I think Instagram doesn’t like me anymore.

A few years ago, I wrote a post called “My thoughts on IG’s engagement.” I said goodbye to the app, or at least to the version of it that I thought I needed. I talked about the anxiety, the stagnant follower count, the camera roll full of work and not enough of life. I thought I’d said what I needed to say.

Turns out, I’m still saying it.

I miss the old, old, old Instagram. The one where five followers felt like a milestone. The one where a caption could just be a caption, not a performance of relatability, niche-ness, and value-add all at once. Back then I asked, why aren’t they engaging with me? Now I don’t even know who “they” are supposed to be anymore. The algorithm keeps moving the pond, and we keep being asked to be smaller fish who swim faster.

Here’s what hasn’t changed: I still love making things. That part was never the problem. The problem was letting a feed decide whether the making was worth it.

Here’s what has changed: I’m not pretending anymore that leaving is dramatic, or that staying is required. I have Pinterest. TikTok. Lemon8. 小红书. This very Substack. Creative Market. YouTube. Jack of all trades, master of none? Maybe. But also not trapped in one pond, waiting for one current to decide if I get to keep swimming.

The irony of social media is that it convinces you it’s the only ocean. It isn’t. It never was. It’s one net, cast by one company, with one set of rules that change whenever they decide the rules should change. My business doesn’t live inside that net. It never did. I just forgot for a while.

And there are so many testimonies of how my God did it for me. He connects me with people I have yet to meet. Words travel. A recommendation passes from one friend to another, one client to the next. A whole supernatural current I can’t trace with my natural sight.

In the most recent one, my very own sister who has never bought anything from slowlivecreate; commissioned me for a portrait. Something I’ve never even posted about on Instagram. Truth is, I’ve never painted a portrait for work before. No feed announced it. No algorithm served it up. It just happened, the way things happen when you stop needing a platform to make them real.

So if you’re reading this and you’re in that same anxious scroll, checking your numbers, wondering what you did wrong. Well, you didn’t do anything wrong. The pond got smaller. That’s not a reflection of your work.

Take the break. Reroute if you need to. Or stay, and let this be a reminder that the account was never the business. You were, and are, and still will be, whatever platform you’re standing on next.

Stay slow with me.

Some seasons are just for resting the field before the next thing grows.

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