Five Ways To Get Noticed By A Celebrity On Instagram

When I started my Instagram account, I duly followed all of my friends. Check out that weird thing Phoebe did in Japan! Mim is having a picnic in Geelong or whatever! Ron put a pig in a tub, what a guy! You know, keeping up. But I also added a bunch of celebrities to ensure I had enough life-draining jealousy going on.

Very quickly, I realised the comments people leave on famous people’s Instagram posts are way more entertaining than the photos themselves. Aside from the utterly anodyne statements — any model’s Insta comments are guaranteed to be littered with “wow”, “beautiful”, or the heart-eyes emoji — I quickly started noticing other, more interesting trends. Let me take you through my favourite ways people try to get noticed on Instagram.

–

#1: State The Bloody Obvious

Below is a cute snap of The Mindy Project’s Mindy Kaling in front of her computer: pink shirt, smiling, natural make-up, informative caption. All cool. Was it so interesting that it moved me to comment? No, although maybe I wanna buy a pink shirt now and also a swivel chair. Also a house. Goddammit Mindy.

Below is a sampling of the comments she received.

They range from well-meaning girl-boosting (“Lookin like a bad bitch Mindy!”) to spammy (“Visiting NY?”), but my favourite here is “Great makeup”. I mean, you’re one of 9865 (and counting) commenters here; try harder, or don’t not bother.

“That’s your colour”. Really? Is this comment so important that you want the world to know you wrote it? Do you think Mindy Kaling is going to look at it and want to be friends? I just don’t know what the purpose of this communication is. I don’t even comment on my friends’ make-up if I think it looks nice. Does that make me a bad person?

–

#2: Actually Talk To The Celebrity As If He Or She Is Reading

Celebrities receive many, many comments on each of their photos. One of Kim Kardashian’s wedding photos, for instance, hit 51,000 — more than this incredible shot of her wedding dress, which scored a measly 10,000. I think it’s safe to say that she isn’t reading all of them; I think it’s even safe to say her assistant isn’t reading all (or any) of them.

So it amuses me no end when commenters address their comments to the celebrity personally. Let’s head back to Mindy Kaling:

Please see the final comment in the list above.  “Wish i needed a jacket today”. This is great. Did wearing a jacket become a thing overnight? What is so good about wearing a jacket? I actually hate wearing jackets. You have to take them off when you’re inside and then carry them around. “Whew! Hot hotness!”

Did the commenter just want to connect with Mindy Kaling on a personal level? If so, this is some super-arbitrary and not very fascinating conversation-starting. Why not: “OMG you have a face I have a face too!”, or “All made up of atoms today AMIRITE????”

Here, meanwhile, is a man who really wants to meet Kate Upton.

And hey super famous person, when is the next episode of your extremely popular show coming out in my unspecified country on a channel I don’t know the name of?

–

#3. Offer Ungrammatical Declarations Of Sexual Interest

I’m not actually a huge fan of people who call people out on typos and grammatical issues generally, but I feel my mirth is justified when LOLing at the comments left by dudes from around the world on photos of women they want. There is something about the expression of lust in a second language (or third, or fourth — I’m well aware these people are probably more linguistically skilled than I am) that’s just really funny.

One example of this, which I screenshotted a while back, comes from “belfie” (that’s “butt selfie” to you) star Jen Selter.

I just love these top two comments. The first is kind of touchingly poignant: “She is sexy, is she ?”. With additional space before the question mark and uncertain syntax, it reminds me of the Key and Peele sketch where an alien is trying to work out how to talk to chicks with other dudes.

The second one should be printed on a square of Sexy Monopoly or something.

–

#4. Be Insulting In A Fairly Weird Way  

Some people are straight-up horrible to celebrities on Instagram, but I don’t want to deal with trolls here. More interesting are the weirder insults, the kinds that sound like they come from your passive-aggressive and least-favourite co-worker. I noticed this little gem on Poh’s account the other day.

GOD POH CRUMBLE IS SO MUCH EASIER TO MAKE THAN PIE YOU IDIOT

–

#5: Just Be As Completely Tone-Deaf As Possible

In the below post, Lena Dunham’s caption indicates that she had a pretty bad day, and is eating pizza to make herself feel better. It’s a fairly specific message — yet catfairy28 managed to completely circumvent it, to compliment the Girls star on her skin.

A classic conversational move worthy of my great-aunt Jenny, who thankfully does not exist.

“Aunt Jenny, I am depressed and can’t get a job.”

“Estelle, you can do such a great impression of an elk!”

Oh, Aunt Jenny.

–

Thus concludes my rundown of the types of Instagram comments I enjoy the most. Please alert me to any types I may have missed. Until then, Godspeed, and go to making love forever.

–

Estelle Tang is a writer and editor living in New York. She tweets from @waouwwaouw.