If you don’t post a picture of your artisanal sandwich on Instagram, did you even eat it?

In a similar vein, if that good news you just received wasn’t humblebragged about on Facebook, how do you know you even achieved anything?

(Please take a second to read the McSweeney’s humblebrag: self-isolation edition, because it’s parody genius.)

Social media has changed the way we interact with the world. It’s not enough just to do something well. Some people need to have a good job confirmed through ‘likes’ and comments.

It’s like a virtual pat on the back.

(That’s putting aside the fighting and bickering on social media, which has already turned nasty on day one of the lockdown.)

Yomi Adegoke, who writes for The Guardian, describes it as “thrilled to announce” culture or “the growing pressure to publicly declare every and any work win online”.

With events cancelled or postponed, businesses closed, and most of the world on lockdown, there isn’t that much to be thrilled about or to announce.

This is likely to affect celebrities in interesting ways. With nothing to announce, they’ve been forced to get creative.  Madonna is a classic example of what being famous for too long does to your ability to connect with the world.

In since-deleted posts on Instagram, Madonna declared that COVID-19 was the “great equaliser”.

“We are all in the same boat” she said, sitting surrounded by rose petals in a bath that, were it to be sold, the funds raised could probably see me through the looming recession. “And if the ship goes down, we’re all going down together,” she added.

She followed it up with this for some reason:

 

View this post on Instagram

 

Living in Special Times…………its 3 am—-cut me some slack people. 🐠🐠🐠 #quarantine #covid_19 #staysafe #becreative

A post shared by Madonna (@madonna) on Mar 20, 2020 at 8:37am PDT

Uhm, thanks?

When coronavirus first shut things down, celebrities posted lists of all the lost opportunities, shows, movies and music releases that would have been announced but for the pandemic.

Now that social media is catching up to the realities of a lockdown, posts have shifted away from what could have been to people sharing news about their personal hobbies.

Instagram has aided this shift, releasing a Stay Home sticker to add to your posts, encouraging users to share what they are doing while isolated, such as showing followers how they are passing the time, and vice versa. These updates are less about professional point scoring and more: “PERSONAL NEWS: I’ve just made and eaten my third banana cake of the week!”

So why not take an online course, learn to knit, discover new podcasts or watch a movie online with friends. 

Then bake some bread and eat it.

Just make sure you post a picture of it first.

[source:guardian]