This isn’t just a story about Instagram metrics, it’s about how identities are constructed and curated.

It’s what happens when the lines between self-expression and self-promotion start to blur.

What started with art, turned into attention - and somewhere along the way, I became a whole new version of me I never meant to be.

What began as a feed became a mirror, and this is what it showed.

Eventually, even the thirst trapper gets thirsty. This time, for meaning.

The algorithm stopped clapping, and I stopped dancing.

The mirror didn’t disappear. I just started looking at it differently.

This project uses the data I collected from my personal Instagram account. Post metadata (e.g., content type, content tags etc.) were recorded by myself.

Performance metrics such as reach, impressions, likes, comments, saves and profile visits were sourced from Instagram Insights, a tool provided by Instagram for account analytics.

No external datasets or third-party data sources were used in this project.