20. Little Deaths/Delights
Disappointment, people-sickness(?) , 2012 Instagram
I’ve been thinking about identity lately. Mainly prompted by my assertion to go by “Hailo.” It’s a nickname that my ex gave me early on in our 4 year relationship and when you call someone something for years, they get used to it. Especially when it’s shrouded in closeness and intimacy. I’ve tried to change my Instagram name to “Hailo” but meta’s verification process won’t let me. I try to introduce myself as Hailo, but I notice that once people find my Instagram, they always revert back to Hailey.
I enjoyed being Hailo because in those years, it became a version of myself that I felt like I actually was. I was debilitatingly shy around everyone but him. Only cracking jokes in the safety of an enclosed room, or eventually, our little european apartment. Hailo was funny. Didn’t need to ask for permission before going into a room or saying something that I actually meant.
I remember claiming the Instagram handle of my government name in the seventh grade. During geometry. It felt very important at the time. I’d just discovered the electra heart album that same year. And Queen (band). I remember getting verified at seventeen. People texted me in congratulatory ways. People who knew nothing about me. About who I really was, or am.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the earliest iterations of social media influencers that I enjoyed. Before they were called influencers. Someone named Liz who would do weight checks and wear maybeline mascara and was a vegetarian. Someone named Maren who had a pint of ice cream every saturday. Many ballerinas I looked nothing like.
Today I was reading in Washington Square Park next to a girl who also had heart tattoos and someone came up to her and said that they loved her instagram. She was nice, she hugged them. But then she got up and left. Parasocial relationships are so funny. But they mean so much when you’re on the other side of them, I get it, I was right there at 12.
I’ve been playing with the idea of revisiting Instagram in a new way. One that feels more like documentation and diary keeping rather than commodificaton. My grandma found her old planner from when my dad was a kid and he was delighted to read through it. I found Eva Hesse’s planner at strand and it was wonderful seeing the day to day behind such fascinating work. I’ve had this liminal instagram account I’ve used in many forms (never brave enough to use it as a finsta), but I’m wondering what it would be like to use it more honestly for something like regular documentation, reflection, commemmoration. I’m not really sure, but I’m going to plug it here in case you want to follow. Please have a dialogue with me in the comments so I know that doing something like that in earnest means anything to anyone.
I think my personal instagram as it stands now is the effect of audience capture. It “blew up” when I was Miss Teen USA, putting me into this box where I was afriad to be a real girl. I still have followers who think I should be perfect and prude, followers who think I’m putting original work up when I quote Dostoevsky. I still have other Princeton Alums who saw me at my meekest and most confused who want chaotic-former-beauty-queen. They all met Hailey Colborn.
But what if I want to be Hailo?
In a way that might mean something to some confused tweleve year old out there?
In a way that might mean something to myself?
LITTLE DELIGHTS - introducing myself as hailo
LITTLE DEATHS - not being called hailo
(By the end of tonight the instagram account will have one post with a hopefully concise reflection on loneliness and my night clubbing with two husbands I met on a friend’s rooftop in Soho last summer.)
ESSAYS ON GIRLHOOD YOU SHOULD READ IN EARNEST
FROM THE HOT LITERATI UNIVERSE
Upgrade to paid to join bookclub (we meet tuesday nights, or comment on the threads after. Kafka this month, thinking maya angelou next)
- on a handful of new york clubs
- on race + desire including a wonderful short film she made
- on an influencer event we went to at a big 5 publisher
- on becoming your own muse and centering yourself during playgirl spring (and Y/K by Esther Yi)
xo
HAILO
Identity is a little tricky. For me, it's this constant battle of if I'm getting to know myself or if I'm fighting to getting back to myself. Anyway, thank you so much for sharing my essay on girlhood, I really appreciate it!