We love finding new friends to follow on Instagram, but when your photo feed gets cluttered with someone else’s selfie overload and filter fever, it might be time to do some spring cleaning. Use our eight surefire signs that it’s time to unfollow someone on Instagram to weed your feed.
#1 Mystery Feed
At some point in the past, you came across this person’s feed and it seemed like a good idea to follow them. But now you’re looking at pictures of people you’ve never seen before eating brunch and you can’t for the life of you remember who truelove365 (or whatever) is. This feed obviously has no relevance to your life. #Unfollow
#2 Too Much Text
Don’t you hate it when you’re looking at a photo and you get down to the hashtags and you’re scrolling, and you’re scrolling, and you’re scrolling and you’re still looking at text? Whether it’s the looonngg-winded backstory behind their perfectly-captured moment or a million superfluous hashtags designed to lure more people to their feed, some people just don’t get that Instagram is a forum for photos, not hashtags. Dare we mention that a picture is worth a thousand words? #Unfollow
#3 Cats, Cats, Cats
The Internet loves cats. And there’s nothing wrong with occasionally posting a photo of something heart-meltingly cute that your cat is doing. But when my Instagram feed turns into a live stream of your precious baby’s every waking (or more commonly, sleeping) minute, I’m gonna unfollow you. #Unfollow
#4 Instacliches
And that goes for all of the other Instagram cliches like filter blown-out sunsets, cappuccino foam doodles and the tips of boots standing among autumn leaves. If it looks like a picture you’ve seen before, it’s because everyone else on Instagram has already taken that photo (twice) and it’s totally boring for your followers. #Unfollow
#5 Obviously Non-Instaphotos
Instagram is about capturing a moment and sharing it in real time — the “instant” part is right there in the name. So sharing screenshots of someone else’s photos or taking a photo with your super-nice SLR camera and expensive lens kit then uploading it to Instagram is just downright cheating. #Unfollow
#6 Selfie Overload
We’ve all done it. There are those moments where the reflection of your hair/makeup/outfit in the window as you walk by comes together in such an undeniably right way that you have to take a selfie just to make sure it really happened. The old, “If a tree falls in a forest and nobody’s around to hear it…” thing. And there are some people, like Miranda Kerr, whose selfies we don’t mind seeing again and again. But we’ve all come across girls and guys who take the same selfie from the same angle with the same half-smile and slightly raised eyebrow over and over ad nauseam, and it’s exhausting. #Unfollow
#7 Lack of Editing
It’s not hard to tell when someone had a few drinks and let loose on Instagram, resulting in 11 blurred shots of the same people living it up at the same bar, all posted one right after another. This kind of feed-hogging happens to the best of us, but when someone you’re subscribed to becomes a repeat offender, it might be time to say goodbye. #Unfollow
#8 Over-Editing
When you’re new to Instagram, it’s easy to get filter fever. With just a few taps, suddenly your shadowy shot is a high-definition, Technicolor, postcard-worthy image. But always having to hit the HDR button to get those fake-looking, vibrant colors is a dead giveaway that the picture isn’t really that interesting in the first place. Think of Instagram filters like well-applied makeup — the result should be natural-looking, only better. So when someone on your feed has you seeing the world through Kelvin-filtered glasses, let them go. #Unfollow
image: Getty
