The Complicated Politics of the Instagram Comments Section
There are unwritten rules on Instagram.
If there’s something to be known about a teenager — their personality, what sports they play, what classes they’re in, who their friends are — chances are, you can find it in their comments section on Instagram. The purpose of the comments’ section may seem straightforward enough — to comment on your friends’ photos — but in reality, it is so much more: a place where friendships are made, social dynamics are established, where people live out their virtual lives.
The comments section is sort of like a digital version of the high school hallway — where friend groups gather and intermingle, where small talk and gossip is shared, even where people freak out about that upcoming test they haven’t studied for. And so, of course, there’s social codes and unwritten rules, which may be hard to understand if you’re not part of the teen IG community. But no worries, I’m here to explain them to you. (Note: I’m only talking here about the comments sections of people in the same “community” — friends, classmates, teammates, etc. — not those on bigger accounts like meme or celebrities’ pages, which are more resembling of TikTok comments sections.)
First, there’s the often-complicated experience of commenting on someone’s photo. It’s actually common practice to comment on not only your best or close friends’ photos but also people you’re “kinda” friends with, are classmates or teammates with, or even those you’ve just had a few interactions with before.
Interestingly enough, comments sections are often gendered. Girls’ comments sections are often about their appearances (common ones are “gorgeous,” “so pretty,” “so cute!,” or “cutie”), while boys’ comments sections are often a bit more “random” per se, often inside jokes or related to the event the photo was taken at, often accompanied by the following emojis: 🙏, ❗, 💧, 🥶, 🥵. Obviously this is a bit oversimplified, but it is a general trend I and a lot of others have noticed.
Many think these comments can be ingenuine at times, but I think they mostly serve as a way to support (“hype up”) people you know and even connect and make friends with more people.
In fact, when you start commenting on someone you know from school’s Instagram posts, it signals you not only want to be “school friends” (someone you interact with but only in school) with them but also “real life” friends.
Then on the other side of commenting, there’s replying to comments you get on your own photos. That is, if you choose to reply at all. Lots of times, people will simply “like” other’s comments and just carry on with their day. Sometimes people will like some comments and reply to others, depending on what they are and how close the poster is with the commenter. As the TikTok below demonstrates, this would translate interestingly into a real-world conversation.
But if you are going to reply to a comment, of course you have to come up with something creative. You can’t just say “thanks!” or even “thanks, girlie!” which is known to be a common, but maybe overused response. Better to use one of the following:
Some will also use the comments to gain or maintain social status or show who they’re friends with. For example, a somewhat common thing is to comment something like “So sad I couldn’t be there!” on a photo of an event you couldn’t make it to so that people know you were invited and are “part of the group” (although this is somewhat annoying to others). Or, if there are pictures of people hanging out that don’t include you, of course you’re gonna wanna comment “I took this” or some group inside joke.
There’s also what some would call “pick me girl” comments, in which girls will comment something along the lines of “Wow you’re cool” or “Not the one I told you to post” on a guy’s photo so that people know that they know each other. (“Pick me girls” are known to be girls who exhibit internalized misogyny in order to make it seem like they’re “not like other girls.”)
And while comments sections normally mimic the social status and interactions that one would have in their real life, some have found creative ways to escape the limiting nature of them. For example, on TikTok, people will share their Instagram handles so that others can “hype them up.”
This can also work the other way around. Many will offer to comment bad things on any photo for a small fee.
In this (maybe ethically questionable) situation, someone can basically outsource the things they really want to comment on a photo without actually having to deal with the possible embarrassment or social consequences of actually commenting themselves. By contrast, the commenter, who is just a random stranger off the internet, feels free to comment whatever because they have no social connection to the people involved.
We’ve long known that Instagram is “not real life,” and is often used by people to show off the best of their lives, gain social status, etc. But this isn’t only the case in the photos themselves — it’s also true in what people say in the comments sections.
