Blake Lively took an Instagram account to task for posting a photo of Ryan Reynolds with their three daughters. 

Per People, the account took the pic down after Lively left a comment. “This is so disturbing,” she wrote, the outlet reports. “I’ve personally shared with you that these men stalk and harass my children. And you are still posting. You said you would stop. You personally promised me. This is not casual appreciation. This is YOU also exploiting very young children. Please. Delete. Please. Some parents are ok with this. We. Are. NOT.” 

Lively then took to her own Instagram Story to address the incident. “Thank you to everyone UNFOLLOWING accounts who exploit children,” she wrote, People reports. “YOU make ALL the difference. Thank you for your integrity. Thank you.”

Sadly, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened to Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds’s family. In July, Lively called out the Daily Mail Australia for posting pics of her and her daughters. 

“You edit together these images together to look like I’m happily waving. But that is deceitful,” Lively wrote. “The real story is: My children were being stalked by a man all day. Jumping out. And then hiding. A stranger on the street got into words with them because it was so upsetting for her to see. When I tried to calmly approach the photographer you hired to take these pictures in order to speak to him, he would run away. And jump out again at the next block.”

She continued, “Do you do background checks on the photographs you pay to stalk children? Where is your morality here? I would like to know. Or do you simply not care about the safety of children?”

Lively added, “One simple thing people can do is stop following and block any publications or handles who publish kid’s pictures. Feel free to report them. Or send a DM sharing why you don’t follow them.” 

UPDATE: September 14, 2021—Britney Spears took to Twitter to explain why her Instagram account was deleted. “Don’t worry folks … just taking a little break from social media to celebrate my engagement !!!! I’ll be back soon,” she wrote.

ORIGINAL STORY:

Just days after she used it to gleefully announce her engagement to longtime boyfriend Sam Asghari, Britney Spears is no longer on Instagram.

On Tuesday, September 14, the pop icon’s Instagram suddenly became unavailable. If you google “Britney Spears Instagram” right now, the first thing that pops up is a link to her page, with hundreds of posts and 34 million followers. But actually click on it and…the link cannot be found. 

Per Variety, right before her account was deleted, Spears posted, “Growing up in a world where basically almost everything I did was controlled by someone else… I hope this message gets to people who have been confused or manipulated by a system !!!! No … you’re not alone and no … you’re not crazy !!!! People need to hear this before it’s TOO LATE !!!! I’ve waited 13 years and counting for my freedom !!!!!” These words were accompanied by a screenshot of an article titled “Infusing education with heart.” 

Sources told Page Six it was Spears’s decision to delete her Instagram. However, fans are still concerned. #WhereIsBritney quickly started trending on Twitter.

Asghari’s page remains up. His most recent post to the grid is of himself kissing Spears while she flashes her engagement ring at the camera. He also used the platform to joke about all the “prenup” comments the couple got following their good news. “Thank you for the overwhelming love and congratulations,” he wrote in an Instagram Stories post. “We both love every single one of you! Thank you for your concern about the prenup! Of course we’re getting iron clad prenup to protect my Jeep and shoe collection in case she dumps me one day.” 

For many years now, Britney Spears’s Instagram has been fans’ primary way of connecting with her. In fact, it was the hosts of a podcast called Britney’s ’Gram (which celebrated the pop star’s social presence) who brought the #FreeBritney movement into the mainstream. #FreeBritney, of course, is aimed at ending the conservatorship Spears has been under for 13 years.

It’s been a big week for Britney Spears. On September 7, news broke that her father, Jamie, filed a petition to end the conservatorship she’s been under for 13 years. It’s a huge legal win for the pop icon and brings her a step closer to the freedom she’s wanted—and deserved—for the past decade. 

Spears herself hasn’t commented on the new development, but she has been posting some playful shots to Instagram. On September 9 she shared a snap of her butt (very much on trend for celebrities of late) and captioned it, “Here’s my ass.” Naturally, she included a peach and wink emoji for good measure. 

And no, these photos aren’t edited or filtered. Spears wants fans to know that. “Here’s a video so you guys can see this is really my ass ??? !!!!” the singer wrote alongside a clip of herself in the same underwear as her mirror selfie. “No filters or cover ups … it’s the real deal !!!! Psss I shoot myself with a selfie stick and always will ???… it STAYS UP … it DOESN’T TALK BACK … and it’s EXTREMELY RELIABLE ??‍??‍??‍ !!!” 

Britney Spears’s next conservatorship hearing is scheduled for September 29. In the petition to end the conservatorship, Jamie’s legal team wrote (according to NBC News), “The conservatorship has helped Ms. Spears get through a major life crisis, rehabilitate and advance her career, and put her finances and her affairs in order. But recently, things have changed. Ms. Spears is now outspoken in her frustration with the level of control imposed by a conservatorship, and has pleaded with this Court to ‘let her have her life back.'” (It’s worth noting Spears herself said in June the conservatorship has been “abusive” and done her “way more harm than good.”) For more info, click here.

Victoria Beckham is all about sharing the wealth—if, by wealth, we’re talking about her husband’s…assets.

On September 5, Posh Spice took to Instagram to share a pretty spectacular view of David Beckham lounging in the pool. While he is wearing some black swim briefs, Victoria took the snap while his garment was sitting precariously low. 

“Happy Sunday,” the fashion and beauty mogul wrote in the caption of the sultry snap. “You’re welcome!?” 

Happy Sunday indeed. The post has already amassed over 800 thousand likes and over 14 thousand comments. Obviously, Victoria’s followers were very grateful. “This is the most incredible act of generosity I’ve ever witnessed,” one user commented. Another added, “Thank you @victoriabeckham for giving us what we want… what we really, really want! ?? xx”

The Beckhams have been married since 1999 and share four children together: 22-year-old Brooklyn, 19-year-old Romeo, 16-year-old Cruz, and 10-year-old Harper. It’s clear that even after 22 years, their spark is burning as bright as ever.

But Victoria Beckham is not the only celebrity getting cheeky on the ‘gram. On Sunday, August 29, Priyanka Chopra snapped a selfie of husband Nick Jonas eating a quick bite off her buns while they chilled by the pool. I guess Sundays are officially glute days now. 

“Snack ?,” she captioned the post, which has amassed over 3 million likes and over 32 thousand comments, including from Hollywood A-listers like Drew Barrymore, who wrote, “amazing,” and Paris Hilton, who added the fire emoji. Chopra’s own cousin Parineeti Chopra joked, “Jeej! Mimi didi! What is going on here the family is on Instagram ? ***Tries to hit like button with eyes closed.” 

These two have only been married since 2018, but we have a feeling they’ll be just as into each other when they catch up to the Beckhams. 

Now the only question is, who’s posting next Sunday?

The degree of precision that the algorithm has developed creeps me—and lots of other users—out. But I also kind of like it. I like the tasteful mesh bras that I have since ordered in bulk. I love Arq’s cultish high-rise underwear. Kate McLeod’s moisturizing “stones,” best described as solid sticks of butter that melt on contact with skin, were a revelation. The entire experience of shopping via Instagram reminded me of one of the best prepandemic activities: the mindless browse. It’s hard to believe now, but once upon a time, in between errands downtown or on a walk home, I would walk into a store for no reason and just look around. No toilet paper to procure, no list of groceries to shop for once a week. No hand sanitizer station. Just a store full of beautiful things, and me, with an hour to kill before the dentist.

With that kind of shopping off the table, Instagram is an inexhaustible substitute. Has its knack for knowing the precise pair of sweatpants I most crave sometimes concerned me? Sure. But so far, I have not disturbed enough to resist the temptation of a Pangaia sweatsuit.

A few months ago I took the habit public. “Want a gift guide that’s just a list of things people succumbed to via Instagram ads that turned out to be great,” I tweeted. No one supplied quite that, but dozens of people responded with their picks: Third Love bras, Misen knives, the Great Jones sheet pan that I also own (and love). Someone described Arq underwear as her “life’s passion.” Swimwear brands were hit-or-miss, but people were wild for their Brooklinen sheets, and I got two recommendations for Olive & June nail polish. All told, I got at least 50 different recommendations, most of which retail for between a few bucks and about $75.

When I was little, my mother would sometimes pick me up from school and whisk me off for what she called an “in-and-out” afternoon. It started as an excuse to take care of a bunch of the kinds of errands that seem to pile up with small children—store credits that had to be spent, exchanges of one pair of shoes for a size up, new dance leotards.

But somehow the concept morphed, and it came to mean instead the experience of just looking around for fun. Walking in and out of stores, not in pursuit of something in particular, not planning to shop—just the two of us, laughing in dressing rooms, stopping for hot chocolate with extra whipped cream between excursions. Sometimes I got new clothes. Once I got a glow-in-the-dark plastic handbag. Most of the time we just looked around. It wasn’t about the actual acquisitions (although I did love that bag); it was more like a little vacation. A few hours or even a few minutes of hanging out, letting ourselves imagine just how good life would be in a bandana-print tankini.

Until that kind of shopping is possible, I will accept this social-media-mediated substitute and be grateful for it. When it’s time to go outside again, I’ll be here—in washable-silk pajamas.

Mattie Kahn is Glamour’s culture director. 

That said, there has long been a pay gap between what a lot of those influencers make and what their white counterparts make. In episode 7, we’re really diving deep into that pay gap and why that happened, what it means, and how influencers being really transparent about what they’re paid can force brands to pay influencers of color the same as they have been paying white influencers. Tina told me she got paid $850 for a campaign that a white woman was getting paid $2000 for. [That disparity] wasn’t based on follower numbers, but on what those companies thought was more appealing.

The majority of mom influencers try very hard to be politically neutral in their posts. If they are religious, it’s often in their profile bio, but there’s not a lot of Jesus speak in their actual posts. They’re neutral in the way that a national magazine is—or was until more recently. The mom influencers are trying not to offend anyone because they’re a business. While we think we’re seeing everything in someone’s life, we’re not. There is a lot that these people keep private.

Who are your favorite mom influencers to follow and what products have such accounts gotten you to buy?

I followed Naomi Davis for a long time, and Courtney Adamo, who is on the podcast. And Eva Amurri, who is Susan Sarandon’s daughter. Product-wise: I painted my whole house Simply White by Benjamin Moore. I bought a ton of Everyday Oil. I bought a rug from Ruggable. I got Comotomo products. I bought all natural rubber pacifiers that promise that your kid will never get cancer and metal feeding bowls that look like dog bowls because, again, the mom influencers were telling me that plastic was bad for my kid. I got, like, three different kinds of baby slings. I bought the Solly baby wrap. These things make motherhood look beautiful, right? And I’m like, “I just want to look beautiful again.”

I wouldn’t remember a lot of it either. A package would arrive and I’d be like, “I didn’t order this. Someone is sending things.” Most moms will understand this: Being awake in the middle of the night with a screaming baby is kind of like being blackout drunk.

I’m very cognizant of the privilege that I occupy as an author and a content creator, but I still see a precariousness in this career path. I have to hustle so hard to be able to maintain what I’m doing right now. That’s terrifying to me as someone who very much does, in conjunction with my husband, support my family financially. When I realized how much money was involved in the mom influencer industry, I was like, “Why am I not trying this?” I hired a professional photographer to shoot a month of content in a single day. My kids didn’t behave. My husband didn’t behave. No one wanted to do this. And, frankly, by the time I switched outfits three times in front of everyone in my house, I was just like, “I’m tired.” There’s a talent there that I don’t have.

Has your reporting of this world inspired any future fiction projects?

I’ll put this out into the world: I have thought about a half-hour comedy where a perfectly okay mediocre mother like me loses her job and needs to support her family, so she tries to create a fake life on Instagram. Somehow it blows up and she becomes this incredible mom influencer by completely faking it. Everyone in her real life knows she’s a farce and it’s ridiculous, but online she’s this picture perfect mother. She has to figure out how to keep that going. Because it’s a sitcom, it will take us into this mom influencer world with all of the craziness, some of it good, some of it bad, and really play with these ideas of motherhood that are hilarious—and also dark as fuck.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has proven repeatedly she won’t be silent when it comes to the terrorism that occurred at the Capitol riot, which took place on January 6. Shortly after the riot, the congresswoman posted a lengthy conversation she had with her followers via Instagram Live about what she experienced when Donald Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol Building. She revealed she had a “close encounter” and did not know if she was going to “make it to the end of the day alive.” Now she’s detailing her experience again and, this time, explaining the trauma she’s experienced from also being a survivor of sexual assault.

“The reason I say this and the reason I’m getting emotional in this moment is because these folks who tell us to move on, that it’s not a big deal, that we should forget what’s happened, or even telling us to apologize,” AOC said during her Instagram Live on February 1. “These are the same tactics of abusers. And, um, I’m a survivor of sexual assault.”

She continued, “And I haven’t told many people that in my life. But when we go through trauma, trauma compounds on each other. And so, whether you had a a neglectful parent, and—or whether you had someone who was verbally abusive to you, whether you are a survivor of abuse, whether you experience any sort of trauma in your life, small to large—these episodes can compound on one another.”

The events that occurred on January 6 are harrowing to hear from someone who experienced them first-hand. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez detailed how she hid, fearing for her life as she heard the insurgence begin. At one point she went to Congresswoman Katie Porter’s office for safety. Porter recalled her experience with AOC while appearing on MSNBC.

“I remember her saying to me, ‘I knew I shouldn’t wear heels. How am I going to run?’” Porter recalled. After that, Porter gave AOC a pair of sneakers in case she had to run for her life. Thankfully she did live through that day and is continuing the fight to ensure “individuals responsible are held to account.”

Per Variety, the forum had about 52,000 members before it was shut down.

Shopify

In perhaps the boldest move of all, Shopify has removed Trump’s official campaign merchandise from its platform by disabling his online stores, trumpstore.com and shop.donaldjtrump.com. “Based on recent events, we have determined that the actions by President Donald J. Trump violate our Acceptable Use Policy, which prohibits promotion or support of organizations, platforms or people that threaten or condone violence to further a cause,” said Shopify on January 7, per CBS News. 

Trump was suspended from Snapchat amid the riots on January 6, a spokesperson confirmed to The Hill.

Snapchat previously stopped promoting Trump’s account on its Discover page in June 2020. “We are not currently promoting the president’s content on Snapchat’s Discover platform,” a Snap spokesperson told Business Insider at the time. “We will not amplify voices who incite racial violence and injustice by giving them free promotion on Discover. Racial violence and injustice have no place in our society and we stand together with all who seek peace, love, equality, and justice in America.”

Oh, how the tables have turned. Remember when Trump tried to ban TikTok? Well, even though Trump does not have an account of his own, the video platform still found a way to limit his reach. On January 7, TikTok confirmed it would be removing videos of Trump’s speeches believed to have incited violence at the Capitol. Furthermore, it is redirecting hashtags used by rioters like #stormthecapitol and #patriotparty to its community guidelines. 

However, the company has not specified that it would ban Trump should he try to join the platform.

Of course, this is unlikely given his previous stance and the fact that he joined their competitor, Triller, back in August.

Twitch

On January 7, Twitch, the Amazon-owned video live-streaming platform made popular by gamers, disabled Trump’s account indefinitely. “In light of yesterday’s shocking attack on the Capitol, we have disabled President Trump’s Twitch channel,” a spokesperson told TechCrunch. “Given the current extraordinary circumstances and the President’s incendiary rhetoric, we believe this is a necessary step to protect our community and prevent Twitch from being used to incite further violence.”

CNN did note that Trump had a “significantly” smaller following on Twitch than Twitter or Facebook. 

On January 8, Trump’s Twitter account @realDonaldTrump was suspended indefinitely. He then attempted to tweet from the @POTUS account, but Twitter quickly deleted his messages and suspended the @TrumpTeam account as well.

“As we’ve said, using another account to try to evade a suspension is against our rules,” a spokesperson for Twitter told People in a statement. “We have taken steps to enforce this with regard to recent Tweets from the @POTUS account. For government accounts, such as @POTUS and @WhiteHouse, we will not suspend those accounts permanently but will take action to limit their use.”

On January 7, YouTube revealed a multi-step plan to stop the dangerous spread of misinformation. “Due to the disturbing events that transpired yesterday, and given that the election results have now been certified, starting today any channels posting new videos with false claims in violation of our policies will now receive a strike,” the company tweeted.

Though channels previously received a warning before they were suspended for violating YouTube’s guidelines, they will now be suspended immediately. If they receive three strikes within a 90-day period, the channel will be permanently removed.

YouTube also claimed they’ve removed “thousands” of videos falsely claiming widespread voter fraud, including “several videos President Trump posted to his channel.”

This page will be updated if/when more companies remove Trump from their platforms. 

Gigi Hadid is getting in on the latest Instagram Stories trend of posting a million pics in response to questions from followers labeled “post a picture of [insert prompt here].” Like Sophie Turner and many others who are bored and online, Hadid ended up revealing a ton of cute memories, including the day she found out she was pregnant.

Hadid confirmed her pregnancy in July of 2020 and gave birth to her daughter in September. Since then, the new mom has shared many glimpses, though few details, of life as a parent. On December 27, amid the “show me a picture” challenge, she shared another monumental moment. 

In response to a fan who asked her to post the moment she found out she was pregnant, Hadid posted a car seat selfie wearing a denim jacket, playing with her ponytail, and smiling at the camera. She wrote on the picture, “it was this day but I don’t think I knew yet.”

In the same series of Stories, Hadid also shared a ton more never-before-seen pictures of herself with celebrity friends, Zayn Malik, and even a shot of their baby girl, though with her face obscured for privacy. 

Asked to post a “picture from yesterday,” she shared a snap of her arm holding her onesie-clad daughter, plus a single red heart. Aww.

Asked to share photos from specific dates, Hadid took the opportunity to post a couple of sweet pictures with her boyfriend. She showed two new photos of Malik, one from 2016 and one from 2020 (kiss!). His face, too, is tastefully obscured, though the tattoos make the former One Direction-er easily identifiable:

Hadid’s trip down memory lane also included cameos from her famous friends! She shared a black-and-white image of herself and Taylor Swift at a restaurant sometime around, Gigi guessed, 2015, modeling polaroids with Kendall Jenner from October 3, 2015, and a happy meeting with musician Willie Nelson in November of 2019.

The mom and model ended her series of posts by saying that she might continue playing “show me a picture” another night. We can only hope she does; these Gigi Hadid exclusives are gold!

Instagram captions—the place where the hot and funny are separated from the simply hot. The words that accompany an Instagram post are a modern haiku, wherein you may come across a person’s bone-deep truth spelled out and offered up, or just a pitch to join a multilevel marketing scheme. 

Searches for “how to write an Instagram caption” spike around the new year, as so many of us seek to control the narrative of our lives while feverishly applying glitter to our faces and liquor to our glasses. This year’s New Year’s Eve Instagram captions, while not exactly our greatest problem as a society, do represent a bigger, weirder question: How do we measure a year that brought immense suffering, and also included the beauty and joy of existence? 

Writing an Instagram caption is always hard. Adorning a picture of yourself with words is so many different kinds of asking for attention. And yet we feel compelled to do it, or accept the more-painful truth that we are simply asking to be looked at.

We asked some of our favorite funny, interesting women how they might consider ringing in the new year in their Instagram captions. And even though that’s kind of an insane question, they responded with all of the reflective, laugh-out-loud, and sincere #content we could ever dream of. We’re wishing them, and you, and all of your followers a gorgeous, safe, meaningful new year. May 2021 be the year you feel most fully and profoundly yourself…or at the very least, the year you write your best-ever Instagram caption. 

London Hughes 

Hughes’s hysterical stand-up special, To Catch a Dick, will hit Netflix on December 22. 

“I’m ending 2020 by being reflective. It was the year where I became unintentionally celibate, I struck up a lifelong bond with my houseplant, and discovered that you can be attracted to someone without even seeing the bottom of their face. What a year. Here’s to more health, wealth and open-mouth-kissing strangers at parties in 2021!”

Karen Chee 

Chee is a staff writer and performer on Late Night With Seth Meyers and a writer on the upcoming Amazon comedy special, Yearly Departed. She wants you to know that December 31, 2020, is a Friday.