As of late it seems that most of us who are on Instagram have a sort of love/hate relationship with it…
THE STORY
…On one hand, I love the visual aspect of it; the styling inspiration, the beautiful shots of exotic places that I’ve never been and of course, dogs. I also love the feeling of camaraderie and community, I’ve made several actual friends via Instagram.
But then there’s the dark side of Instagram. The follow/unfollow games, the non-chronological feed, the snarkiness, shadow bans (remember when I was shadow banned?), and don’t even get me started on the freakin’ algorithm. My primary gripe currently though, is not any of these. It’s the proliferation of scammers in the last several months.
I’ve seen many of you complain in posts about the huge influx of random males not only following your accounts, but sending DM’s as well. The typical modus operandi is a profile that is of a white male who is typically a doctor, an engineer of some sort or in the military. The syntax and grammar of both the name and bio are in what appears to be poorly written English. He will often appear to be a single dad. There aren’t a whole lot of pictures posted, but there are usually several duplicate shots as well as shots with “their kids”. Their follower count is usually minimal whereas their following count is very high. I can tell you in all honesty that not a day goes by that I don’t block at least 30 of these accounts. The volume is so high that I often just give up and ignore them. If they DM me, I respond by calling them out and then blocking them.
Here’s what’s even more disturbing about this trend. These are not simply sad pathetic men attempting to use Instagram as a dating app. The vast majority of them are Nigerian money scammers. Do you remember the Nigerian scammers on Facebook that were all over the news and shows like Dr. Phil a few years back? I’m fairly well-versed because the mother of one of my students got taken in not once, but several times, and at the time I had done a boatload of research about it. If you doubt me, take a look at this screenshot from my Instagram analytics. Keep in mind that as I said, I block numerous accounts daily and yet my analytics still look like this:
This is the demographics for the men who follow my Instagram account. Note the 2nd highest country following as well as the highest age group following. The scammers are usually young Nigerian men in their late 20’s to early 30’s. This Huffington Post article breaks it all down even further.
Now here’s my problem with Instagram. As we all know they are owned by Facebook. Facebook is well aware of how these scammers work and the manner in which they set up their accounts because Facebook is where it started (and still continues). Yet it would appear to me, simply because of the sheer volume of these accounts, that they are doing absolutely zero about it. Why? I don’t know, perhaps they have better things to worry about than keeping their users safe. You know, like coming up with ridiculous feed algorithms and counting the gazillions of dollars of revenue that users like us are providing them. It could be that it’s difficult to stay one step ahead of the scammers, although to my non-technically trained eye the accounts appear to be pretty blatant and straightforward.
Whatever the reasons, just like with life in general, you can really only count on yourself. It’s up to you to keep yourself safe and informed, especially when it comes to things like social media. The more we educate ourselves and share our knowledge with others, the fewer potential victims. Here’s the frustration though, even though I’m aware of the game they’re playing, there is absolutely nothing that I can do to stop the flood on my account. I will continue to block them when I have the time, but as I said above, there are simply not enough hours in my life that I want to waste staring at my phone blocking every single one. What are your thoughts?
THE OUTFIT
This is the second outfit that I styled with a piece that I received c/o Caite And Kyla. On Monday I styled the Elisa lace tunic with black pants and today I’m sharing with you the Nika embroidered tunic. I know you might be looking at this and thinking, “That doesn’t look like a tunic,” but trust me, it is. It’s actually that perfect below the butt cheeks length to wear with leggings and boots in the Fall. It’s made of a nice lightweight cotton that is perfect for cooler Summer days and ideal for the transition between seasons. And just like the top from Monday’s post can we just take a moment to appreciate the beautifully detailed embroidery?
Today instead of wearing it as a tunic, I actually knotted it up in the back and tucked the knot up inside the top because I also wanted to feature the super cool western style belt with it. The belt is special because it actually was my dad’s. We are slowly but surely digging through his lifetime of accumulated stuff and this little beauty was something that I unearthed and knew that I would love forever and wear often.
Instead of western ankle boots which would have been the easy choice, I wore my black suede block heel sandals. There’s just something about pairing shorts with heels that I absolutely love.
THE TIP
When styling an outfit sometimes it’s fun to think outside of the box. For example, knot a tunic or pin it up in the back with a pretty brooch to make a shorter top. Or put together unexpected combos like dressy heels with shorts or sneakers with a pretty dress.
THE LINK UPS
Check out the weekly link ups I participate in for even more fashion and style ideas…
Top: c/o Caite And Kyla; Shorts: American Eagle; Sandals: American Eagle
