Flashes Instead of Instagram

I’ve been on Flashes since February of this year and I have really enjoyed it.

When I left Instagram (and all the Meta-universe apps/communities) I wanted to find someplace similar where I could share my photos and enjoy those of others without being subject to Meta’s algorithms telling me what they thought I should see.

Flashes is that app/community.

Built on the Bluesky platform, which is the Twitter/X alternative (and I left THAT platform as soon as Musk took over), Flashes is the alternative that photo enthusiasts have been looking for. YOU decide whose feed you want to see, not the platform.

With Flashes you can:

• Upload up to four photos or three-minute videos per post
• Sync your posts and comments between Flashes and Bluesky
• Use the same feeds as your Bluesky account, but with an emphasis on visual content

I have a Bluesky account under my name, but created a Flashes account under our travel website, The Wandering Wetheringtons, so I could feature photos from our travels.

But you can use it for completely different things as well.

For instance, here’s a fun set of posts I did back in May. Every day I would post this text:

Choose 25 TV SHOWS that have stayed with you or influenced you. One TV SHOW per day for 25 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just magazine covers.

And on each of those 25 days I posted a single magazine covers that featured the TV show I was highlighting that day. At the end of 25 days, these were the TV shows I had posted magazine covers of and at the end I created a collage of the 25 as one large photo.

1. The Adventures of Superman. May 7
2. Batman. May 8
3. Star Trek. May 9
4. Lost in Space May 10
5. WKRP May 11
6. The Big Bang Theory May 12
7. Star Trek The Next Generation May 13
8. The West Wing May 14
9. Star Trek Voyager May 15
10. The Outer Limits May 16
11. The Twilight Zone May 17
12. Wonder Woman May 18
13. The Incredible Hulk May 19
14. Battlestar Galactica May 20
15. Firefly May 21
16. Star Trek Deep Space Nine May 22
17. Buck Rogers in the 25th Century May 23
18. The Mod Squad May 24
19. Lou Grant May 25
20. Moonlighting May 26
21. The Fall Guy May 27
22. The Greatest American Hero May 28
23. Hill Street Blues May 29
24. Beauty and the Beast May 30
25. Babylon 5 May 31

Flashes doesn’t yet have all the tools and features that Instagram has, but they are in the works. Here’s a graphic showing how they currently compare.

If you’re looking to get away from the Meta-verse and Instagram, Flashes is a highly recommended alternative. And here’s an easy guide to getting your own Flashes account.

Hope to see you on there soon!