EastGram: A review of various East and SMSD-related Instagram accounts

This review is entirely satirical and is often exaggerated for comedic value. It is not an attack on the individuals who run the accounts, nor is it an attack on those featured on the accounts. The opinions expressed do not reflect the opinions of The Harbinger staff as a whole.

@smeromancereveal is fresh meat in the dumpster fire of couples accounts for East. When you open their profile, you find people describing the looks and strangely, the scents of their crushes — sometimes in detail that no one asked for.

With three days between the first and last post on this account, the last one being from Jan. 3 of this year, it seems the cards are not in this account’s favor.

This is extremely unfortunate, because I absolutely love this account and wish they’d put out more content. Because it’s based on responses from a Google Form found in their bio that simple asks who the crush is and if you want to reveal your identity, I would assume that the reason it died out was due to few responses. This is uninspiring considering that the account has only 52 followers. I can tell that this Instagram account has entertainment potential with dark humor, the concerning questions asked and the crippling second-hand embarrassment for anyone that submitted or had a submission about them. However, it feels like it’s trying to be a watered-down @smehallwaycrushes.

I have hope for this account, but I can’t say that it’s likely to make a resurgence. I rate this account a 4/10 — little originality, little content, but undeniable potential.

It’s amazing to see an account built in response to a Harbinger editorial take such a strong hold on the East community. @east_isbeast, a flourishing, thriving and often offensive account simply wouldn’t exist without the Harbinger’s contributions.

Putting that aside, I do feel that this account can be funny. It was hilarious in the beginning, but the more recent posts have started to take a… turn. I’m not sure that I can agree with posts about school shootings that actually happened or comparing Coach Hair to Hitler. I enjoyed the earlier posts that have simple, non-controversial memes much better.

Not much to say — it doesn’t impress me. 5/10.

I’m ashamed to say that I visit the homepage of @smehallwaycrushes frequently. It’s my guilty pleasure to look through the new posts and try to identify people I know. It’s my guiltier pleasure to try to find a submission about me.

Although many similar accounts have preceded it, I feel that this is among the most developed and entertaining romance accounts because of its anonymity and depth of reporting, which I appreciate as a student journalist. Arguably more important, I love to see people try to be flirty but just embarrass whoever gets a submission about them. But, because the premise of a crushes account is overdone, I can’t bring myself to rate this above an 8/10. For what it is, I can thoroughly enjoy the puzzle of trying to figure out the identity of the people posted.

In a similar vein to @smeromancereveal, @sme_bathroom_feet has only three posts, all of which from December 2021. If I could make any one SME-related Instagram account blow up with followers, posts and likes, I’d choose this one.

Some may call it an invasion of privacy, but I call it entertainment. It’s hilarious to know that people will fully remove their shoes and pack multiple people into the tiny bathroom stalls — that’s the content I would like to see more often in this world.

Due to its brief fame and my wishful thinking that it could come back, I choose to make this account among my top three of all SME Instagram accounts.

There’s no question, this is a 10/10 account.

While it’s not solely an East account, @smsd.confessions has to be one of the most popular East-related accounts. It feels like every student has checked out this account, and even more have just heard of it. I’ve personally experienced my fair share of controversy sparked by it.

It has everything you could ask for in an account: heartfelt stories about feeling isolated at school, the inner thoughts of someone admitting to objectifying every woman he sees and conspiracy theories about microwaving forks. You could open the account for any purpose of entertainment — if you want to feel mad, sad or glad. The only problem is there’s so many submissions that it’s impossible to keep track of the best confessions because they average about five posts a day.

I would highly recommend this account, for scrolling through and/or submitting to. I can never get enough of people embarrassing themselves and others in a semi-public way. Just please, no trauma dumping.

I’m not sure if this is allowed, but I would like to give this account a 14/10.