I’m not sure there is a person alive that doesn’t have mixed feelings about social media. It connects us, yet makes us feel alone. Businesses and creators rely on it for exposure, but algorithms make it increasingly more difficult to be seen. As Pixel Planet Today is almost completely social media-based, we know full well the pros and cons of these platforms. That’s why when Instagram unveiled the ability to hide like counts, we jumped at the opportunity (and we think you should too).
There are many different reasons to hide your like counts – but for us, it came down to what this project is focused on. Over the months of building this project, we found ourselves increasingly comparing ourselves to other projects. We were doing better (engagement-wise and follower-wise) than some, but we were constantly comparing the project with those that had more influence. In some regards, comparisons can help motivate, but if you are comparing yourself to an account that pours thousands of dollars into buying ads and followers – the comparison becomes discouraging. Climate education isn’t based on popularity, it’s based on important facts and good design. So by removing one distracting layer of popularity, not only are we able to enjoy the project more, but we can also focus on the creative side (which is what we like 😊).
Sean Michael-Leonard Anderson (you may know him as Big Sean) once said, “When I compare my purpose to someone else’s, then it is no longer my purpose,” and we felt that. Likes and followers are increasingly becoming a count of how much money an account pours into the platform or how well an account can play the algorithm, but that’s not what we’re here to do. We’re about making the world a better place. Instagram may be a tool for making that happen, but it’s not the ecosystem we’re most concerned with.