Two weeks ago, a Vanity Fair article titled “The Coast of Utopia” dissected the lives of a group of Byron Bay mums, who referred to themselves as ‘murfers’ (mum-surfers). They’re described by author Carina Chocano as “a cross-tagging, cross-promoting, mutually amplifying, audience-sharing group of friends living, loving, working and posting aspirational lifestyle content in a highly Instagrammable paradise”.
I’m launching a brand new social media platform for Mums who aren’t good looking. Mums with shitty lives no one wants. Mums like you and me. Mums who have unattractive or surly kids with bland names and no social skills. Mums who don’t have husbands, or if they do they’re tradies, or they gamble, or they earn a minimum wage.
This is a social media platform for Mums who have to work. They don’t get to stay home and take pictures of themselves being Mums because they’re only ever home in the early morning or at the end of the day because they’ve got a shit job.
Things mums never hear. Post continues below.
My social media platform is for Mums who cry in the middle of the night about how unhappy they are. Or how tired. Or how worn down. Or how angry. Yep, there’s a lot of very angry Mums on my platform. That’s why most of them are drunk by 9pm, collapsed on the kitchen bench. Yep these are Mums with IKEA kitchens with marble look laminate, not blonde beech wood hand-milled by a chai-drinking, palette furniture-making hippy with a top knot who chants ‘Om Mani Padme Hum’.
Welcome to Mumstagram. It’s not for influencers. It’s for ‘under the influencers’. Women who drink to kill the pain of their unimaginable life full of thankless burden. We’ll feature pictures of giant piles of unsorted washing. Dishes piled up in the sink. Bins so full of rubbish they are spilling onto the floor.
Mumstagram will also feature pics of Mums who’ve let themselves go, struggling to get into their jeans. Or perhaps trying to choose between which one of their last season Rockman tops to wear to cover the muffin top. Mumstagram is for women who don’t wear white frolicking with their small children. These mums don’t frolic. They sit on their towels sulking.
You can listen to Mandy Nolan on Mamamia’s divorce podcast, The Split. Post continues below.
Mumstagram really focuses on Mums of teenagers… and who doesn’t love pics of those adorable adolescents. There’s nothing cuter than your 14-year-old boy giving you the finger, or your 15 year old cutting herself in the bedroom.
