By Daisy Jones

Copyright vogue

If the question ‘Am I muted on Instagram’ suddenly storms your thoughts, don’t fret too much about being alone. Here are some reasons I have muted people on Instagram: they were minorly rude to me once at an event, they post too many stories so that the bar at the top resembles a tiny row of ants, they are promoting something incessantly, they have just renovated their living room and it looks too much like my own fantasy living room, they have a boyfriend, they have a boyfriend with a beard who they take selfies with, they post too many roast dinners, they posted something weird that I don’t agree with politically but it would be too awkward to unfollow them, they once posted a video of themselves talking while also eating, they’re at a party that I wasn’t invited to and it’s pissed me off, there isn’t a specific reason I just felt like it that day.
You get the idea: I’m a liberal muter. I simply love to smash the mute button (sometimes, at a later date, I revoke it, after they’ve been in “mute prison” long enough). It makes me feel like the God-like master of my own universe, moving around the little Sims in my phone. On a real level though, there is something liberating about curating your feed in this way. At a time in which we’re constantly bombarded with information and data against our will from all angles, it can feel satisfying to conserve and control your online space, even in relatively minor ways. And the fact that you’re doing this privately, without others necessarily catching on or it causing friction, can make the function especially appealing.
Why not unfollow, you might ask, or even just block? But as any liberal muter knows, the pleasures of the mute button lie in the fact that the recipient doesn’t realise (unless they notice that your name one day simply vanished from their Stories list, which still gives you plausible deniability). There’s also the fact that, sometimes, you might like the person in real life—it’s just their content that grates, or somehow affects you—which means it’d be rude or hurtful for you to unfollow them. This way, nobody is upset. You get to think I’m supporting you, and I don’t have to see yet another blurry gig video of a band I don’t like from the comfort of my own bed.
It turns out that there are a lot of us. More than I assumed. While researching for this piece, I discovered that people mute others for reasons that are even more unhinged than my own. A friend of mine mutes people if they post too many dogs, meals and/or babies. “I want to be entertained,” she reasons. It doesn’t help that, during this era of handing out our Instagram handles in the way prior generations handed out phone numbers, our feeds are now clogged with acquaintances whose content we might not even enjoy. “It’s become an A to Z of everyone I’ve ever met,” this aforementioned friend says. “But if you unfollow, it’s rude.”
Plenty of people I speak to say they’ve muted exes, ex flings and people they’ve “shagged once but built up an unhealthy resentment towards after being parred.” I haven’t done this myself, but I can understand the urge. Sometimes the reasons we mute people aren’t because we don’t like them, or even their posts, but because seeing them makes us feel a certain way. “I have muted ex partners so I don’t get tempted to think about them too much,” one person tells me, “even if we are friendly enough to still be on Instagram with each other.”
Politics came up a lot as a reason for muting: Too much politics. Politics that people don’t align with. Too many political infographics making the same points to followers who probably have the same views as them. For some, social media can feel like a powerful tool in which to have their voices heard en masse in ways they can’t in real life. For others, political posting can feel futile, performative or even jarring, “like having the news on your phone” as one person tells me. I’ve probably been guilty of the aforementioned. ‘Am I muted on Instagram for the same reason by other people?’ I wondered.
In fact, the more I thought about my own muting habits, and spoke to others about theirs (“If I feel a pang of anything I cut it out of the feed,” one person tells me. “Whether it’s a bit cringe, or something approaching envy or comparison, or just too much ‘look at me’ content”), I realise that the reasons are so arbitrary, so “on the fly”, that I’ve probably inspired a few mutes myself—if I’m lucky. Maybe you have too. “Okay, fess up, who’s muted me?!” I could post on my Stories in the unhinged tone that probably got me a few mutes in the first place. Except, those who the question is directed at wouldn’t hear me. As is their divine right.
This article first appeared on Vogue.co.uk

Why Instagram feels like that terrible situationship you just can’t get rid of
Be honest, whom do you secretly post for on Instagram?
Is Instagram turning our part-time hobbies into our full-time personalities?