Sian has shared a video on “bullying and gossiping”. It is an interesting video but I don’t think I got the message that Sian got. It starts with the poster drawing some arrows on paper and saying “I know these are true because I drew them” and then saying it is other people that will distort this truth. The implication being anything anybody writes on Instagram or says must be true and should be accepted as true. But that’s the entire problem with Instagram, we are expected to believe that everything is true without question. There is no mechanism to question whether things are really true.
So taking Sian as an example, nobody believes she affords ten extravagant holidays a year by drinking free coffees, not buying second coats, and not going out much. So people will discuss this. The budgeting “tip” with the coat was genuinely so ridiculous that it was obviously going to cause ridicule. If she had said this in real life to a group of genuine friends they would, at the very least, explained how ridiculous that advice was. Likewise real-life friends would point out how extravagant all her holidays are. Unlike Instagram, in real life people don’t just accept everything you say unquestioningly.
