My Instagram’s Insights
By: Andrea Firth
Tags: Pandemic, Life, Photos, Social Media, Self Improvement

It’s been a year since I took the Instagram class. Time to take stock. When I look at my Instagram pandemic-era posts, here’s what I see: My husband and I remain employed. We are white and college-educated, with jobs that we can do remotely. We aren’t on the front lines. We have health insurance and a safety net. We’ve been doing what we were told to do to blunt the curve. We stay home, wave to neighbors at a distance, and grocery shop once a week. I bake. We hike. We Zoom. And we are fine.

What my Instagram doesn’t show is what’s going on beyond the frame of my photos, that same question I asked my students to answer when they looked for the stories in their photos. That same thing Jeff Sharlet dug for in his interviews with the strangers in his photos. What can’t be seen?

I live in northern California, across the Bay from San Francisco. Although the number of deaths from COVID-19 in the city remains relatively low, the Asian American and black communities have been hit hardest. In the Bay Area and across the state, the Latino and black communities test positive for coronavirus and die from the disease at disproportionately higher rates, as much as twice as often.

Why? Marginalized and more vulnerable, with lower socioeconomic means, living and working conditions which leave them at greater risk, less access to adequate healthcare. Myriad reasons without good responses.

What my Instagram tells me: I’m one of the fortunate ones. But there’s more to it. I still haven’t gotten to the story beneath the photos, the heart of the story, so I go back to the questions I posed to my students.

What’s happening? What do I want at this moment? What connections can I make?

I’m managing during the pandemic as best I can. I’m scared and anxious sometimes, often I can’t sleep. I fear the uncertainty of the times. I feel isolated, like I’m in a bubble. I wonder how others less fortunate are managing. I can empathize, but I can’t fully understand what their experiences are like. I can’t know what they are feeling. I don’t know their pain.

What do I want? For this plague to pass. For everyone to be free from the threats posed by this virus. For life to be normal but different. For things to change. For this experience to be more than just something we get through. For the pandemic to transforms us. For us to step up, take responsibility, and care for each other. For good healthcare to be accessible to everyone. For everyone to have a safety net. For the legal system to be fixed and fair. For the world to be a kinder and gentler and more equitable place.

What connections can I make? We are afflicted by a virus that can infect and kill anyone, but it discriminates, because the discrimination is built into our society. For a long time, I feared social media, feared putting myself out there for people to see. And in truth, I’ve only dipped my toe in so far, but Instagram has helped me to see what lies behind and beyond. Truths that are often avoided but that need to be faced.

What next? I made it a year on Instagram, so maybe I’ll go for two. Take more photos and continue to take stock. I don’t know how to manage all the change we need, but I do know the one person I can change is me. And maybe I’ll take a page from Jeff Sharlet’s book — I’ll look deeper, ask more questions, and write that story — that I can do.