How Flowers Made Me Like Instagram or Vice Versa
I am a person who took photography classes in high school. I had - okay still technically have a flickr account. I had shutterfly and a bunch of other things that no longer exist or exist as shells of themselves these days. Instagram should have been my jam. Except it wasn't.
I approached it the way I approach most new to social media. I got an account, followed a few folks and lurked a bit. And I hated it. The excessive hashtaggery, the blogging on a format that was not well designed for blogging, it was both being and being used in ways it was not designed to support well, and I hated it. One of the double edged swords of hanging with lots of romance folks, there is no social media we aren't on or haven't tried. But I personally, am not going to devote time to following the same exact people in four places. As much as I love them.
I should clarify when I say I hated instagram, I mean I hated using it. I hated figuring out what to post. I understood what it was good at . I understood that there were businesses and people who it was going to be great for. I just wasn't sure if I was that person. So, I deleted it from my phone and let the account lie dormant.
And then I started looking into to things for Aloha to You, I started following botanical gardens, museum accounts, food, flower stylists, and okay, sure there were some cats too. And I discovered things like the FloralFriday hashtag and something clicked for me. I am never (I mean probably, because never say never) going to love it as much as I love some other social media. But I do love posting pictures of flowers. I even got bored of posting things like look - yellow flower, and started learning about flower types.
And the thing that happened is sort of a funhouse mirror version of what all those what are your children doing on the internet stories. Because posting pictures of flowers made me a person who kept an eye out for flowers. So instagram literally made me stop and look at flowers. Flowers in the park. Flowers at the museums. Flowers in front of restaurants, or office buildings, or placed on sidewalks. And yes, I walked down different side streets discovering what neighbors had interesting and new to me flower arrangements in their front yards. I looked up to see what flowering trees might be blooming.
And so yes, I have become like a flower person. Or a person who photographs flowers. I'm still relying on other people to grow them.