is there a non-cringe way to swipe up on instagram?

ask steffi 03: advice for the social media age

As the digital realm continues to encompass the corporeal, we’re encountering new problems that no one seems to know the answer to. Not the overarching brushstrokes of policy and technology, but the nitty-gritty interpersonal issues that it brings us: the dance of flirting on Hinge, keeping tabs on our loved ones via Find My Friends, knowing the right time to Venmo request. Loneliness, love, money, fear, anger, yearning — now through the kaleidoscope of the infinite scroll.

This corner of it’s steffi aims to address life within the social media age, and offer a little advice about how to deal with our most online quandaries. Once a month, I’ll answer a question you have, and perhaps invite some other internet culture friends to share their thoughts, too. If you’d like to submit a question, you can submit through this form.

Today, our question is answered by Kelsey Weekman, senior culture reporter at Yahoo News. Kelsey’s writing has appeared in BuzzFeed News, New York Magazine, Rolling Stone, Billboard, and CBS News. Check out her newsletter, Okay Zoomer, which unpacks online youth culture.

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Dear Kelsey,

Is there any good way to respond to someone’s Instagram story to start a conversation, or are they all cringe?

— Will

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Hi sweet one,

Not to immediately get philosophical on you, but existence itself is cringe. Making yourself vulnerable to judgement of any kind can always be misconstrued as posturing or trying too hard, even if you’re not trying to. Set yourself free from the shackles of cringe.

Let’s think about what Instagram is in the first place: a directory of people and places and things where you only see someone’s carefully curated handful of profile posts (and some of the most deranged videos known to man, but we’re not talking about Reels right now). Instagram was once rife with burnt-out filters and song lyric captions paired with whatever in-the-moment image felt memorable, ‘til it morphed into a glorified address book of acquaintances and restaurants. Now its main mode of sharing for most is the story—the fleeting missive about what you’ve seen or experienced or harvested from the timeline lately. What precious digital scrapbook have we lost from the transient nature of Instagram stories? What shared memories have slipped through our fingers because we were afraid to be perceived?

We’re never going to get Old Instagram back, and we might be actively force-fed ads and influencer content and content from our friends posing as influencers because behaving naturally online seems kind of impossible at this point…but come with me now to the realm of earnestness. Imagine we grasped at the interaction available to us online, let things last a little longer, or lingered on the stories it’s so easy to tap through. What if we took posts for what they are—a way of presenting ourselves to the world for interaction, sharing memories and little moments of emotion—and treated them with gentleness instead of judgment? Like precious digital crafts being offered up to us as tiny gifts.

Simply put, if someone has posted something on their Instagram story, they would like people to engage with it. If you’re seeing it, they’ve been vulnerable enough to share something they care about, and they’re inviting the world to interact. Replying to Instagram stories is genuinely one of the great joys of life. It’s fun, largely inconsequential, and even the tiniest bit caring.

Whether you’re thinking about sliding into someone’s DMs in a flirty way or a friendly way, I think one of the most enticing things someone can do is just show that they care. Open yourself up to being what the world might call cringe, but stay steady in your earnestness, and remember that caring is pretty much the most enticing thing a person can do. When replying to an Instagram story, say something that the original poster can respond to, as well. Engage in the conversation that they’ve set up with their post. Having a single glass of wine and swiping up on a bunch of tertiary friends’ Instagram stories is genuinely my ideal night in.

I have amazing news: what other people think about you is literally none of your business. If you’re cringe, who cares? Your fear is probably not of making someone feel uncomfortable, but of feeling uncomfortable yourself. Set that aside. It’s just a feeling, and it’s far less important than a potential connection.

That being said, don’t be weird. Be mindful of why you were invited to the section.

All my love,

Kelsey