The Evolution of Instagram: From True Photographic Art to Another Picture of my Face

I can remember the first ever version of Instagram. At its conception in 2010, the app was an incredible place for artists and photographers to show off their talents and gain traction for their work online. It was less of a social media platform, and more of space where people could share their love for art. There was little to no celebrity activity on the site - just genuine people trying to get attention for their work. I was in Junior High when the app was born, and was one of the first of my "friend" group to create a profile. At the time, I was really into photography and photo editing, so naturally it was the perfect place for me to share my work. I loved it, and soon found myself building my following and creating pieces I was truly proud of. I look back on those pictures today and cringe, but it was fun at the time.

Apps like SquareReady, Juxtaposer, Afterlight and Hyperlapse were super popular at the time. SquareReady added a white boarder to your photos, so you could upload the entire picture without it being cropped in the square Instagram format. Juxtaposer and Hyperlapse allowed the user to overlay images on top of one another, creating illusions and replacing original backgrounds with new ones. The more heavily a photo was edited, the more attention it got. If it was different and created a cool illusion, it was well liked.

The earliest version of Instagram saw the "Popular" page, a place where photos that received a certain number of likes in a very short amount of time would be projected for everyone to see. It was an incredible place to find new, beautiful pieces of art and photography. These profiles amassed large followings based on their creativity and originality. However, when a photo gained a lot of attention, users would then ask "What app did you use?" or "How did you edit this?" From this point on, all the editing secrets were out, and it was easy for anyone to copy editing styles of the more famous posts. According to Walter Benjamin, "In principle a work of art has always been reproducible. Man- made artifacts could always be imitated by men. Replicas were made by pupils in practice of their craft, by masters for diffusing their works, and, finally, by third parties in the pursuit of gain" (218). I was no exception to this. I was determined to snag a spot on the popular page at least once. I spent so much time and energy editing photos and making them perfect. I used the same apps all the popular accounts used, and I spent hours trying to recreate people's posts. I even got a Canon camera that year for my birthday, which I thought would really step up my Instagram game. Here are some of the first ever pictures I uploaded to my first Instagram profile:

Obviously, I didn't make it onto the popular page with this stuff. It was so much fun to do and I genuinely loved taking pictures, but they were amateur at best. I would never recreate something as professional looking as the already professional accounts.

As you can see, these are NOT the kinds of posts that would receive any attention today. They are so heavily edited and outdated. Also, in modern popular culture, people are more likely to get famous on Instagram for being a good-looking model, not for making art. The way we view social media as a whole is so much different now than ever before. First, Instagram removed the "Popular" page and replaced it with the "Explore" page, which holds little to zero original content. For me, a majority of the posts that come up on my Explore feed are all reposted videos by popular meme accounts that do not give credit to the original owners (but gain more attention and likes than the original post). This is frustrating, because what once was an incredible art-sharing app, has become a sad repost app that takes away the credit from the original artists or users for personal gain by these repost accounts. Second, you see so much less true photography and art gaining any recognition at all on Instagram anymore (unless they are a celebrity photographer). My younger sister has been trying to grow a following on her photography account for months, and no matter how hard she tries, people are just not interesting in following photography accounts. Instagram users are much more interested in following celebrities, good looking models, food accounts, and meme accounts. Also, the more followers you have somehow means you are superior to others. Those with more followers feel they can get away with posting more obscure or insane photos, because they know they have an army of people to back them up. Old Instagram was less about numbers, and more about gaining a following based on talent. Likes were only taken into consideration when looking at the popular page; the more likes a photo received, the more likely it was to be featured. Now, the number of likes one receives on a post is viewed as a status symbol, and holds so much weight in how people are viewed online and in person. We have become a society centered on likes and followers, and will only post photos we believe will be well liked as a symbol of status. Here are some of the photos I post to my Instagram now, knowing they will get a good amount of likes:

As you can see, they are all pictures of me alone. When I post pictures of ice cream (which are some of my favorite pictures on my account), pictures with other people, pictures of my dogs, or pictures of nature, they receive less likes than pictures of just myself. I know I have been sucked into the Instagram vortex, and have honestly been trying to not only post less, but post things I genuinely enjoy, rather than things I know will get likes. Now, I'm not saying people SHOULDN'T post pictures of themselves. Everyone does it, and if that's what makes you happy and makes you feel good at the end of the day, then by all means do it! The argument here is that what we are seeing on Instagram, and the posts that are gaining recognition now are so much different than what we saw in past forms of the app.

While I think change is good, and people enjoy Instagram just as much now as they did in the past, I would like to see Instagram make more of an effort to promote genuine art, rather than promote repost accounts. Twitter recently suspended all repost accounts from the platform, because reposting someone else's content without giving credit to the original owner is illegal. I would like to see Instagram do something similar in the near future. Also, I hope people will start focusing more on the art of genuine photography, and forget about social status. Social media can do so much good for the world if used correctly. Media freedom is so important, but also not getting caught up in the status of it all, and just posting for fun can be liberating.

Works Cited

Benjamin, Walter. “The Work Of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” 2018, doi:10.4324/9781912284894.