I will pay any money to suck your toes

‘I will pay any money to suck your toes’

I am obsessed with @maz_green. I refresh Instagram every two minutes, and about half of that time is spent pouring over Maz’s feed I think about Maz’s bikini pictures at the gym while I struggle to do a plank, I’ve shown photos of her to my hairdresser-and I have spent hours of my life traipsing between Boots and Superdrug, trying to locate the exact shade of shin lilac lipstick that Maz wore in one particular selfi e from15 January 2015 . Maz isn’t famous or anything, although she does have almost three thousand Instagram followers, and her feed is full of photos of infi nity pools and selfi es taken with hedgehogs in Tokyo. She’s someone I vaguely know we met at a party around eight years ago (but she probably doesn’t remember it). We’ve crossed paths a few times since then, and she’s always been sweet and polite, and clearly oblivious about how much I stalk her on social media. Our very tenuous connection makes me all the more obsessed with her; her life seems both completely of a different world, while also strangely entwined with mine. Recently it’s all got a bit much. So, in the spirit of self-care (and cutting-edge journalism) I slid into Maz’s DMs and invited her out to dinner. I hoped that telling her my feelings might help me to see her more as a human being, and less as a perpetually tanned selfi e with perfect hair. Maybe fi nding out her deepest darkest Instagram secrets might free me of some of mine? What follows is an excerpt from our conversation.

Sarah Roberts tracks down her

Instagram obsession

Instead of taking a selfi e because I think I look good in someone’s bathroom light, I now want to take a selfi e in the hills of Positano with a drone.

How did you feel when I told you that I stalked you on Instagram and invited you to dinner? Not too surprised to be honest, and that’s not said in a cocky way. Social media can connect us so easily, so it’s not very shocking that someone would stalk me. I’ve had people tell me they stalk me before and I’ve told people I stalk them. I’m fl attered, really. I think it’s important to make people feel appreciated. I’ve also found a lot worse in my DMs, things like ‘I will pay any money to suck your toes’ and once something strangely descriptive and specifi c; ‘I want to paint you shile smoking a cigar, drinking wine on a porch, and then get drunk with you in a vineyard’. That sounds quite positive. But do you think your relationship with Instagram has always been a positive one? Before I became comfortable with myself there was an ugly side to it. I used to like and followers as self -validation. They became my axes of popularity, which is a sad thing to admit. I got wrapped up in that world and it made me insecure. I’m not sure if I’ve got to that point yet. Instagram can make me feel jealous and insecure because I fi nd myself looking at pictures of you and other beautiful women. Does looking at girls on Instagram ever make you feel that way? I would never want to use it to make anyone feel that way. I’m trying to make my Instagram into a travel page, so I am using it to inspire people to travel. All the people I used to follow were hot girls who would just take selfi es, and naturally you start to compare yourself. You really do get sucked into it. But then, as I matured I realized that looking at all of these selfi es wasn’t inspiring me or making me feel excited or good about myself, so started following different sorts of people The only person I’ve ever tried to elicit a negative reaction from is my boyfriend. When we have fi ghts I’ Il put on loads of makeup and take a photo to be like “ look at how hot I am. I think you are always trying to tell a story through your photos, but that story isn’t necessarily real. What kinds of fi ghts do you have with your boyfriend? Well, it took me a while to realize that someone liking his photo, or him following someone on Instagram, didn’t mean that in real life they were having a relationship That is show insecure it could make me. Now I can look back on it and feel sorry for myself. I can’t believe how much energy could waste feeling so strongly about something that wasn’t real.

How accurately do you think your Instagram page refl ects your real life then ? I don’t think you see the mundane aspects of my life on my Instagram. I post photos of myself away when I’m actually at home in London. It is very contrived especially now that I want to make Instagram into my career. Instead of taking a selfi e because I think I look good in someone’s bathroom lighting, I now want to take a selfi e in the hills of a Positano with a drone. I want to expand the photo, and curate the image into something unique and interesting. I’ll stay up until one or two in the morning to practice with my drone, or to practice editing. You’ve got to put time and money in to do this, but it’s so worth it because the images you can create are so much more powerful when you do. I’m also an oil broker, and I don’t think that anyone who knows me through Instagram would know that. because it doesn’t translate at all. Sometimes it feels like I’m living a double life. When people at work found out I owned a drone, they were like, Are you a geek? Are you really into this kind of technology? “ They had no idea. Instagram is like crack for my index fi nger. How much time do you think you spend on it? Probably about half of each day, but now it’s because I’m researching If I’ve put up a photo that day, then I’ll continually refresh my page, because I want to measure the reception I’ve gotten To be honest though, even before I started thinking about making this into a career. I used to spend about half of each day on there, but in the worst possible way. I would fi nd myself 154 weeks deep into my boyfriend’s ex-girlfriends husbands fi sh feeder’s photos wondering how I got there. I have defi nitely spent many hours going 154 weeks deep into your photos. How much time do you think you spend actually taking them? A lot. Everything I post is heavily curated. I’m strategic now: I’ll try to follow color schemes, for example, I’ve read that people respond best to the color blue on Instagram, so I’ve started to put up more images of water. And unfortunately, you can’t take the most amazing photo in Positano on the beach at midday, because there will be hundreds of people around you blocking your photo. I had to get up at fi ve in the morning to set up the drone, and then wait until the sun was in the right spot to take it. It’s a real process, and it’s so much to do with lighting, so when I go somewhere I also must look at things like where the sun sets and at what time. Every photo has a ridiculous story behind it. was once attacked by snake charmers in Marrakesh because I was trying to pose with their snakes.