A popular mommy blogger based in Atlanta has found herself in hot water after telling her Instagram followers that her 6-year-old gets the least “likes” out of all her children.
Over the weekend, Katie Bower celebrated her son’s birthday by sharing a since-deleted photo of him on social media. Though she raved about her son’s “unique personality” and praised him for having a kind heart, the mother of five raised eyebrows when she wrote, “Instagram never liked my munchkin and it killed me inside,” as reported by BuzzfeedNews.
“His photos never got as many likes. Never got comments. From a statistical point of view, he wasn’t as popular with everyone out there,” Bower said. “Maybe part of that was the pictures just never hit the algorithm right. Part might be because he was ‘the baby’ for a very short amount of time before” his siblings were born.
“I say all that because I want to believe that it wasn’t him… that it was on me,” she added. “My insufficiency caused this statistical deficit because obviously my Munch should get ALL the love and squinty eyes are totally adorable.”
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The parent then seemingly asked her followers to “like” the photo of the birthday boy.
“So can we do this right? Because I truly KNOW that my Munch deserves all the likes… whether or not a stranger gives it to them. And on his sixth birthday — I am thankful I know that… that no matter what other people think of me or my kids or my marriage or my house of my life or my everything… that they are 10000000x better in real life than any tiny little picture could hold,” she wrote.
“I wanted to clarify that I revealed this feeling because I know one day he will see the numbers and have to learn that his value is not online approval. This is a hard lesson for anyone to learn and I’m thankful I have learned it,” Bower said. “I hope you can be understanding and not take things out of context or believe that this in any way affects how I see or treat my children. All comments and well wishes I read to the birthday boy!”
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Despite trying to explain her perspective, Bower’s words rubbed a lot of social media users the wrong way.
“Omg this Instagram mommy blogger is celebrating her son’s bday by writing about how out of all her kids, he ‘statistically’ performs the worse on her Instagram. And she’s worried one day it will ruin his self-esteem,” one user wrote on Twitter along with a screen grab of Bower’s post.
“Here we have #1 reason why your kids should never be your personal brand,” another user tweeted.
“First of all, no, one day he will not ‘need to see the numbers’— this person is horrible,” one tweet read.
“How about the line ‘I say all that because I want to believe it wasn’t him… that it was on me.’ So she not only cares, but she thinks it’s HIS FAULT. I can’t believe there are the people our society encourages to procreate. I want to adopt them all,” one person added.
“For the low low price of one like, you can support a child in need of Instagram engagement,” another user tweeted.
On Monday, Bower archived the post, explaining on her Instagram Stories that she had “to learn that the likes do not reflect much to me.”
She admitted, “I work with brands that tell you the opposite. I read an article about how to grow your Instagram that tells you the opposite.”
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