In defense of sharing music to your Instagram Story

An Ode to... is a weekly column where we share the stuff we're really into in hopes that you'll be really into it, too.

There's no right way to do Instagram, but everyone has a pet peeve. Some people scoff at sunset pics; some don't like overlong birthday posts; some swear they'll throw their phones into the ocean if they see another person film their laptop while they watch The Great British Baking Show.

One particularly unpopular practice is posting music to Stories. Users can do this through Spotify and Soundcloud as well as through Instagram directly, which means your feed is probably full of people advertising that they're listening to "7 rings." Yes, this can be annoying. It's also a great way to discover new music.

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Inevitably, you follow people on Instagram whom you don't know that well, but you think are extremely cool. You wouldn't necessarily feel comfortable texting them to ask for music recommendations, right? Here, you don't have to. You just have to wait for the Stories to roll in.

In the storied MySpace era -- a simpler time online -- the profile song was a means of distilling, then expressing the identity you believed yourself to possess. (For 14-year-old me, this was inexplicably "With Arms Outstretched" by Rilo Kiley). In high school and college, my friends and I posted Facebook statuses with lyrics and YouTube links to declare how we were feeling. In some cases, these posts were musical thirst traps -- we wanted a particular person (usually a crush) to read, understand, and respond.

It's harder to do these things on the internet now. MySpace and Xanga as we know them are gone, Facebook is overrun with olds, and tweeting an earnest song lyric on Twitter (hell) is a recipe for disaster. Sure, there's Spotify and Apple Music, but those display everything we listen to, not just the songs that have made a particular impact.

Where are we supposed to keep the social media song tradition alive? Tinder? Friends, we deserve better.

So post Instagram songs with abandon. If you're crying to Maggie Rogers and want people to know, post that shit. Add some teardrop GIFs. If you want your crush to know you checked out their Greta Van Fleet recommendation, set that musical thirst trap. And instead of continuing to swipe when you see someone Instagram a song, try pulling it up on Spotify instead. If you like everything else they post, you might -- might -- like their music, too.

Or just start muting people. No one will ever know.