In the modern world, there’s one surefire way to tell someone they’ve hurt you. It’s not to throw a drink in their face, or stomp your feet and call them nasty names. Such brazen child's play is seldom tolerated, no matter how justifiable; instead, you have to cloak your juvenile pettiness within the safe confines of the digital sphere, which means one thing and one thing only: you must unfollow them on social media.
We see it play out in the celebrity world all the time. Just this week, reports circulated that Nicole Kidman’s 17-year-old daughter, Sunday Rose, unfollowed her father, Keith Urban, on Instagram. The move came after allegations swirled that relationships between the musician and his two children – he also shares a 15-year-old daughter, Faith, with Kidman – had become strained since the couple announced their split last year. Similar unfollowing scandals struck the Beckhams earlier this year, with outlets fixating on the fact that Brooklyn Beckham did not follow his brothers, Cruz and Romeo, on Instagram, nor did he follow his parents, David and Victoria.
It may seem innocuous, particularly to those who aren’t that active on social media. After all, isn’t unfollowing and following people part of generic Instagram behaviour? Does it really have to have any kind of meaning attached to it? Might it not be a little self-obsessed to think someone unfollowing you is because they hate you? Well, perhaps. But as evidenced by the litany of celebrities who’ve done it – often eliciting global headlines as a result, particularly if it’s post-breakup or any kind of public fallout – it still stands for something.
Unfollowing, you see, goes deeper than simply blocking someone. There’s a psychology behind it, a reason you want someone to still be able to see your profile but also to know that you’ve chosen not to engage with theirs. “Unfollowing feels so loaded nowadays because we see social media as a public sign of loyalty,” explains Megan Dooley, social media expert at TAL Agency. Where you unfollow matters, too: for example, unsubscribing to someone’s Substack isn’t going to have the same effect as unfollowing them on X. “When it comes to a platform like Instagram, where posts feel so personal, following someone isn’t a passive act anymore; it’s interpreted as a sign of endorsement and even alignment,” adds Dooley. “So when that link is removed, people aren’t just saying ‘I don’t want to see your posts’, they’re essentially visibly withdrawing that connection.”
Part of the problem is that there seems to be no space for a nuanced, limbo area, whereby you can still follow someone but stop engaging with their content. Yes, you can “mute” someone, which essentially means you won’t be viewing their stories or posts anymore on Instagram, but it has a similar effect to unfollowing because the user can often tell when someone has muted them, as their name no longer comes up when they check who’s viewed their stories. “We’ve also lost that private middle ground that used to exist in relationships, even online ones,” says Dooley. “Eyes are always on social media, so you can’t just ‘fade out’ anymore - you either show up in someone’s audience, or you don’t. This can make unfollowing feel even more abrupt and intentional, even if it’s just about establishing boundaries or decluttering a feed.”
All this forces us to read into things a little too deeply in a way that can also harm our mental wellbeing. Still, if we notice someone we thought we were on good terms with, like a friend or family member, has unfollowed us, how else are we supposed to interpret that? “Unfollowing someone is telling them you don’t find you or your life interesting anymore and that you don’t positively contribute to it at all,” says Ella, 23. “Imagine receiving a notification on your phone, saying ‘Stacey is so uninterested in what you do with your life, she has unfollowed you’. It’s peak.” Despite being an online interaction, psychologists say this behaviour can have the same impact as offline behaviours, at least on an emotional level. “Unfollowing can also be seen as a form of micro-rejection,” says psychotherapist Claire Law. “Humans have very strong reactions to social exclusion.”
