I know that in the world of blogging numbers are important.

You want stats to be high. You want clicks to be high. You want strangers to follow you.

Especially if you are blogging to make an income (however small) those things matter.  You want the number of people who follow you to be high, because it shows that people want to see what you have to say.  It shows the companies, where your potential income might come from, that you will be able to get their product information out there.

I still feel great every time I get a new follower, and it makes me a little sad when I lose one.

Every once in a while I will get a notification from Instagram that I have a new follower.  Every time I click on that person’s profile.

Yesterday this is what I saw:

I blocked this user from my account

Now, maybe I am judging.  Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions.  Maybe I’m just turning into a ‘old lady’.  But nothing about that profile seems legit to me.  I didn’t click on the link, I was afraid to.  To me this looks like an ad for porn.  I don’t know if that profile is real, but I don’t want to know.  Pictures like that don’t belong in my life.

I put up pictures of my crafts, my life and my family.  I am OK with normal people following me and seeing those pictures, even if they are strangers.  I am not OK with profiles like that having access to my pictures.

So I blocked it.

I blocked it by clicking on the square with an arrow in the top right corner.  It gives me the option to block user, or report inappropriate.

This is not the first time I have blocked a profile like that.  Once I had to report an ‘inappropriate’ profile so it could be removed.  This also won’t be the last time I block one.  But it reminds me again how scary the internet can be.  It takes time to go through all the profiles that might like my pictures, or follow me, but I do it.  And so should you.  I know it brings my numbers down, but it is worth it.