Instagram. I love it. Don’t you? But if you follow your teenagers on there, along with the duck faces and mirror shots, you see a whole lot of:
#likeforlike
#commentforcomment
#followforfollow
Teenagers scream out for affirmation, and in turn they give it to others. Just look at how popular it is.
At first I thought this was a pretty silly idea. Are you so desperate for people to “like” and comment your pictures, that you will use a hashtag and then like a bunch of other strangers’ stuff?
But then I realized:
- It achieves their goals.
- So it’s really not that bad of an idea.
- We kind of do that as blogging youth pastors.
So what do you guys think? I’m thinking that for every like, comment, or share that I get on a post either here or on YouthMin.Org, I’m going to go to that person’s blog and show them some love too. I blog so that people can read it and interact with me, and if someone DOES (which can be pretty rare…ha. crickets), then I want to interact with THEM. Act out what I believe about blogging being a communal thing.
My friend Jeremy over at 78Productions started a “Commenting Army.” I am one of about 15 bloggers who vow to read and comment every week on each other’s stuff. You don’t have to make such a commitment BUT I encourage you to reciprocate some of the love you receive on YOUR blog.

