Nigerian Instagram is a parallel universe. Everyone is a CEO. Everyone is at a brunch you weren't invited to. Everyone is "grateful for another trip to Dubai." The captions are identical: "God did." "Soft life." "Trust the timing." The reality? The trip was sponsored by a brand that hasn't paid them. The brunch was a one-time photo op. The CEO title is self-appointed and self-funded. The pressure is suffocating. You scroll at 11 PM, hungry and broke, watching people eat sushi you'll never afford. You see engagement announcements from couples who were fighting last week. You see business "launches" that are just Canva graphics with no actual product. And you wonder: Is everyone winning except me? But the algorithm rewards performance. The real stories—failure, doubt, debt—don't get likes. The polished stories do. So we all perform. We rent clothes for photoshoots. We borrow cars for backgrounds. We filter our faces into strangers. And we call it "content creation." The mental health toll is real. Comparison is the thief of joy, and Instagram is the armed robber. But we can't quit. It's where the jobs are. Where the connections happen. Where the culture lives. Do you curate your Instagram, or does it curate your anxiety? And what's the biggest gap you've seen between someone's posts and their reality?
