I'm a connoisseur of plants growing in cracks in the pavement, mind sharing a link?

https://www.instagram.com/ct_thelittlethings/ :)

I'd be cool to create a simple template that you could repeat for each post in video form:

- The plant - The location (sidewalk, park, etc) - Native vs non-native? - Seen as a weed or flower/desirable plant? - Who pollinates it.

I just subscribed.

Nice pics, very heartwarming and solarpunk!

Thank you! <3

Bricky roads They trappers grass Stony walls They trappers wind Iron stove It trappers fire Trappers is we By the works of hands And forgets us We were ever free...

I love the irony here. Going outside into “real life” to find pictures to post on a site that keeps people inside.

"[...] the outside world, the non-digital world, is merely a theatrical space in which one stages and records content for the much more real, much more vital digital space. One should only engage with the outside world as one engages with a coal mine. Suit up, gather what is needed, and return to the surface." -- bo burnham, Inside

https://youtu.be/PSClBFUe-o0?t=26

solid bit, but weird transition into pirate maps

Inside is a feature-length movie filmed during the pandemic, definitely worth watching in its entirety if you haven't. It's incredibly creative. I linked the video at the second of three "bits" performed in a single scene. In this scene, he's pretending to be a standup comedian in front of an audience, hence the multiple jokes. Bo actually previously used the pirate joke in The Big Sick: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYZ5efCcK_s

From what I’ve seen, Instagram is better at motivating young people to go outside and do things than video games were in the 90s or even today.

With Instagram they see their friends doing things and it’s a reminder that going outside and/or spending time with friends is fun. There’s a lot of pearl clutching about people getting jealous about other people’s vacation pictures, but on the whole the active Instagram users I know are much more social and likely to spend time outside the house than the gamers or Redditors. By a wide margin.

Is this still true though? My gut feeling is that most Instagram users are now passive, meaning they doomscroll and never post while lying in bed in their parents basement while their 20s sail by.

Not so much a stereotype as a reflection of the real people I know.

I think we used to see much more content from friends, I think the feed is now mostly content creators/ads/tiktokified, no?

You do have power onto your own feed (well, limited power). I snooze suggestions every month and follow basically zero content creators: I'd say 90% of my followees are people I've met irl. If I want to doomscroll and feel awful, the Explore/Reels tabs are more than enough.

> My gut feeling is that most Instagram users are now passive

That's just reflective of how the world has always worked. Most people are passive.

The point being made, I think, is that Instagram is a greater source of motivation to interact with the outside world than Reddit/Gaming is.

It sounds plausible enough to me but who knows?

Too true sadly.

May have been true when Instagram was a photos app with a chronological timeline of only the accounts you follow + a few ads. If you wanted to seek content outside of your personally curated feed it was in a different tab or you would need to search for it.

Now it’s a meme-shorts first platform that constantly suggests content outside of your follows and non-chronologically. You can’t opt out of “suggested content” pictures or videos in your feed for more than 30 days at a time and there is no option to permanently opt out. It’s not possible to opt out of shorts (reels) suggestions in your feed. It’s not possible to opt out of meta “threads” suggestions in your feed. I just opened the app and 5 of the first 11 items in my feed were sponsored ads, and 1 of the 11 was suggested “threads”.

Plenty of those memes and reels ARE focused on 'IRL' activities, though. Obviously the full experience depends on your feed, but a lot of content is created and shared around restaurants/activities/vacation etc and many millennials and Gen Z find inspiration there, whether from influencers or peers.

TBH I don't think Instagram particularly keeps people inside given that >99.99% of its users use it exclusively on mobile.

Because people don’t use their phones at home?

More people use their phones outside than use their desktop computers outside, though

I really love that, would you mind sharing the insta?

They responded on another post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43160338): it's https://www.instagram.com/ct_thelittlethings .

I wonder how many of us picked up this habit from COVID? It definitely got me to appreciate my local flora way better, and the fact that I get weird looks for bending down to take pictures of tiny little insect and plant life is, well, let me be honest, I kind of enjoy being the neighborhood eccentric.

During COVID I'd take a lot of walks, and in a similar way, it helped to have some kind of basically useless goal/destination in mind. For me it was checking out how construction in a nearby park was going, including what was happening in a temporary holding pond. I would send "pond updates" to my family in other states, which they found amusing. I got really interesting in all the different birds I was seeing and how the plants were growing. Now that I'm downtown, in a more "walkable" place, I don't really have the same variety of interesting natural things to see. Maybe I can think of something similar.

Aw, that's a really lovely goal! A growing pond sounds like an excellent walking target - during lockdown I headed to my local reservoir quite a few times and just wandered around the path by its edge.

I also enjoy watching construction - I feel like in a different country and different life, I would have been an 'Umarell' (an elderly Italian man who stands watching construction sites)

pokemon-go got a lot of people outdoors too. I would see kids walking around the neighborhood with their phones out looking for pokemon, it wasn't perfect but at least they were outside getting some air.

I stand by the meme: that summer was closest we've gotten to world peace.

It's still very popular in my area during the warmer weather. I don't play the game myself but it is quite nice to see, really and makes me feel a little better about my community, as silly as that sounds. When people get out and enjoy public spaces together, it nurtures a positive perspective.