Instagram doesn't like Substack

but I do....

Welcome to my head - a roundup of what I have been thinking about, reading and eating.

Thinking

I’m feeling a bit iffy about social media, not just the anger and the hatred but so. much more; let’s start with the videos.  I like to think I enjoy a wide range of entertainment even though I know this is fundamentally not true, but it sounds wholesome and worldly. The truth is I don’t have patience to watch videos/reels/tiktoks, I hardly watch TV and you have to offer me a LOT of Maltesers and popcorn (and a fair few other incentives) to get me to a movie.

I am a word person, I  like to read and I am also very found of a podcast.

I more or less stopped posting anything other than book stuff on Facebook after 7 October but I stayed on Instagram, fuelled mainly by my love for dog videos (the only exception to the watching moratorium I was boasting about just last paragraph) and because I am still intrinsically nosy and like peeking into other people’s lives.  I never got into TikTok because I am very 56.

Now Instagram is losing me because I have found Substack, and if you loiter around Substack for a while you’ll find it’s very word heavy (duh) and full of quite wonderful people. Instagram, on the other hand, is feeding me repeat ads for things I’ve already bought, it is sure that I am about to holiday in Japan whereas I’m actually going to Portugal and Spain in two weeks and have searched relentlessly for things to do/eat/see while I am there, plus it takes all my husband’s google searches and feeds me the ads for them - I know for sure I have not interacted with any golf or backgammon accounts.

But the thing really pissing me off about Intagram is that its algorithm is so tightly tailored to keep people on the app that if I so much use the word Substack in an Instagram post, it only lets about 3 people see it.  It’s like a jealous friend who won’t introduce you to any of their other friends. People used to love my book reviews on Insta but since I started mentioning my Substack in the caption, no one gets to see them. I realise I am using Instagram for free and they don’t owe me anything… but it’s bad for the ego to see two likes on a post (and yes I am aware that I should not be indexing my popularity on social media.)

I guess it’s not as bad as the LinkedIn algorithm which tells me weekly that I should link up with the premier of South Australia.

Reading

I don’t have the vocabulary to tell you how much I loved this book, but I can tell you that if you ever think to yourself ‘I really like the same kind of books Lana likes’, then you have to read this.

I absolutely loved Claire Lombardo’s first novel The Most Fun We Ever Had and was awed then as to how such a young author could write such an intense family saga. But now she’s done it again and I have to accept that she  has emotional maturity and understanding of relationships far beyond her years. I had to check her age (36) many times to try and understand how well she articulates the main protagonist’s relationship with her teenage daughter, how she gets a marriage of thirty years, how she writes a person of my age so well. I still don’t understand it because this book felt like it was written for me

Same As It Ever Was tells the story of a family and a marriage from the matriarch’s point of view. Julia is 57, her teenage daughter is getting ready to graduate and leave home, her adult son is getting married and Julia is dealing with impending empty nest syndrome. She’s also dealing with a troubled childhood and a difficult relationship with her own parents plus some secrets in her marriage that she cannot hide from. It’s a book about perceptions and emotions and trying to fit in and refusing to fit in. It’s kind and it’s sad; it’s uplifting and it’s hard not to feel like you have been transported to a small suburb in Chicago where you are involved with the characters in the book on a deeply personal level.

It’s a long book. But it’s also the kind of book that you wish would never end.

Eating

This week I have made a very tasty rice and seafood soup from Jamie Oliver, a yummy crispy rice salad that pops up on my socials daily, and a delicious roast vegetable soup that is now going into my soup rotation.

Thanks for reading to the end, catch up next week.