The 5 Stages of Social Media Panic

What do we do now?

Snapchat won't refresh. Twitter is experiencing delays. Instagram won't load. Facebook is down.

When social media fails, the world panics.

That's a totally normal and adult way to handle the fact that we can't post our seasonal selfies, right?

How will our friends see what we're doing and where we are? Our eye makeup looks so good right now, too.

It's just not fair.

This is how we process a social media failure. (Stay strong, people... because it will happen again.)

1. Constant refreshing:

Maybe if we keep closing and opening the app it will miraculously work again. Right? RIGHT?!

2. Confusion:

Deciding whether to put your phone down is a struggle. What are we supposed to do with our hands until Snapchat's back up and running?

3. Rage:

If our friends can't see our pic, it doesn't count. This frappuccino, this new outfit, this damn wedding... if we can't instantly share the moment, it did not happen. Until #TBT, of course, but we all know those don't get as many likes. We need live updates, or why bother?

4. Embarrassment and reevaluation:

This is when we realize how truly dependent we are on checking in on Facebook, and we're ashamed. How did we let our lives become so intertwined in this new technology? Maybe it's time we learn to move past this reliance on our phones, to learn about what's truly important, and, no wait...

5. Pure joy, it's working again:

Right before we make that big change and delete Instagram from our phones forever, an update or fix brings the app back up. Whew, close call! For a second there, we were really reconsidering things. Damn. Oh well, we'll post a hilarious meme about what we did while Twitter was down and move on.

That's probably going to get a ton of likes—so at least something positive came out of our grief. We're stronger people for it.