6 to follow on Instagram Part 1

I love Instagram. It’s one of the things I didn’t realise I loved until tasked with writing an article regarding accounts that I love.  Narrowing my ‘loves’ down to a list of six was difficult, but here we are! Instagram, a platform for not only selfies and cute dog photos, but also for telling stories of real life, and these are as real as you can get in an online world.

My Picks

Self-love

During lockdown 2.0, upcoming deadlines and a mountain of reading to get through, self-care is hard! The posts on @myselflovesupply remind me how important it is to look after yourself, even if it is just a hot bath or an extra cuddle with one of the cats- it makes more difference than you would think.

Feminism

The name truly says it all. As a woman in 2020, @feminist is beyond appreciated. It is bitter-sweet, with painful memes of periods, to important testimony of women all around the world who fight for the ‘radical’ belief that we as humans are equal and deserve equal treatment. I urge anyone who wants to see what modern, true feminism is to look at this Instagram page. It has empowered, inspired and most of all taught me so much.

Politics

The team that runs @simplepolitics are the true hero’s of Brexit, the election and Covid-19. They work endlessly to provide politics in language that is accessible for all readers. They keep up to date accounts of current events, legislation and more importantly, what it all means! The bio “Helping the UK have better conversations about politics. Better informed, more tolerant.” truly doesn’t serve them justice for the amount of work that goes into deciphering some of the things that come out of parliament, as a politics student myself, I am not ashamed to admit that I frequently turn to this page for guidance when trying to explain political drama, they just have such a great way of getting concepts across that I could only dream of being able to articulate.

Foodies

As a vegetarian, there is a precedent for all of the food you eat to look healthy, be green and to have some sort of weird health benefit that no one has heard of before. The @uglyvegan page is beige, baked bean-based and more realistic than any other food page on Instagram. Unhealthy days are okay, and I think in a world dominated by diet culture and ‘green juice’, it can be easy to forget that sometimes a bit of unhealthy is what’s needed after a hard day. After all, nothing puts a smile on my face like a lump of deep-fried mashed potato in the shape of a face.

All things Trans

@munroebergdof is someone who I recently came across on Instagram, and I found her to be truly remarkable. In her soon to be released book ‘Transitional’, she reflects upon her transition as a trans woman, and her time as an activist for the fluidity of identity. She frequently uses her page and platform to discuss important topics that are often viewed as being taboo, for this, I will always be grateful. People who use their high following profiles to spread awareness will always rate high in my books.

Just for smiles

This final profile on my list @pestosalad never fails to make me smile, they repost twitter posts! I am not a user of Twitter, I can just never understand the layout or the format at all. Their repost of tweets and anecdotes are always humorous, wholesome and usually something that I would be very excited about like cats or art. They’re a fun page that really makes a difference, definitely worth a follow!

And that’s my list! A good mix of topics that fill my feed and make a genuine impact on my day. If you haven’t already, check them out!