From your crush watching your story (but studiously ignoring your pics) to old friends sharing conspiracy theories (not to mention celebrities flaunting their third Acai bowl of the day), Instagram is an absurd place.
But as we refresh our feed on the hour, every hour (the modern-day equivalent of Sisyphus rolling a stone uphill), you’d think we’d at least be perfecting the art of interacting online.
How wrong you’d be.
A scroll through the profile of Los Angeles based model Ashley Tervort shows – despite ample opportunity to improve (Instagram has been around since 2010) – many Instagram users still lack a basic understanding of how to comment on a photo.
The beauty, fashion and lifestyle model recently shared an image of herself posing on the edge of a pool. So far so California. However, as happens with most of her images, the shot was quickly inundated with ‘thirsty‘ comments.
“How are you keeping cool?” Ashley Tervort captioned the post. 233 comments ensued. Many of them missed the mark.
Case in point: “Every time you take or show a picture of yourself I think: ‘it cannot be more sexier’. And then you post pictures that are even more [sic] sexier… How do you manage that?”.
Weird at best, creepy at worst.
Further cringe-inducing compliments included:
“This pleases me.”
“Cute.”
“Yum.”
“I was keeping cool til I saw this post. Holy Moly.” (this one gets points for trying but still lands in our cringe category).
“I’m keeping cool for sure [but] not with your pictures.”
“Marry me.”
This is far from an isolated incident, with almost every single public persona (from Sydney Sweeney to Michael B Jordan) experiencing the same ‘sucker fish’ phenomenon.
DMARGE reached out to Ashley Tervort to get her take. Ashley told us the key to a non ‘whack’ comment, pick up line, or DM slide, is to get the balance right between boring and spicy, and to have a good attitude.
“A sense of humour can be one of the most attractive characteristics of a guy, so comments/messages that can bring out a laugh in me always catch my attention in a positive way.”
“On the other hand though, try not to be bland, degrading or too intrusive.”
Also key (whether on Instagram or otherwise), as seen in one of Ashley Tervort’s recent Instagram stories (where she answers the question: what do you dislike about LA), is authenticity.
“The thing I don’t like [about LA] is fake friends; people are fake nice to you.”
As seen in the image below, if your comment meets the above requirements (or isn’t straight up bizarre), you may get a response.
Maybe there’s hope for Instagram’s pick up game after all? Ashley Tervort thinks so.