Instagram Rewards Insecurity: Post Your Trauma for Reach

This is UnMarketable.

Let’s talk about Instagram—and how it’s quietly training you to turn your worst moments into performance art.

Not to heal.
Not to connect.
Not even to express.
But for reach.
For validation.
For applause.

And we’ve all played along.

Because let’s be real: the Instagram algorithm doesn’t love your wins. It doesn’t care about your peaceful coffee on the balcony or that moment you finally felt content. It salivates over your suffering. Your rock bottoms. Your nervous breakdowns in aesthetically pleasing lighting.

Tell people you’re thriving and get a polite golf clap.
Tell them you’re barely holding it together and the crowd goes wild.

Post Your Pain, Get a Cookie

If you’ve ever shared something personal and seen the likes flood in, you know what I’m talking about. The more vulnerable you are, the more you bleed on the timeline, the more the algorithm shoves you into the spotlight.

And it’s addictive.

You tell yourself you’re “being authentic.”
You tell yourself it’s “helping others.”

But deep down, there’s that little dopamine gremlin whispering, “This is gonna do numbers”.

It’s like trauma karaoke. You pick your greatest heartbreak, perform it for strangers, and wait to be scored.

And the problem isn’t vulnerability—real vulnerability is powerful. The problem is that we’re being taught to commodify our pain before we’ve even processed it.

We’re uploading our identity in real-time while we’re still bleeding out.

InstaTherapy™ Is Not Healing

Instagram is full of people giving emotional TED Talks from the front seat of their car, crying in their hoodies, captioning it with 500 words about “what this taught me.”

But real healing is rarely photogenic.
It’s boring.
It’s quiet.
It’s ugly and inconvenient and full of days where you don’t have anything wise to say about your pain. You just want to survive it.

Instagram doesn’t want your survival story until it’s inspiring. Until it’s palatable. Until you’ve slapped a pastel filter and a Brené Brown quote on it.

And so, people start skipping the actual healing part.

Why process your grief privately when you can monetize it?

We’ve turned the app into a stage where the only way to win is to be the most emotionally raw, the most unwell—but with the best lighting, obviously.

We’ve Turned the Camera On Ourselves and Left It There

There’s something especially twisted about the way people now anticipate their pain becoming content. Like, “Okay, I’m having a breakdown… but at least I’ll be able to post about this later.”

We’re not even experiencing our lives anymore—we’re editing them in our heads before they’re over. Thinking in captions. Framing the fallout. It’s dystopian as hell.

And worse? It’s expected.

If you go quiet online during a hard time, people act weird about it.
“Are you okay?”
“You haven’t posted.”
Because silence isn’t marketable. Your heartbreak has to come with a CTA.

It’s All About the Spin

And let’s not ignore how it works for brands. You start with a sad story, but by paragraph three, it’s somehow an ad for protein powder, therapy apps, or your new course.

“I was crying in the shower last year, wondering how I’d pay rent. But now I’m a mindset coach making six figures and you can be too—link in bio.”

Like… girl. Be serious.

This whole “trauma to triumph” content pipeline is now so formulaic, it’s basically a Mad Libs page:

I used to [struggle painfully], now I [thrive profitably].
Want to know how? Click here.

It’s not just cringey—it’s dangerous.
Because people are trying to skip the years of actual rebuilding, that you can’t monetize or summarize in a carousel post.

They think if they say the right thing, post the right pain, they’ll be chosen by the algorithm gods and lifted out of their mess. But that’s not how healing—or success—works.

The Fallout: Everyone’s Tired, But Can’t Log Off

Here’s the quiet part no one says out loud:

Everyone is emotionally exhausted, but still posting.
Everyone is trying to grow their brand while low key unraveling behind the scenes.
And it’s not sustainable.

We’re all curating our breakdowns now, and it’s numbing us.
We scroll past people in actual distress because we don’t know what’s real anymore.
We cry for strangers in stories, and then make dinner five minutes later like nothing happened.
The line between empathy and entertainment has been completely blurred.

So What Now?

I’m not saying “don’t post when you’re hurting.”
But I am saying: ask yourself why.
Is this for you?
Is this for someone else?
Or is this because the machine taught you that pain equals visibility?

Your story doesn’t owe anyone access.
You don’t have to bleed publicly to be “authentic.”
You don’t have to turn your worst days into content to matter.

Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is not share.
To heal quietly. To process privately. To tell your story when you are ready—not when the algorithm is hungry.

Because at the end of the day, you’re a person—not a post.

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This is UnMarketable.Me. I Am UnMarketable.