Farewell to Instagram

screenshots of my since deleted @susanblackart2 Instagram feed

In the Fall of 2022, quite suddenly, I was unable to log into my IG account @susanblackart. An account I’d been building for 8 years since the Fall of 2014 - the email associated with my account had been changed ?! I’ve never had a cell phone so I didn’t have 2 step authentication set up. 

I’m sure most everyone who’s trying to make a living from their creative life can imagine the shock and panic of suddenly not having access to their IG account. Instagram has practically replaced having a website. Any potential client/creative director wants to see your IG feed because it’s a virtual, curated and current portfolio of your work. Thankfully the account still exists online, I was able to update the link tree attached to that account but I can't post, edit or send/receive DMs. In the beginning I tried everything I could think of, to get back in but after weeks of trying … I had no luck at all. Fast forward to the future and several years later I started a new IG account @susanblackart2 (since deleted) but for a variety of reasons my heart wasn’t in it anymore. The continual changes to the algorithm, the horrific repeat election of Trump and all the tech bros sucking up to him including Mark Zuckerberg, and the final straw for me was the sudden change from squares to rectangles without an option to keep the squares - you can’t just go changing’ the image ratio of my curated portfolio page … can you ? 

Call me clairvoyant ... but thankfully, just prior to the image ratio change, I took screen shots of all of my @susanblackart2 image squares. I had an inkling that I was about to delete my page. And I’m so glad I did.