By now, it's a familiar story. Last summer, a friend was ghosted by a man he’d been dating for six months. There had been no hint that this was going to happen. He just stopped messaging. If this had been 1999, you’d be forgiven for thinking your former lover had vanished. Maybe you’d ring them on the house phone a few times before giving up. Today, though, you know exactly where they are, what they’re doing and who they date after you. Not just through what they post on Instagram, but through what their friends post, their friend’s friends, with times and dates precisely mapped out like a data-led game of dot-to-dot.
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Instagram has made stalkers of all of us. If this sounds really obvious, that’s because it is. Trawling through accounts owned by people in whom we have a vested interest has become standard online behaviour. Maybe you regularly look at your ex-partner’s new partner’s photos, comparing her fringe to yours and swiping through her selection of animal-themed watercolours from 2013. Maybe you always check up on this one couple you barely know, then feel personally upset when he leaves her for someone he met in Brighton with colourful tattoos and slogan pin badges. Maybe you don’t do any of this – you just live and breathe in the moment, in which case good for you Pocahontas.The reasons we stalk people on IG are multifaceted and complex, and probably vary from person to person. It’s natural to want to find answers to questions, and when they’re right there in front of you, you’re going to seek them out. Also, other people are interesting. The trajectory of their lives differ from ours. Their aesthetics, their personality, their money and interests. All of this data is flattened onto a blue-lit screen for us to peer at and draw our own conclusions. It might sound more creepy if it weren’t so normalised. With all this in mind, I spoke to some people about who they stalk and why, in an effort to understand some of our weirder online habits.I can’t stop stalking people from my secondary school. I don’t have real-life contact with them anymore and everyone seems to live online, so it’s like a high school reunion without the pressure. I went to school in west London, and there were a lot of ‘City of London’ boys and private school kids. I have this draw to watching them. I sat next to them in class every day for around seven years, so if they’re having some success or doing well, I’m like ‘we literally did exactly the same thing, so why am I not at that point? Or what am I not doing? Why am I not going out there and pushing myself?’There are always the same few people at the top of my feed, because the algorithm is such a bitch. There’s one girl who’s living and travelling in Australia, another is a writer. And there’s one girl in particular who has her own podcast, her own media outlet and is doing all these insane things like travelling every three months while also doing a degree from SOAS… how?! Zara, 29.
“I have this draw to watching people from school”
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“I'm not in touch with my exes, so this is the only way I can see what they're doing”
“I stalk her in the hope she’s broken-hearted about leaving me dry for three months"
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