Look, we get it. It's summer. Everything looks nicer against a bright blue sky or bathed in that woozy, heatstruck half-light as the sun starts to set, so you want to make as much Insta-hay as possible while it shines. That's fair enough.
However, there are a few ground rules to straighten out before you launch yourself iPhone-first into your next barbecue.
Don't
- Start an Instagram account for your dog in the summer, if you’re not going to keep it up in the winter.
- Expect to do your best “Insta-work” at a festival. You’re there to drink warm cider and dabble in hallucinogenic drugs. And no filming in the crowd. When was the last time you thought a gig would be better enjoyed as a video on someone’s phone?
- Go on a wellness retreat, write about it in your notes and post the paragraph as a picture. Three weeks later, when you’re eight pints deep and stumbling through a packed beer garden, friends will remind you of your new purity.
- List somewhere as “today’s office” (unless you’re a travelling salesmen and you’ve just stopped in to collect an “urgent” fax from the Travelodge outside Droitwich).
- Take pictures in the gym, telling us you’re getting summer-ready. Just come to us when you’re summer-ready (and even then, we might not actually be that bothered).
- Use the word “vibes” as a qualifier for something inane like “barbecue”, “weekend” or “beach”. What are you trying to say? You don’t bloody know, do you?
- Post inspirational but maudlin quotes on the last day of your holiday. People who have their lives together don’t post inspirational but maudlin quotes. Ever.
- Take too much time on the mise en scène. If you need to spend an hour rearranging the food on the rug, then you’ve lost touch with the concept of enjoying a picnic.
- Go overboard on the hashtags. OK, so you’re chasing likes, but the picture itself tells the full story. No need to break it down into pointless topics: #Mates #Beers #Beach #Sun #Holiday #LadsOnTour. You’re better than that. #Behave.
- Let the only picture you post this summer be of yourself in a jaunty trilby.
Do
- Assume that we know you’re “living your best life”.
- Have a pint at the airport — day drinking etiquette goes out the window once you’re past security — but people will live without a snap of your flat Heineken in ’Spoons Terminal 5.
- Be an Instagram husband. Climb up a palm tree if you have to. (Your partner would do it for you.)
- Go to a beach club if you really want to, but know that the picture of you on a day bed with two Geordie Shore lads and 18 girls dressed in one-piece swimsuits won’t go down well at home.
- Only post one picture per day. We’re not looking for a live feed of Beefa ’19. Mixmag’s story has that covered.
- Like the picture of the girl from Barry’s Bootcamp in a swimsuit. That’s why she posted it. Like the picture of your pal in Speedos, too. He needs love like everyone else.
- Do take pictures of sunsets, everyone loves a mega sundown. But it better be live. None of that “missing sunsets like this” bullshit, please.
- Master the “smize”.
- Go to Pisa, and see the Leaning Tower. But don’t do that thing everyone expects you to do. And no pinching of Christ the Redeemer’s head in Rio. You’re far above that.
