve let so many people down and the I get so down and out about it I stop posting at peak times and sometimes even all together. Sometimes you really need to take a break and you will feel guilty. But you need to do what’s best for you. Posting often is important for growing the audience but the pressure to do so will kill your drive faster than anything else.
5. The Bookstagram BFFs
This may be more of a personal thing, but following best friends online can be a little hazarding on your mental health. Especially if you have no bookish friends like me. Bookstagram is a great place to find friends but when you follow two people who always post about each other and with each other it can make you upset you don’t have a bookish friend. This isn’t any negative to them, they are just out there living their best life, I would just also like to have a friend. I used to have a friend back in college that loved reading and things in our suite got messy between some people and some how I lost some friends without even knowing what the drama was about. So maybe this point just hits me really close to home, or maybe it’s a real thing. Either way I need a bookish friend so hit me up!
These are just a few things on bookstagram that are mess with your mental health. I don’t mean to make anyone not want to get a bookstagram account, but raise awareness that it is not all butterflies and rainbows.
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