The Cow Manifesto for Putting Your Art Out of Instagram

I hate the Instagram silo. I hate logging in, I hate seeing the stimulating feed
and stories and explore page every time I look something up, and most of all: I
hate that all the information is up there.

I can only try describing what's so disturbing about all art being trapped in
The Silo. I can explain it politically, which I will, but I'll start with my
guts: I hate seeing your follower count, our mutuals, your profile picture
trapped in a sea of boring white background with that stupid red circle around
it. I hate seeing business information in the highlights, and 3 top posts that I
barely manage to see because the pin icon is near invisible. I hate liking and
commenting on your posts, and I hate zooming, and I hate not being able to
download anything.

I'm not an artist, but I hope you are, and I want to consume your
art in a sane way. The tool I made solves my pain point more than it
solves yours – because I get to view art outside of the Instagram silo. I
can finally peacefully enjoy art online without the mental chore of avoiding the
massive (and ever growing!!!!) list of distractions on the cursed app.

I cannot stand the feeling of being a lab rat having my every motion monitored.
I think the ball finally dropped after a friend of mine, which religiously
avoided reels, had her Instagram interface change so that the reels page would
appear every time she tries accessing the DMs.

We need to leave this app and we need better tools for it. I felt like as a
technical person it's my responsibility to try and bridge the gap for
non-technical people; making a website is actually insanely hard, even with
no-code tools like Wix or something. There aren't enough _easy_ ways to get your
own corner of the internet. That really is the only premise of Cow sites; I had
the hubris to think I am empathetic enough to be able to crack the enigma of
creating a non-confusing interface. I think it turned out ok : - ]

This tool is my humble contribution to a growing movement of disdain. The end
result I want to see is having chokingly tight regulations around the attention
economy; but this will only happen when public outrage arrives. I think
alternative tools which help people challenge the status quo are, kinda, in
their own very insignificant way, advancing this cause. Somehow. Anyways. Hope you like
cowsites ;)