As many students have submitted their college applications and are beginning to hear back from schools, it's common to see "commitment posts" pop up in your Instagram feed. This begs the question: "Who the fuck cares?" BHS students are here to answer, as the commitment post has a much deeper significance than meets the eyes. "It's about balance," an anonymous senior says. "Like, my followers have already seen the other side of me." And while it may seem strange to have a commitment post in the middle of function and swimsuit pics, "it demonstrates my multi-talentedness and superiority over other accounts" And the numbers are there: commitment posts cause an estimated 8% raise in followers after their publication. An anonymous commitment poster reports raking in quintuple the average amount of comments on their commitment post as compared to photos of them and their family. Also, as another student put it, "the point of Instagram is to make other people hate themselves" and commitment posts provide excellent subject matter. "Commitment posts are unique because it's not about making people jealous that you're hotter, it's about having better achievements than them," another senior chimed in. "It's actually very revolutionary."
Commitment posts may mark a new age of Instagram - one where users make each other feel inadequate based on academic achievements instead of financial or appearance-based advantages. In fact, students often disregard their appearance in commitment posts; one student recounted: "I wasn't wearing any makeup and the face I was making was kind of ugly. But I posted it anyway because that wasn't the point. The objective of my Princeton commitment post was to make the viewer feel dumb, not unattractive." Not everyone views the rise of commitment posts as a positive change, however. An IB senior interrupted an interview to note: "Commitment posts are classist and homophobic." When asked to offer further comment, the student declined.