dear blog: you may be second best but you could rise up a notch or two

{UPDATE Friday morning: It's back!! My IG is back! Got an email this morning apologizing for the inconvenience. I will keep this post up anyway, even though my rant is old news at this point}

Well, this has been an interesting night.

While giving Cecelia a bath, I decided to check Instagram. I fully admit to having an obsession with IG and would love to say that I never focus on my phone when I'm with my kids, but let's get real here. I do check my phone and IG frequently because I really enjoy connecting/sharing/documenting life via this stupid little app.

Yes, stupid. IG is stupid to me right now. If we are friends on FB you know why I say this.

So anyway, I'm checking IG and it returns me to the log in page, which I think I've seen about once ever. Hmm, weird. But I plugged away my user name and guessed on my password. Got it wrong. Tried again. Got it right but also got a red alert saying, 'Your account has been disabled due to terms of service violations.'

WHAT?

Okay, don't panic. Play with the cute baby in the tub. Must be a mistake, maybe I got locked out because I tried the wrong password.

Then I get a text from my mom asking if I removed my pictures from IG because she couldn't see any.

Oh, crap.

That is when my heart rate sped up a bit and I just knew this wasn't good. After getting CC out of the tub I looked up the actual terms of service of IG. Noted the 'no nudity' policy and wondered if my beloved naked baby butts were to blame for this. But seriously? Those images were pretty old and incredibly harmless and HELLO---they are baby butts, people. And adorable, if you ask me, but whatever.

So anyway, I keep flipping through the IG site and there is no phone number to call. There's some mumbo jumbo on the site about 'disabled account' and how you are basically at their mercy and pretty much screwed, 'unable to restore your account' if they deem it unacceptable. I google and see other people complaining about this in the past and how emailing them doesn't even matter because IG doesn't return their emails.

Sweet.

Again, try not to freak out. Text a few friends on IG to inform them of the non-freak out I am having (ha). Move through stages of grief including: shock, panic, sadness, and then anger. Oh, I was (am) so angry because how dare IG decide to delete my pictures! Sure, I probably have most of my original iPhone images backed up on Flickr and maybe even my computer, but I love the ease of IG and looking back through my account makes me smile. ESPECIALLY when I'm feeling as emotional and sentimental as right now, when my baby girl is about to turn one. Flipping back through her newborn pictures, or even a few of my pregnancy pictures brings me joy. I love our IG photo album I made for 2012---there is no way I can do that for 2013 now.  So sue me for 'needing' IG so much. I am also annoyed with myself for even caring this much. Because, really? It's just a stupid app and maybe it's a sign to chill out on the social media and the phone and be more present.

I posted on FB about this (ironic since I'm angry at social media and all it entails, and now I'm blogging and FB'ing) and apparently this happened to a lot of people tonight. Especially to shops on IG, but also to regular old users like myself. So perhaps it's a fluke and they got hacked; maybe we will get our accounts back. But I can assure you that I'm way too stubborn/angry/annoyed to create a new account right now and try to hunt down my IG friends again. Um, no. Maybe in time...but not now.

Moral of the story: something really weird is happening to my first choice of social media. And it's made me deep and reflective tonight. Also, it made me angry enough to vacuum and do an extra load of laundry I wasn't going to do. And it made me blog just to say, 'I have OTHER sources of connecting to my internet friends, thankyouverymuchIG.' Perhaps this will force me to blog more and not rely on the simplicity of IG as much.

Don't they know I have a first birthday party to post about? The nerve.

If you are my friend on IG now you know why all of my images are gone. And now I shall resume my birthday party projects and pretend like this doesn't bother me at all.

Come on, IG. Get it together. And if not, expect me a lot more over here ;)