I’m on a (perhaps permanent) social media detox

And very happy about it. Plus summer reading suggestions and 2 easy recipes for summer aperitivo.

August is here and it’s now been over a month since I’ve deleted instagram from my phone. Just the app, mind you. I can’t afford to delete my existence off instagram. It’s still where publishers and clients look for you and (mis)judge you based on your numbers, which makes less and less sense to me because, honestly, who sees your work there anymore with this engagement rate?

Over the past few years, too many times I have found myself deleting the Instagram app from my phone. In the past, most of the times I did so, it was because I was under an important deadline, for instance the various stages during the process of writing Pomegranates & Artichokes. My trick is that I delete the app, but I’m not too hard on myself, so I occasionally check instagram from the phone’s browsers. It’s tedious and slow as hell, which makes it much harder to lose yourself in a string of stories or reels that can easily go from 1 minute to spending a whole hour there, wondering what the fuck just happened to the morning (guilty as charged). But never like this time have I lacked the desire/curiosity/itch to put instagram back on my phone. As if — gasp — I didn’t miss it, didn’t need it, anymore.

I’m not sure I ever did this operation for the mere sake of productivity. I could never draw the line whether I did this to save my time or mind. Both hypotheses are plausible. 

I feel like an old person who is not able to let go of something nice that they lived long ago, but I seem to be grieving — with a lot of frustration bordering on pure loathing — when it comes to instagram. More than a decade ago, when it was all about the aesthetics, people on the app were (aspiring) creatives who tried to make something nice, however experimental, through a picture. And there were really good ones too, many photographers and stylists of our time were born then, and that was almost all. Advertisers weren’t there yet, brands weren’t there yet, because not all the consumers were there yet. 

Still, I wonder, was it even then changing our aesthetics to one big, giant monolith? I remember those days when we attended/taught photography workshops “stick to the same pallets, have your own presets, post photos only from this or that angle, etc”... what utter crap. And still, Instagram was accused of being something for “hipsters”. Reading this excellent piece by

Alicia Kennedy

made me wonder when exactly social media started to change our taste so profoundly, now that everyone is on Instagram. 

And so it has become that if you don't post very short, highly entertaining videos, you don't go anywhere. Less than 2% of my followers were exposed to my latest posts. And it's not just that I can't/don’t want to make these videos. I find myself less and less willing even to be an observer of this pointless race. Everyone can be famous for 4 seconds now. That's a whole lot of fame I don’t want to witness. What pays for this fragmented, multiplied fame is our attention and our time. And in its midst, the great absent is the social connection that long ago got us excited about social media in the first place.

Tomorrow I’m going on vacation. It’s the first proper seaside trip I’ve taken in the middle of August as is customary in Italy in a long, long time. And no sunsets or stunning meals by the beach will be documented on stories (I can’t guarantee not posting something after coming back). It’s a liberation, I hope. Being free from capturing a moment for the gram. Perhaps you have’t been a victim of this but I’ve noticed that now that I don’t have instagram I take less and less pictures with my phone, as opposed to my usual routine that makes my iCloud account ever pleading for more space. Many people really do the vacation for the gram. I’ve witnessed tourists here in Rome who on a 3 night stay in the city went on day trips to the Amalfi Coast and to Florence and vineries in the Tuscan countryside. Possibly only to take pictures because I don't know what else there'd be time for during such short journeys.

There’s something else too; safeguarding my mental health, because let’s face it, I’m not that productive so that simply having instagram can lower my efficiency. Glimpses of so much of what I want to have and what I want to be and what I want to achieve, all that glitter that is certainly not all gold, are splashed in my face on Instagram several times during a day and as nonchalant I want to be, something gnaws at my inside. Reading this post by

Kirsten Powers

on this very same subject was very helpful. But still, I have no plans of installing back the app permanently in the foreseeable future. 

So, I have put the Substack app exactly where Instagram was on my phone. The gesture, the movement of the fingers are automatic and almost out of my control. The endless checking. My hand goes for it the same way years after having quit smoking I still sometimes have a manual urge to light a cigarette. It’s my hand, muscle memory. I can’t really smoke an entire cigarette without coughing myself to death anymore. It has been more than 13 years that I’m no longer a smoker. Can I last a fraction of that time without Instagram?

So I’m going on a proper beach vacation to Greece. We're a party of six and it's a new experience in many ways. I’m excited, despite the foolish way I hurt my foot just 10 days before leaving, but I’m hoping it be won’t encumber me soaking in salty water, doing almost nothing

I have a few simple goals for this vacation; to look at my phone even less, stop the browser cheating out of my social media detox. I’m taking my new, old film camera. Shooting film and having only a few shots available is an incredibly liberating and meditative way to photograph. It’s also easy, as film is just effortlessly magical. I’m also taking on my trusty Kindle, on which I hope to read and finish one book at least, seeing how I tend to finish books more when I read them on the little device. 

On top of my reading list at the moment there are:

• The Paris Novel by

  Ruth Reichl
  .

• Cold Kitchen by

  Caroline Eden
  .

If I may, here are a few other summer reads I’d like to suggest. 

• Experienced, an excellent, cheerful novel about queer love and women dating women by

  Kate Young

• When god was a rabbit by Sarah Winman

• Big Magic, by

  Elizabeth Gilbert
  . If not all the book, just parts of it. I read this in the troublesome august of 2020 and parts of touched me so deeply I even wanted to tattoo this sentence on me : Love beyond suffering, always.

I still have no tattoos but this is still a good contestant.

• Natural Wine for the People by Alice Feiring, a very good guide on natural wine, the book comes in a friendly small size. 

• A Short History of Queer Women by Kirsty Loeh, a delightful and hilarious little book that looks out how queer women have been written out of history in a comical way. 

  ---

Two recipes

Because it’s been so long since I published one

A simple aperitivo drink

This is the simplest of aperitivo drinks. The type your neighborhood bar would serve you even before the lunch hour, or in the early afternoon. The basic aperitivo drink here is nonalcoholic, which by all means, I would recommend with a slice of an orange. To Bring a little joy, top up your glass with prosecco or fizzy wine of your choice.

Makes 1 glass

• 100ml  red sanbitter 

• 125ml prosecco

• Ice cubes

• A slice of orange

Chill the glass with ice. Pour out any excess water. Pour the sanbitter and top with prosecco. Add a slice of orange and serve immediately.

Olive tapenade with toasted almond and peanut chili oil

I have recently discovered Chinese crispy chilli oil and I’m so obsessed I put it in everything: on top of pasta, on eggs, in yogurt, you name it. This tapenade is one of the results. This is dinner for me in summer.  

•  100g sundried tomatoes (preferably not in oil)

• 100g blanched almonds

• 100g pitted olives (a mix of different types possibly, green and black)

• Chinese peanut (crispy) chili oil to taste (start with ½ teaspoon)

• 4 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil (or more if needed)

• 1 tablespoon white vinegar (or rice vinegar)

• A handful of chopped chives

• Leaves of 1 head of  iceberg lettuce for serving

• Crackers or small slices of toasted bread for serving (optional)

Start with toasting the almonds in a hot pan on medium heat. Be careful so that they don’t burn. Take them off the pan as soon as the colour is darkened a bit and they smell nutty. Take them off the pan and leave to cool. Then roughly chop them with a knife.

Chop the sun dried tomatoes as well. Then mix everything in a food processor or mixer. You may need to do this in a couple of batches and a splash of water or two to help everything mix properly. Taste and adjust the chili oil to your taste.

Serve the tapenade with iceberg leaves (and/or crackers). The freshness of lettuce is perfect for the strong flavor of the tapenade as a starter or an aperitivo. Serve together with the simple aperitivo drink above.