Obsession: Instagram Addiction While Sick
Tosh's Journal Sunday November 16, 2025
Not eating food is an obsession in itself. As an addiction, I have been watching all the Instagram food sites—cafes, diners, food trucks, and so on. Today I was shocked to see an influencer talking about a sandwich shop, where she ordered a huge amount of meat, sauces, lettuce, and peppers on a thick piece of bread. That didn’t shock me; what disturbed me to the core was that she also had potato salad and chips. In my world, you can have either potato salad or chips, but under no circumstances can one have both. I looked up this combination, and it seems to be very common in America.
These days, it seems like the same person has created all the Instagram food accounts. There’s no artistic vision on Instagram, which leads to another obsession: the death stroll. Stories and reels. Besides food, there’s a series of short videos showing a lion or wild beast jumping into a moving Land Rover, pulling a person out of the car, and dragging them away to be eaten. It’s sometimes graphic, but I can’t look away. I also enjoy the violent parts of various films, like The Equalizer, which features numerous revenge scenes where the bad guys all meet brutal deaths, often with a well-set-up violent moment.
Watching reels, I forget that I have a body. On one level, it reminds me of the classic TV series Candid Camera. However, Instagram is much more sadistic and cruel, and watching it, I find myself in a state of bliss. Two hours a day, I’m consistently watching reels on Instagram. I feel very American, and that I’m part of something that is bigger than us. But the beasts jumping into the Land Rover are, for sure, AI-made. The question in my head is, why would someone make an AI of animals eating humans? The only answer is that there’s a big fan base out there, and I guess I’m one of the tribe.
Looking at the food I can’t eat, especially at a taco shop just a six-minute walk from my house, I think about watching it to prepare myself mentally for the food to be appalling. Regarding animal violence, I have a personal connection. Good friends of mine went on a photo safari and were killed by a charging rhino while in a Land Rover. Their deaths are incredibly shocking, and it’s been a couple of decades since it happened. But when I watch these AI videos, I naturally think of my friends.
America has always carried a dark spot, and I feel it every day. Since I got sick, I’ve been focusing on that pain. In this way, I think I absorbed that pain, and thank God I’m reading Julio Cortázar’s A Certain Lucas. I’m going to do everything possible to leave the Instagram world.
Liked this: "In my world, you can have either potato salad or chips, but under no circumstances can one have both."
It reminded me that in my world, you can wear either suspenders or a belt, but under no circumstances can one have both.
Makes me think that one with both is untrustworthy...
The 24-year-old daughter of my best friend in high school went to South Africa for a job. She had a day off before her job started, so she took a guided a photo-excursion into a nature park. She lowered her window to take a photo, and a lion pulled her right out of the car and killed her. Horror show. That said, a lot of those instas are fake. My sons tell me that most of the animals-at-night videos are also fake. I guess with the nocturnal ones, it's easier to conceal the AI.