Challenges meeting new people without an Instagram account

If they shun you for not having instragram, find better social circles.

@ElectricWaterfall@lemmy.zip

I assume you're Gen-Z too! Socializing and Dating without Instagram and Snapchat is impossible! Don't listen to others here shouting "get their email!" "ask them to install Signal!" "ask them to install PixelFed!! "They are not worth your friendship if they don't want to talk to you if you don't have Instagram!". I know the real world ground reality having experienced it earlier, you have no other choice than making an IG and Snap account. Everyone you talk in real life will ask for your "ID" after sometime, which means IG or Snap ID depending on where you live. No "normal person" (as in normie) will install Signal or PixelFed for you. I have studied in 2 separate universities and only knew 3 girls who didn't have Insta or Snap. The foids who spout nonsense here are millennials who have no idea on how Gen-Z interact with each other or individuals who are too far into the privacy-anonymity spectrum. Anyway, you can take the following steps which will preserve your privacy in IG and Snap:

Create IG and Snap accounts using newly created emails.
Use AI generated or heavily AI altered pic as your profile pic in IG. So Meta wouldn't be able to meaningfully use your photo to train their facial recognition systems.
If you decide to post photos on Insta, alter them heavily using AI or Photoshop.
Use ASCII empty characters for your "name" in Insta and Snap. Use random username generators for usernames.
Keep Bio empty, if it doesn't allow you to keep it empty, use ASCII empty characters.
Don't watch or post Insta reels.
Don't like, comment or share in Insta.
Don't watch stories in Snap.
Use open source frontend apps on Android to browse Insta and Snap (I previously used a good app for Insta (I forgot it's name) which allowed you to control which pages to show. Like you can choose to stop displaying reels and feeds section and make it only to display DM's. This is very useful if your only aim on Insta is to use it for messaging. It even had a "Ghost mode" which will allow you privately browse Insta without alerting anyone- it'll keep your online status as "offline" even when you're online and turns off typing indicators for DM's and groupchats and you can videocall anyone without showing them you're online. Like I said, I forgot it's name, I'll link it here if I find it).
"Build a profile"- follow all of your Job/University/School friends. This will make your profile look less suspicious. Remember - It IS suspicious to not have Insta and Snap in this day and age. The fact that you didn't have both of these apps this far itself will make you look suspicious in the first place. So first build a profile.
Some have recommended apps like Insular, Shelter and Island to Isolate apps but let me tell you the truth- they will have no effect. Meta and Snapchat will still track and surveil you.
De-activate account after your purpose is resolved (only on IG) - Deactivate after your work is done. Say like the girl you were talking to has officially become your girlfriend. Don't do this on Snapchat as Snap doesn't have separate deactivate and delete account options. Your Snap account will get "permanently deleted" if you don't re-activate within 6 months.
Using VPN, TOR and other similar proxies will get your account getting flagged by Meta's spam filters and you will have to verify your identity via a real-time video verification (which has got scarily accurate in recent years) or submitting a government provided ID. Which is against what you're trying to achieve. So don't do that.

Good luck!

You mean to say unicode empty character (zero width space, probably). ASCII doesn't have one.
Am Gen Z, and currently in college. Clearly am on Fediverse, and I was never a fan of using IG (only got it cause my middle school friends made me since COVID was happening) and I have completely deactivated my account as of last winter. I have met several people at my college who don't use Instagram for various reasons, and while my other friend is a little disappointed that she can't message them on insta, at the end of the day, we live and move on.

At my college a lot of clubs use GroupMe (owned by Microsoft unfortunately) and we have an official Discord Hub that a lot of clubs are on also. So there's two different methods of communication that aren't Insta that are common on my campus. Some of my friends do have Signal in fact (even my Instagram loving friend), but because more of them don't we unfortunately don't use Signal, even when I beg my one friend who has it. She says 'it sucks and who uses it", but I've never really had the chance to use it to judge her statement as true or not.

Anyway, yeah, you could do a bunch of crazy shit and make fake accounts on Insta to have superficial conversations with people who won't give you the time of day for having an app, or you could just not. It's not that hard to find better friends/people to hang out with, and if you really make a connection with them then they should be happy with any form of communication you offer. Not all Gen Z are adamant Instagram defenders, some even hate it for various reasons (Suckerberg, being data stalkers, promoting bigotry, promoting mental health disorders, etc.)
Just an anecdote, but every time I try to create an account on Instagram I get automatically banned after account creation before even login-in for the first time.

If I recal they then ask me for a copy of my ID to confirm my name is real (which it isn't).

I have no idea how they know, I've tried literally with different residential IPs, different emails and even on brand new devices. On my Instagram user friend's house.

Maybe it's just ~~bad~~ good luck, who knows. In don't need Instagram anyway, just an interesting fact.
https://ibb.co/cKVX0nnP

This comment is all you need to know about this community! c/privacy is filled with millennials, Gen-X and boomers! There are only a handful of Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha here. I was in the same situation as you 2 years ago and asked advice here and the most upvoted comment was "If you can't ask for a girl's number you ain't got game". I deleted my original lemmy account within a few minutes then. The Fediverse was filled with Linux nerds who were at the extreme ends of privacy-anonymity spectrum back then. And nothing seems to have changed much after reading all these comments. My original Fediverse account lasted approx. 1 month 2 weeks. Let's see how much time this run lasts. I already have a lot of complaints regarding the Fediverse. The cons outweigh the pros. I'm not having fun here. It's only a matter of time till I pull the trigger.
- You're on the 'privacy' community of an open source and federated alternative social media system designed to avoid corporate control and surveillance capitalism - and you're like "wtf everyone here is very privacy focussed and Linux nerds".
  
  Do you complain about sand at the beach?

An IG account isn't a phone number or email, and I think it's weird that young people treat it like it is.

Just say you don't do social media, and if they can't respect that, it's a quick test as to if they're your people or not.

It can also be a good conversation starter. Some people genuinely don't know or care about the social media corporations spying on us. You can have some interesting conversations with them.
- Or come across as a weirdo, conspiracy theory, antisocial, tech obsessive nerd.
  
  I mean, it's not inaccurate, but not maybe how to present initially when you meet someone.
- Depends entirely on the audience. The problem with privacy issues is that privacy nihilism sets on quickly, and people with short attention spans and no intrinsic idea of how much they're being ripped off quickly take refuge in the comfort of a no-friction status quo.
That is a good point, when I say I don’t have any social media more than half the time people respect it, almost like I’m saying I’m X years sober from alcohol.

But I still feel like I’m tempted to make an account to avoid this additional social friction. Maybe I won’t use it for anything except getting people’s contact info in these situations. I’m not sure I’m a bit torn.
- Stay strong! Just because people call to you from their walled garden doesn't mean you need to lock yourself in there as well.
quick test as to if they’re your people or not

Absolutely... it's like when during job interview the recruiter ask if you code on the weekend. Some people treat that like the absolute worst question ever. Yes, in most cases I would argue it's to probe if you can be abused by working over time for free... but maybe you are into that or rather you do have found a way to make it work, e.g. NOT work during some weekdays. The point is that the question itself is a way to discover BOTH ways, for them AND for you. It is perfectly fine to stop right there and then if any of you is now aware that it's a show stopper because of whatever difference. The entire purpose of dating or interviews is to engage in a more involving relationship ONLY if it's worth it for both. It's a discovery phase, not a "let's close the sale" phase.
- if you code on the weekend.
  
  Sure.
  
  For us?
  
  Get fucked.
- when during job interview the recruiter ask if you code on the weekend
  
  I think it's more to see if you're actually passionate about what you do and you don't "just" do it for work, which definitely is a bit of a twisted view, when on average you'll already be spending 40 hours a week doing that, but I think people tend to make this sort of evaluation, because people who love programming so much to also do it on their free time will usually be better, since they simply have more experience than those who only do what they're assigned to do

This is, IMO, the biggest problem with FB and IG. They've replaced personal connections. I know some women who say they won't date anyone without an IG account.

and it feels too personal to ask for someone number when I just met them

Someone's number is literally just a series of digits. Social Media has their fuckin' life's story. I'd say it's far less personal.

I think it's mainly two things:

people fear reverse phone numbers look up tools more then the equivalent tools for social media.

It's viewed as less replaceable then just blocking somone on social media

I don't really agree with either of these but it is what seems to be common.
- Get a new phone number and never sign it up on anything. It is very easy to replace a phone number. If you have had a phone number for multiple years and signed it up multiple times and still using it, it is time to change it now.
  
  Blocking somebody on social media doesn't really mean anything, they still have your account, can still see your posts, comments, and even liked videos if they use another account. You would have to delete your account if some random person has your personal Instagram that you don't want anybody knowing, even if it is private.
  
  They both have there downsides though.

I've gone back to just texting and switched over to signal for band chats and group stuff, and so far the only person who doesn't like it is a dick bag who claims to be an anarchist but refuses to live his life without using a fascist propaganda machine to socialize.

How is having somebody’s phone number more personal than having access to an account where you can see all the photos they take and shit? I’d just ask for their number.

It's just a perception thing we have, a phone number DOES feel more personal to me, even if most people's Instagram accounts are even more detailed. In my case, I literally never posted anything on Instagram, so there was nothing to gather about me besides what posts I liked.

Plus some people my interpret asking for a phone number as wanting to date them or smth (although the same could be said for any messaging service tbh).
- I feel like a phone number is is a lot less personal than giving some one a photo album of myself with picture of me and all the people I know and where somebody can see all the things I care about. Goes to show just how crazy people have gotten when it comes to privacy. With modern phones you can always block the person as well 🤷‍♂️

Is this an age thing? I'm about 40 and I never had instagram, barely used facebook, and didn't use any others really. I don't think I've ever had a problem where someone backed out because I didn't have instagram. But I also don't have a big group of casual friends, and maybe that would be harder.

Discord sucks, but I've noticed a lot of social groups use it. A couple meetups I go to all use it for communication. Maybe that's more bearable than instagram?

Is this an age thing?

Yup.
An newer humans go for tiktok.
I’m in my mid-thirties, and while I didn’t have the Instagram/Whatsapp problem as a late teen / young adult, the pressure to use Facebook was similar. When I decided to close my account, it was almost a social death. My friends organised all their outings there and didn’t want to bother reaching out to me. And many of those who did go out of their way to include me occasionally made passive-agressive remarks about how I was being ridiculous and making their life difficult.

That said, I would have loved being able to just say “I don’t have Insta” when men were bothering me in the street. :-) But I’m sure that wouldn’t stop most of them even now.
- I'm a similar age and it was the same for me when I first deactivated my Facebook account, and still is with Messenger. After a few months of vainly trying to get people to switch to something else (like Signal), I just gave up and started using Messenger again. For me, the self-imposed social isolation was not worth the privacy gains.

Make a pixelfed, people want to know you we ask for IG

Phone number can be problematic to share in some areas of the world, so it does depend on where you are, but email shouldn't be an issue in general. So easy to get an additional, private email address and use both at the same time.

I also don't have most mainstream social media anymore but have noticed a significant drop in people asking for it these days. Might just be my location in a city with a lot of progressive, tech savvy people, though.

I mostly use phone number and/or Signal these days.

Man I'm glad I got done with the "I want to meet new people" part of my life before social platforms became inevitable. As far as I know nowadays it's either friends or privacy. Can't have both

Opsec requires sacrifices. Friends ruin opsec.

Unfortunately I have also found it to be a huge impediment to making friends with other millennials who aren't techie. I sort of left a crowd that was always on xmpp and signal and found myself rather ostracized. Things are changing slowly and most of them are now on Signal and with the usernames it's easier to exchange contact without relying on phone numbers that feel like a bigger commitment. But unfortunately passed explaining why you won't support Meta, and why alternatives like Signal are good there isn't much to do.

What I've done since Instagram is practically necessary for networking at my university, is using shelter for android I have Instagram Revanced in a work profile, and I've opted out from everything possible in the app, which is easy but not simple. I also have my account set to private and no posts, although maybe I'll need some at some point idk. I also have trackercontrol to block trackers, and I use the Facebook Container add-on for Firefox as well as Ublock Origin.

It sucks, but just ask for numbers or emails

Back when Craigslist had personals ads I answered one saying that I had 10 laptop computers and no facebook account, and I actually got a couple of dates that way. Not everyone wants corporate media.

I've been chatting (non romantically) with someone I met on another forum, who is about the same way. No facebook or reddit or anything, not even Lemmy, just a few niche forums.

I would just make an IG account if it's being a large obstacle, you probably don't have to install the app as you can do most things through the web browser.

Never install an app like Instagram on your phone, It will know your device even if you uninstall the app or use a different IP.

Privacy is subjective. Use it but dont use it for things you don't want Facebook to know about. Don't use it on your phone. Don't use it on a computer with things you care about. Keep it in a container tab in your browser but don't keep it open all the time.

It's kind of a pain but you can definitely be mindful and only give meta crumbs where others are giving them truckloads of data.

Sadly there is a lot of good content on Instagram

Don't use it on your phone

There's also the option of using Private Space (Android 15+) or its multiple clones in manufacturer OSes. It effectively creates a new user profile which can be deactivated at will. The new user profile also has no access to any data from the main profile that can't already be controlled by permissions, like the app list. It has its own instance of Play Services, so AFAIK it shouldn't be linkable to the main profile. It's the best middle-ground I've found this far if the app needs to be installed in one way or the other.

Don't worry, I handed out my Instagram to some people who requested it and those connections fizzled out just as easily.

Could be down to me only ever checking it on a designated laptop once a week, but in my opinion, if it comes down to an Instagram account and regular app access, can't even exchange SMS numbers to text, then it's already a tenuous connection.

Funny enough, I didn't even make my own Instagram account. My friend really wanted me to be on Instagram so he went ahead, made it under my name, and handed me the keys. You probably can't do this nowadays due to security checks, unless you're Meta making a shadow profile kinda like my friend did for me. I'm just sitting on the shadow profile that would exist anyway, trying to contribute as little as possible.

yeah i feel you. I'm in a band, so instagram is basically a necessity for promotion and communication. getting the word out about shows, other bands will message me for gigs etc

just try to use it a little as possible, and try to lock it down as much as possible in the os. you can do alot in the android app settings.

basically treat it as you would having a conversation near a security camera.

If it's such an obstacle for social life, I'd just give in and make an account. Given the alternative is "exchanging phone numbers" (with the intent to text or call, presumably) I'd say Instagram is no worse privacy-wise - both offer absolutely no privacy protection. If a phone number is required to register (I don't know if it is), I'd get a bootleg sim specifically for it. I would treat all communications on any proprietary platform (even 1-on-1) as though they are happening in public (Twitter-style). Avoid using apps if at all possible as they have more access to your device. If that's not possible, at least do not give those apps any permissions, however hard they are trying to eek them out of you. Do not use it for anything but chatting with your acquaintances - merely looking at your feed, even without any explicit interactions like opening a post, gives Meta a lot of data about you.

If the connection moves on from "acquaintance" to "friendship", perhaps try pushing them towards a better platform - I recommend Matrix as it is federated (unlike Signal), and has pretty nice clients/UX nowadays (unlike Tox and XMPP), and is e2e-encrypted (unlike almost everything else).

Are you meeting people 15 years ago?? We've known everything mark zuckerberg touches is trying to kill you for money for a long time.

Not helpful.
I assure you most people don’t know that.

What about email? Just create a new one just for this stuff. Go back to giving out just an email. Everyone has one of those too and it's not as 'archaic' as a phone#

Filthy fucking boomer! Get off the internet!
How old are you? Nobody uses email for regular chat

same, i just say I don't do instagram and tell them my local whatsapp equivalent's id or phone number. I've tried using instagram a few times but it can't be used anonymously at all.

Gonna be real with you, if you're in the US and wanna connect with pretty ladies you pretty much have to have insta or messenger. If they are devout apple heads they might wanna do iMessage but as I don't use apple products I can't speak to that. I personally don't want anyone to have my phone number. I have signal, messenger, whatsapp, Kik, WeChat, and discord because I travel a lot and I have contacts on all of them. People prefer social media so they can remember you, your interests, things you say publicly, and use that to help decide if they wanna hang.

Anyone have any advice?

Ask them for their number, and see how it goes? Worst case, they will say 'no', end of the story. Maybe the will ask why you don't have IG and that will be the start of an interesting conversation.
Try to meet different kind of people? I mean it seriously. I know a lot of people around me who have IG/Facebook/X and so on but at the same time none of them make it a requirement to use it.
Use a second phone/number for that crap content only? I barely use my 'real' phone (I have nothing installed on it beside what I'm required to use) still I do own a second phone just so I can easily share a number with all the services and various craps that ask for one. It's a phone I never answer to, despite it being constantly harassed by callers. And that peace of mind (my real number is almost spam free) only costs me the 2€/month (plus the phone, I purchased used). You should be able to do something similar for social networks: have a second phone without anything personal on it, just with IG.
Accept that you're doomed to use IG because it's with those 'IG people' and no others you want to spend your time with? I like to spend time with people reading books, it's kinda expected we indeed read books. Would I not like to read, I would not spend as much time with them.

2€/month

🇫🇷❓
- I suppose you're asking if I'm French? Yes. And, yes, it's a French operator (Bouygues Mobile)

Find a way to use Instagram to drive them to another app, like this: https://lemmy.world/post/21620691