It is peak vacation season, which means your Instagram feed will soon be flooded with beach pics, picturesque picnic scenes, and that one-shoulder swimsuit from Summersalt.
People tend to have strong feelings about vacation photos. In fact, a lot of people hate them. That's fair! As a genre, vacation photos can be so homogenous that they veer into boring; plus, if you're not on vacation yourself, scrolling through other people's fun pics from your couch can make you feel awful. So if you don't want to look at slightly different angles of the same hike in upstate New York for three months, that's fine. Doing some summertime muting (here's how) is no big deal.
But if you're the one vacationing, you can -- and should -- post as much as you want. That's right. On vacation, it is your right to ignore the vast majority of social media rules and guidelines. Want to post to Instagram more than once per day? Please do. Want to post a story so long viewers can't even see the little bars on the screen? Great. Want to post 17 selfies in a row a la Ansel Elgort? Absolutely go for it -- as long as it feels suitably "vacation" to you.
Good example of a vacation pic.Credit: Getty ImagesYour personal definition of "vacation" (as it relates to social media) will vary based on how onlineyou are. For the too online, a vacation will likely be a chance to unplug, to turn off the phone, to stop posting. For the less online, a vacation might mean a chance to finally show off some fun photos. Your life is busy, too hectic to stage aesthetically pleasing photos. But now you're on vacation and this is your chance. To you, uploading a pic of a piña colada to a slow-loading app may feel less like a chore and more like an exhale.
In fact, do you feel like posting too many photos? Do it. Cross-post to different platforms, too.
In fact, do you feel like posting too manyphotos? Do it. Cross-post the same stuff to different platforms, too. Upload a four-minute Instagram story of yourself building a sand castle, then screencap it and put the stills on Twitter. Go live on Instagram and just scream gleefully into the camera from your pool chair. If you're seeing some nice landmarks, take a selfie in front of the landmark. There are already professional photos of every cool building anyway; you might as well put your face in one and make something new. (Notable exception: For the love of god, do not take selfies at memorials.)
Over-posting on social media is, granted, probably not the healthiest long-term behavior. You should not be doing it all the time. But part of vacations' allure is that they're opportunities for indulgence -- whether that comes in the form of cliché frozen drinks or gratuitous beach selfies. You've booked the trip, you've paid for a bunch of stuff, and now it's OK to overdo it a little bit. You're in the Vacation Zone™ now.
SEE ALSO:How to keep your phone safe at the beach this summerTaking time off work to do something fun is a luxury: one that, for a lot of folks, should be a lot more common than it actually is. If you've managed to temporarily wrest yourself from your job and want to shout your freedom from the rooftops, do it.Taking time for yourself is a thing to be celebrated. If you want to do it publicly, then that's your call.
And no, the posts do not need to be good. They only need to be enjoyable to you, the vacationer. If someone online doesn't like them, they can unfollow you. In fact, they probably will! But you don't care. You're the vacationer!
And you have precisely one month post-vacation to get all those pics up. We can't be lawless forever.
TopicsInstagramSocial Media
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