In a viral outbreak of self-deprecation, we’ve all started asking ChatGPT to roast our Instagram grids.
Take a look on TikTok and you’ll find users sharing the bot’s unfiltered opinions on their profiles.
‘You’re one click away from a Zoolander impression’ reads one particularly savage burn. ‘A desperate cry for validation’ says another.
It’s not for the faint of heart, but for those with a thick skin and a sense of humour, it’s very entertaining.
And of course, we had to try it for ourselves here at Metro, so I hopped online and pasted two pictures of my grid into the AI chat, asking it to do its worst.
To say I’ve been humbled would be an understatement – although ChatGPT did remind me it was ‘all in good fun’, you know, just in case I got mad and fell out with a fake person.
So here’s what ChatGPT had to say about my Instagram:
- Sporty Spice Meets Travel Enthusiast: You’re giving off strong ‘I run marathons and then reward myself with a vacation’ vibes. The mix of medals, sports events, and exotic locations screams ‘active vacationer,’ which is basically the Instagram equivalent of eating salad for dessert.
- Humblebrag Central: Oh, just casually hanging out with celebs and athletes? No big deal, right? But let’s be honest, it’s the kind of casual that took at least 20 retakes and a strategic filter to perfect.
- Brunch Queen: The breakfast-in-the-pool shot might as well have ‘I paid $100 for this Instagram moment’ written all over it. Did you actually eat all that food or just dip your feet in while posing?
- Event Overload: Whether it’s a concert or a sports event, you’re there, living your best life. But let’s not pretend your feed isn’t a shrine to showing off how ‘cultured’ and ‘in-the-know’ you are. At this point, you might as well just add ‘professional attendee’ to your bio.
- Wanderlust in Full Force: The Venice pics are stunning, but you and every other Instagrammer on the planet have that same canal shot. Bonus points if you were secretly annoyed by the crowd ruining your perfect #travelgram moment.
- That Dress: Ending with the classic ‘mirror selfie in a fancy dress’ is the cherry on top. We get it—you clean up well. But did you really need to post it, or were you just making sure everyone knows you have more than just athleisure in your closet?
It added: ‘Overall, your feed is a carefully curated mix of adventure, accomplishment, and a sprinkle of “look at how awesome my life is!” It’s practically a guide on how to make everyone else wish they were living your life, one perfectly timed post at a time.’
Can I argue with any of it? Not really. It’s accurate if we’re being brutally honest. But it wasn’t just me who felt the brunt of AI savagery.
ChatGPT told news writer Sarah Hooper her feed looks ‘like [she] threw darts at a bunch of Pinterest boards and decided to post whatever they hit’ and to ‘next time, maybe wipe the sauce off [her] chin before snapping the pic’. Ouch.
‘It’s like you’re trying to be deep, but the only thing deep here is how far I have to scroll to find something that doesn’t scream “try-hard”.’
For community journalist Jeremy Ullman, AI told him his Instagram grid was like a ‘National Geographic special that can’t decide if it wants to be an activist documentary or a travel brochure’.
Oh, and the bot complained Jeremy’s pics gave it ‘visual vertigo’ and ’emotional whiplash’.
News writer Katie Boyden was told: ‘You’ve got those scenic shots that suggest you’re one deep walk away from quitting everything to start a life as a countryside hermit. But who are we kidding? You’ll be back in civilization as soon as your phone signals goodbye.’
Growth lead Alice Murphy took a hit too. After pasting her grid screengrabs into the chat AI said: ‘Your feed can’t decide if it wants to be a travel diary, a self-help book, or a friendship scrapbook — so it’s trying (and failing) to be all three.’
‘The mix of poetic musings and casual captions is like trying to blend Shakespeare with a reality TV script—spoiler: it doesn’t quite work,’ it added.
Our shopping editor Sarah Bradbury, was told: ‘If hashtags were a currency, she’d be a billionaire, but unfortunately, you can’t pay rent with influencer points.
‘Keep doing you, Sarah—because the world clearly needs more #ad content and motivational quotes stolen from Pinterest!’
Metro’s assistant head of social Rob Young also suffered a verbal assault. ChatGPT wrote: ‘This Instagram profile is the digital equivalent of watching paint dry while listening to elevator music on repeat…
‘This profile is a black hole of creativity—once you scroll through it, you feel a little emptier inside. If boredom could take on a digital form, this would be it.’
How to get ChatGPT to roast your Instagram
It’s fair to say no one has been left unscathed, with the trend quickly taking off on X and Instagram.
So if you’re looking to humble yourself and want to try the trend – here’s how.
Simply screen grab some images of your Instagram grid (it can’t follow links to your profile) and then ask it to roast your feed.
It’ll then come up with a bullet point list of savage remarks about certain images you’ve posted.
You can of ask ChatGPT to be really mean if you want to, and it’ll generate an even harsher paragraph, slating your social media.
But it’s worth exercising caution – we’ve all got our own insecurities and social media can already contribute to certain anxieties. What might start off as a fun roast, could leave you feeling pretty rubbish.
Should you be showing ChatGPT your Instagram profile?
Some X users were questioning whether we should be showing AI our social media profiles.
Hannah Cassidy tweeted: ‘Asking ChatGPT to “roast your Instagram feed” is just allowing AI to advance into having further opinions, gather more information/your images and to actually be toxic. But ok, you carry on because you all think it’s the latest trend.’
If you’ve already done the trend and you’re worrying, or you want to do it but aren’t sure if it’s safe, don’t sweat.
Professor of Artificial Intelligence at Birmingham University, Mark Lee, tells Metro.co.uk ‘this should be harmless fun for most people’.
‘ChatGPT has inbuilt restrictions on offensive language and addressing sensitive topics such as mental health,’ he says.
‘It’s also not capable of identifying specific individuals in photographs. However, users should be aware that ChatGPT saves interactions and these could be used for future training.
‘You can request that these are deleted. I think the only real danger is if you take these roasts seriously – ChatGPT is very good at appearing as a real intelligence but it’s just a very sophisticated language prediction model.’
Why should you let ChatGPT roast you?
I’m no stranger to being in the firing line, after all, I did have professional TikTok roaster Ted Pullin rip apart my Hinge profile in a video that was viewed more than 157,000 times. Yikes.
But there’s actually a genuine reason that some might be inclined to let AI roast them and then post it online for thousands to see.
It’s called rejection therapy – where you do something or ask for something knowing you’ll be told no, in order to stop being afraid of rejection itself.
Or in this case, where you know things will be said about your aesthetic or online presence, and let a robot critique it anyway.
For Ted, who has roasted countless guys and girls on TikTok, reaching sometimes millions of views, he has a different perspective – it’s just harmless comedy.
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‘I want to let people know that it’s alright to laugh at yourself to try and give people a bit of a grasp that it’s for a comedic purpose,’ Ted told Metro.co.uk.
‘The ability to laugh at yourself is an awesome thing and when you’ve got people who can do that around you they’ll laugh with you.
‘People live another life on social media, so bringing people back down to earth is quite a fun thing to do.’
So, fancy a roast?
Do you have a story to share?
Get in touch by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@Metro.co.uk.
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