Written by: Mirsadies Raber-Dunning
How do you use social media? Do you use it as a way to connect, access information, for work, for creativity and expression, or something else entirely? So much of our world involves social media and it is important to notice its impact.
I will be one of the first to admit that I use Instagram as a way to decompress at the end of a grueling day. I could spend anywhere from 5 minutes to 2 hours just getting lost in posts and reels curated just for me. Everything I want to see is available at the tip of my finger but with each Follow, Like, or search, my world becomes narrower.
Although I enjoyed the algorithmic weeding out of boring posts, there was an unintentional cost. My preferences echoed back to me, and I ended up creating a world where I only saw and heard from people just like myself. I am uncertain if this was because I feared discomfort or simply because I didn’t know what I didn’t know, but either way I missed out on a variety of diverse perspectives.
I remember when I first started dating my partner back in 2021. We were an interracial couple with drastically different interests and backgrounds. She was into sports, skating, and being barefoot, and I was into reading, illustrations, and wearing shoes. I remember we would talk for hours, and I was excited to learn anything and everything from her. One day I brought up a news story about how Onlyfans was going to ban sex work and the impact it would have on Sex workers and my partner just looked at me confused. She had never heard of Onlyfans. Not a big deal, but it got me curious about how something that was all over my social media, could not even be a blimp on my partner's account.
There were other times when I would talk about police brutality, lgbtqia+ legislation, or disability rights and my partner had no idea what I was talking about. I decided we should sit down and look over who we follow on social media since most of our news, or lack of was coming from there.
As I suspected, my partner followed WNBA players, skateboarders, and predominantly white musicians. I challenged my partner to follow more accounts, and content creators that would be different from who they would normally follow. They initially hesitated, mentioning they did not want to miss out on the content posted by the WNBA players. I laughed and said, “if they are that important, I have no doubt you will seek them out if they do not show up on your main feed.”
We sat together diversifying our algorithm. Researching and sharing content with each other. Both of us taking one small step to stretch our world and making it a little bigger.
So, I challenge you as a reader to examine the ways you interact with your social media accounts. Is everything starting to look the same? Are perspectives just echoing ideas and beliefs you already have? Are you getting too comfortable?
Maybe you’ll find something you love but you’ll definitely learn something new either way. Lean into the potential discomfort, that’s where you often grow the most.
Find what you're interested in and diversify your page. Interested in music? Follow Black and brown musicians? Love skateboarding or photography? Find queer and trans skaters or artwork sharing different experiences.
Need a place to start? Look at my list of Instagram accounts to explore and follow!
Emma Kim Rust (@emmakimrust)
Queer, nb, mixed Korean-white, abolitionist, comic artist
Adore Media (@watchadoremedia)
Conscious, confident, culture
Queerly Book Club (@queerlybookclub)
Inclusive book club focused on queer literature
House of the Lorde (@houseofthelorde)
A site of collective liberation, memory, and edification of the lives and work of Black women and femmes.
Women & Children First (@wcfbook)
Chicago feminist bookstore
The Catcall Collective (@thecatcallcollective)
Conversations about pleasure, pain & power
Disability Together (@disabilitytogether)
Education, representation, and awareness
FroSkate (@froskate)
Sports & Recreation: BIPOC Femme + TQGNCNB centered skate collective
Black Girls Skate (@black_girls_skate)
Black-owned Nonprofit centered around women/lgbtqia and POC skaters
Kimberlé Crenshaw (@kimberlecrenshaw)
Professor and host of @intersectionalitymatters
DapperQ (@dapperq)
Black-owned Magazine Ungendering Fashion
The Expansive Group & Queer Sex Therapy (@theexpansivegroup & @queersextherapy)
Tender, Liberating, Community Cultivated Sex Therapy
Julian Gavino (@thedisabledhippie)
Queer and disabled model
The Afiya Center (@theafiyacenter)
Texas and Black woman-owned organization transforming the lives of Black women and girls through reproductive justice
Melanin Mvskoke (@melaninmvskoke)
Afro-Indigenous Content Creator
Aaron Rose Philip (@aaron__philip)
Black and trans model
Lachrista Greco (@theguerrillafeminist)
Writer and Educator
ALOK (@alokvmenon)
Poet. Comedian. Speaker. Author.
Salty (@salty.world)
Storytelling Newsletter
Fierce by mitú (@Fiercebymitu)
Amplifying Latinas and WOC
Feminist Voice (@feministvoice)
Community Content
Feminist Herstory (@feminist.herstory)
Feminist archive of Herstory-makers