Social media plays a big role in my life, just like it does with pretty much everybody in my generation. It’s almost a given that, if you are a millennial (so you were born sometime between the early 80s and late 90s), you use at least one of the prominent social media platforms that currently dominate the internet. Chances are, that platform is Instagram. I use Instagram quite a lot, and so do my friends. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that Instagram is the social media platform I use the most (especially if I don’t count the time I spend on Tumblr for my blog work). I’ve also been using Instagram for quite a long time: I recall making my account sometime in 2011, although I haven’t posted much immediately after and I also deleted a lot of posts since then. Finally, the way I use Instagram has drastically changed throughout the years, and same goes for the purposes I actually go to Instagram for.
Compared to other social media services, Instagram has always provided me with a fair amount of creative freedom, allowing me to manipulate the visual content that I shared on there and make it say something about me as an individual. I also feel as though, in time, Instagram opened up to more kinds of content and welcomed a larger diversity of users on the platform, which again, only gave me more reasons to come back. I now use Instagram not only for checking what my friends are up to and sharing stuff from my life, but also for motivational posts, poetry, music and memes. At the same time, Instagram didn’t seem to lose its intended function: staying in touch with people through pictures and videos. Since I got to a point in my life in which it’s hard and time-consuming for me to converse with all my friends, colleagues and acquaintances at once, following their profiles and their stories is a much easier, quicker and more convenient way to check on them and know how their lives are going. Instagram messaging also helps with those who don’t use Facebook or WhatsApp.
But this ode to Instagram finishes now. It’s time for the ranty part of this post, and I’m not too sure what to even begin with.
Such a post wouldn't do without a bit of shameless self-promotion. Feel free to follow me on Instagram for music, poetry and the very few good pictures that other people take of me.
(source: public Instagram profile)
Actually, I think I know: Instagram is so effing fake. People are desperate to edit the pictures they post to the point where they don’t even look close to reality anymore, and to curate the image of themselves that they share online so as to look as though they are living perfect, unattainable lives. And the obsession that some people have to create a good Instagram aesthetic makes me sick. I mean, what the frick? Did people even know the definition of the word ‘aesthetic’ before they joined Instagram? They probably didn’t have to, because they bent it to their will once they realised they have nothing better to do other than to make sure that all the pictures they post on Instagram match in terms of colour and style, and show flawless captures of their otherwise human, mundane lives. I love art and I might not know all there is to know about it, but I enjoy it and I love sharing it and supporting it, but I am also conscious enough to acknowledge the difference between making art and posting some nice-looking pics on a social media profile that will never, ever become an art portfolio as long as you are set on sharing only the pics that show you and your life in a good light. This isn’t what art is about, if anything it’s an advertisement for yourself and a sad attempt to make sure that people think you look cool.
At this point I think I need to stop and mention that my goal is not to bash the Instagram aesthetic trend: I have friends who do it, some of them professional or amateur photographers, who pull it off just fine and some of my favourite accounts on the platform follow the same format, while still keeping it authentic and that’s amazing. That’s very good, I’ll follow you if you do it well. But no, I am specifically talking about how far some people are willing to push this trend. I mean, dying your hair and making your entire Instagram profile match the colour you dyed your hair in, deleting all your previous photos to make sure they don’t stand in the way of your ‘aesthetic’, then getting bored of said hair colour, changing it and changing your profile all over again? You must have nothing better to do. Also, making ‘improving your Instagram game’ one of your yearly goals? Give me a break.
Going back to how genuine Instagram actually is, I feel though as things have only gotten worse in recent years. Take for example editing your photos. I’m not talking about adding a filter or adjusting the brightness, nope. I mean actual, proper editing, people using apps to even the colour of their skin, get rid of any imperfections they don’t want in their photos, like a pocket Photoshop that I frankly don’t remember existing a few years ago when everybody was using Retrica and were perfectly happy with just that. And I’m wondering, why in the world would somebody do that? You are just severely altering how you present yourself online, but you’re not making any changes to who you are in reality. And that online profile wouldn’t be existing if it wasn’t for you, the real you, with beautiful features and imperfections and all. How busy are you really with what other people think of you? Does it really matter what they think of you? If you haven’t already, you’ll soon learn that it doesn’t, but unfortunately, Instagram teaches us the exact opposite.
More precisely, important people on the platform do so, and it’s no surprise that their followers end up copying what they do. Again, I’d hate to come across as bashing influencers because all they’re doing is their job and it’s quite a cool job to have, and a job of the future as social media takes off more and more. Kudos to them, getting out there and going independent by doing what they love. But since we’ve already established that Instagram stays anything but true to what life is like, I can’t help but be a little suspicious about so many of the things that influencers post. Just like on YouTube (which I might write a post on in the near future, we’ll see), you get clickbait, you get constant begging for likes and following and sharing, you get brand deals – which I would be perfectly fine with if influencers did use the products they so enthusiastically endorse – , you get all the questionable means to boost revenue that really make you wonder. And if I usually avoid such profiles to begin with, my Explore page doesn’t let me do that. No matter what type of content I express my interest in, I always get recommended the same dodgy pages, and that becomes a question on the algorithm that Instagram uses to bring content to us. Which after what happened with YouTube, I’m not too sure I want to find out about.
Also, if you unfollow a particular profile, is it too much to ask to not have their posts appear on your Explore page anymore? Maybe. I’ll shut up, then.
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Three of my favourite accounts off Instagram: @doddleoddle (1, music, thoughts and aesthetic), @barry_happy (2, thoughts and motivational) and @emmastudiess (3, studying and motivational).
(source: public Instagram profiles)
All things considered, Instagram is definitely the ideal social media platform for how 2018 feels like, and it’s not shocking to see that it’s getting more and more popularity as time goes by. Since a new wave of users are coming in and existing users spend a lot more time on there than before, I would say that Instagram is bound to change. I’m not sure how that would happen, but I can predict that it would either go very well or very badly, and that’s for us to judge and ponder over when the time comes. My personal expectation is that it will crash and burn like YouTube did, but then, what do I know?
EDIT: These were my predictions a few days before this post goes up, and I’m not surprised to hear that Instagram representatives announced at their conference on Wednesday that the company will launch IGTV, a sub-platform dedicated to posting longer videos that is meant to compete with YouTube. I’m telling you, kids, this is the beginning of the end.
Despite all the things that I’ve just complained about, I will continue to use Instagram. There are good things to go back for, and fun to have so why not? As long as I keep to my little corner, it will all be just fine.
What about you, do you use Instagram? If yes, how? What is your opinion on how the platform is currently changing? I would love to hear your thoughts, so feel free to leave a comment down below! Also, make sure you come back to the blog next week, on Monday and Thursday, for fresh content. I am on a streak already and I’m not willing to give up now.
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Photo sources: public Instagram profiles.