I am shadow banned. Or I suspect I am. Whenever new people try to follow me on Instagram they have to type in my full name for my account to pop up. That is not normal, and it has been going on for years. I’ve tried not to think about it. Wishing it away with a “that’s weird” or “that’s inconvenient.” I figured it would go away with time. It has not.
Shadowbanning is “the practice of blocking or partially blocking a user or the user's content from some areas of an online community in such a way that the ban is not readily apparent to the user.” It is the result of not following community guidelines (spamming, nudity, hate speech, using bots, etc). I have posted a nude from my maternity shoot and a grid of breasts for my Autre interview with Sarah Thornton about her book Tits Up. I once had a story taken down because it used unlicensed music. Most shamefully, my husband has bought me offshore followers and likes in the past, though those followers have since fallen off. In short, I have not followed the community guidelines perfectly, but my infractions are minor. Like jay walking. Or drinking $6 ginger shots from Whole Foods without paying for them. I did not think they warranted longterm censorship. Yet, when I watch Melinda type in my full name before my account appears, I can no longer ignore my likely delisting.
Instagram does not officially acknowledge the existence of shadow bans, which makes the practice all the more infuriating. Despite this, there are a plethora of websites and Reddit forums dedicated to overcoming shadow bans. I decide to follow the advice of an article titled “Shadow Ban on Instagram: How to Remove It” written 7 months ago by Valerie Polyakova for a website called Elfsight. It asks me to check my Account Status, accessible via Settings, which I do for the first time ever. My Status is perfect. Green lights all around. *Head scratching.* Why am I being punished if my record is clean? Instead of feeling relieved, I am irate. Instagram is gaslighting me! How is this even legal?
There is, according to the article, a way to know for sure if I have been shadow banned. I need to make a new post with a unique hashtag, wait a few hours, then sign into another account and search for the hashtag on Instagram. If the hashtag doesn’t show up then I’ll know that I’ve been shadow banned. I proceed with this experiment, using #thisisatestpostmiekemarple. As I wait, I begin writing my Substack post about my shadow-banning. I take my daughter to the park. I am certain that when I return and sign onto Instagram, the results of my hashtag search will tell me what I already know: I’m the victim of a vaguely nefarious corporate scheme.
Except that my search doesn’t confirm this. When I look for my hashtag using the Instagram account I created for the Medusa Collection, a series of generative art NFTS I made in 2021, #thisisatestpostmiekemarple shows up right away. I must face facts: I am not shadow banned. I can’t blame my Instagram frustration on a corporate conspiracy. If I feel invisible, blocked, it is because of my unwillingness to apply myself to social media. The embarrassment of this makes me hot in the face. A thin film of perspiration forms under my armpits. I delete my test post immediately. I will have to think of something else to write about this week. I am about to delete this Substack post, when a tiny voice tells me to wait. This development may not be flattering, but what it reveals is no less interesting (and probably more human) than if I were actually shadow-banned.
To my credit, conspiracy theories—as Naomi Klein points out in her brilliant book Doppelganger (about her frequent confusion with right wing conspiracy-theorist Naomi Wolf)—are wrong in facts, but right in feelings. Bill Gates is not putting microchip trackers in COVID-vaccines. Yet, the way our devices and software, all powered by big tech, seem to listen to everything we say can make it feel like that technology is practically inside our brains, reading our thoughts. Instagram has not singled me out and muted me with little to no cause. Yet, the way the algorithm works makes me feel like a shadow of a person, like I am posting into the void. And I know that I’m not the only one who feels this way.
At the same time, I must acknowledge the ways I shadow ban myself. For instance, I have an email list of over 600 emails. Melinda—a fan of this Substack since day one—encouraged me to add those contacts to my Substack subscriber list. I was hesitant. What if I didn’t feel like continuing this blog after a few weeks? What if people on that list were irritated about being added without explicit permission? However, beneath those questions was a deeper, more urgent question: can I handle the power of my own light?
Author Marianne Williamson said “Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.” I believe this. I also want to judge myself right now for sharing such a quote—as if doing so means I’m one step away from drinking out of a “Live, Laugh, Love” mug. But I will refrain because that is why I started this Substack in the first place—to prove to myself that there is something more powerful than my own self-doubt and judgment and the algorithms of big tech.
Medusa #407 from my Medusa Collection
*I never solved the mystery of why my full name needs to be typed into the search bar for my IG account to appear. If you have advice re: getting to the bottom of this, I implore you to share it.
**If you noticed there are 2 posts for #thisisatestpostmiekemarple that is because, after shame-deleting the first post, I re-staged the experiment to get screen shots for this Substack entry
I read this again. It’s poignant and provocative. The tension between light and dark, good and bad, community and disunity constitutes a fundamental rhythm in our lives. Birth is the cause of our death. Go figure!
Your notes teaches us that human expertise and happiness reside in the choices we make. Do I choose to engage and live in darkness or in light, in the joy of my birth or in the fear of my death… a choice presented dozens of times a day in circumstances great and small.
Thank you for this powerful reminder about how awake I must be to walk in the light!
Greg
As I have shared with you before: “the mighty sword of faith is useless in the hand of a coward.” (Nichiren). This courageous note shows real faith in yourself and so helps all of us find courage in our own lives. Thank you, Mieke. (Plus: your writing is a joy by itself!)