Fiction: “NO, I WON’T CREATE AN INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT JUST BECAUSE EVERYONE ELSE HAS ONE”

By Zoé Mahfouz

An Instagramless millennial woman was spotted in the heart of New York City this past week. Some influencers doing the Leah Halton challenge called the police on her for “reading in public with an actual paper book and not taking pictures of herself while doing it”. Law enforcement oDicers say they have never been more concerned : “She didn’t have a phone. No Instagram handle. She even asked someone for directions politely, can you imagine ? She is my 13th reason. This is public disorder, period.”

“I don’t see the point of possessing a cellular device, or even an application as useless as Instagram” the lady claimed, visibly unaware of the gravity of the situation. That latest statement got her a feature on the IG page Karens in the wild, and a social media backlash, with viewers declaring that she is “the cringiest thing that happened to the internet since the UWU Girls”. One of the police oDicers on site even tried to talk sense into her : “-I think I like this little life ?” “-Sorry ?” “-1 dollar or double it and give it to the next person ?” “- What are you on about ?” That last answer caused the bluecoat to have a stroke and die instantly. His tombstone said “Drake, please collab”.

The verdict fell this morning at the New York Supreme Court : the Instagramless woman, also known as “Olivia Rodrigo’s traitor” on social media, will be detained for an indefinite period of time until she catches up with all the TikTok trends and Instagram trends of the past 10 years, Vine included. She will be tested by Kevin Systrom himself, the cofounder of Instagram, who felt deeply concerned after hearing about the case : “I cannot believe someone would miss all of these baby falling down the stairs videos, these hilarious guilty dogs videos, or these online challenges where teens purposely hurt themselves to go viral”. A heartbreaking declaration, which made the Instagramless woman react : “I did nothing wrong ! I just wanted to enjoy my storybook and make some like-minded connections with people...” Before she could finish her sentence that was clearly going nowhere, a man punched her in the face, yelled “I AM THEE KYLE SMITH !” before running away. “Maybe she would have seen that one coming if she had Instagram, as several women recently testified online about a man sucker-punching random females in NYC”, a random hater aDirmed in the live chat of another random influencer recording the incident.

A broken jaw and two teeth missing later, the Instagramless woman stayed on her ground : “I don’t see the point of scrolling mindlessly. Instagram is nothing but shallow and I couldn’t care less about the private lives of people I don’t know. That’s just not my cup of tea. I’d rather read a good novel...” are the last words she was able to pronounce before the paramedic decided to put her to sleep with anesthetic gas, after all she was the perfect background to perform a lip-syncing video on Karma by Jojo Siwa.

Zoé Mahfouz is a writer who is convinced she looks half her age because she drinks Collagen Smoothies everyday. Also has a weird obsession with cows, especially baby cows that she worships. 99.9% certain that life is a giant simulation and that God is making fun of her since she is his favorite sitcom character.