THE FEED | capstone

To Like And Be Liked

A couple of months ago, I was on vacation in Mexico. The gorgeous sunshine, the beaches and the two tons of nachos that I consumed in just over a week’s time were heavenly, and it took no time at all for me to turn to Instagram to document my experiences. Halfway through the trip, I found myself on a friends yacht for a day on the water. It was over-the-top lavish, as one would expect on a private boat off the coast of Puerto Vallarta, but I have a pretty ugly history of motion sickness. To say I was nauseous would be the understatement of the century. While everyone was upstairs enjoying champagne and three different seafood platters, I was at the front of the ship, with my head over the railing and a half-filled plastic bag in my right hand.

Instagram is a picture-sharing social media platform that caters to the idea of showing the world the perfect image. With its many gadgets, Instagram lets you edit, filter, sharpen and crop photos, so that by the time the photograph is published on the live feed, the average person feels like an artist and we all believe that we are a celebrity in our their own right. This behavior is consistent with the current societal trends of ‘enhancing’ our lives through social media to make our day-to-day experiences seem more enjoyable and more enviable. Posting photographs of “ordinary” life—moments like going to the supermarket or taking your dog for a walk—has been relegated to other apps like SnapChat, which is a separate beast entirely. Instagram is not the place for any ordinary picture. It is unique in its offerings because it allows users to create the image and curate the story they want to share. With countless ways to morph a photograph, Instagram has entered the tech scene and has completely revolutionized the picture-sharing culture.

Let’s take a step back. Facebook is out. Eight years ago, I made my Facebook profile. I was a freshman in High School and knew with a great deal of certainty that Facebook was the end-all-be-all of social media. And to be fair, it dominated the scene for a long time. Facebook became notorious for its status updates, location check-ins, friendly (or not so friendly) pokes, and 200-picture uploads. In other words, Facebook became another world that people lived in. There was no moment left untouched—every conversation, every friendship, every waking moment was documented on this site. The foundation of Facebook centered on broadcasting the details of our lives for the world to see and these (often incriminating) moments were left there for the archives to grow. And they did. There are few people who can argue with Facebook’s incredible reach and the impact that it has had on the world in the last decade.

But then something happened. An app came along in October 2011 that got rid of the clutter with which Facebook users increasingly had to grapple, releasing newsfeeds of awkward exchanges, unfortunate back-stalking, and thousands of pictures that are irrelevant to your life but that you look at anyways. Instagram appeared and it was brilliant, simple, and exactly what millennials were looking for. Five years and 300 million active users later, Instagram has changed the way we share photographs. But more than that, it has changed the way we choose to share our lives.

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I am completely hooked on Instagram. Since my initiation 174 weeks ago, I have become an eyewitness to the growth of this platform and have become fascinated by the apparent psychology behind it all. This application has become such a universally integral part of our daily lives and interactions over time and across trends that a short list of rules that govern its existence has emerged. These rules are not printed anywhere and are not enforced to any degree, but to know them and to follow them means that you have mastered the art of the ‘gram.

Rule #1- No more than one picture a day

This is probably the most important and widely accepted rule of all. There is simply no such thing as posting two Instagram pictures in one day. You can do it, the app lets you, but not without serious judgment from your followers. Of course there are exceptions, like if you climbed Mount Everest in the morning and then made it to the Great Barrier Reef before sunset, but other than that, Instagram is about choosing one photograph that sums up an experience and letting everyone else fill in the blanks. If you have 10 photographs to share, use Facebook!

Rule #2- Ratio of Followers to Following

If you follow 1000 people and only 76 people follow you, then you need to take a second and look at your Instagram pictures and make sure you are not offending anyone. Generally speaking, you should follow about 100 less people than who follow you. This is a tough ratio to achieve because it may result in burning a few bridges. But this is Instagram we are talking about. Not everything is all fun and games. There is no reason for this ratio, it has just become the accepted norm for anybody who is anybody on this trending application.

Rule #3- Like for like

This one is a biggie. It mainly boils down to getting what you give. If you like your followers’ pictures, it is likely that they will like yours back. And if you are a fan of having a lot of likes on your posts, I suggest liking as many pictures as possible.

Rule #4- Hashtags

Please don’t overdo it. You may not lose friends but you will definitely lose followers. #harshbuttrue #iwouldnotlietoyou #honestyisthebestpolicy #getthepoint? #ihopeso

Rule #5- No Filter

Filters are used so much that there is actually a hashtag that encourages you to not use a filter. The irony is real but so are the 114,429,618 and counting posts on Instagram that are accompanied by a handy #nofilter hashtag. I am not sure how I feel about this approach, but I guess it is a case-by-case situation. If you are standing in front of a magnificent sunset and you want people to know that you did not dare edit or filter the natural majesty of the moment, then I guess it is okay (mainly because I have done this, and I can’t be wrong, right?). HOWEVER, if there is any question about the legitimacy of the #nofilter claim (a perfectly flat and dimple-less stomach after only a two-day juice cleanse? Really?), then maybe skip the #nofilter. Basically, proceed with caution. You are really only fooling yourself.

Amidst the hours of feeling like I was going to die on board that boat, my brother happened to capture a photo of me that was more representative of what my yacht experience should have been like. In it, I stand at the bow of the boat, while my cover-up flows in the wind, and I appear to be basking in paradise. Later in the day, when we reached land (which I bent down and kissed) and my head and stomach stopped churning, I found the rather misleading picture on his phone and immediately thought about how cool an Instagram it would be.

129 likes later and I’d say I was right in my judgment. But as the likes kept coming in, I felt more and more like I was lying. That picture was not at all what my day was like! Instead of capturing my pale, green face sandwiched between the railings of the yacht, this picture broadcasted a seemingly perfect moment, one that people looked at and said, “Wow” and “Nbd” and “I thought I was on Beyonce’s Insta.” The comments felt great, don’t get me wrong, but I knew that the picture wouldn’t have gotten such attention if I showed what really happened on that mostly miserable day off the coast of Mexico.

This got me thinking. Was I lying? The picture did happen but it doesn’t tell the whole story. But do my 500-something Instagram followers need to know the whole story? Is Instagram a place for detailed and honest representations of daily life? As trends would show, that is exactly what Instagram is not.

Rule #5- No Filter

Rule #6- Know your days of the week

In the world of Instagram, every day has its own language. Let’s break it down.

Monday is also known as Man Crush Monday, or #mcm. This particular hashtag is reserved for the girl that loves her boyfriend a little too much but can go as far as being the designated hashtag for the obsessed teen posting a picture of her celebrity heartthrob.
Tuesday is just an abbreviated name for #transformationtuesday, the one day of the week where it is ‘acceptable’ for people to take to Instagram to post their new and improved summer body or whatever other self-improvement they have accomplished.
Wednesday, or Woman Crush Wednesday (#wcw) may be the weakest of the weekday hashtags seeing as it is entirely run by boyfriends who are whipped beyond repair.
Thurdsay is, besides for being the most popular (and my personal favorite), known as Throwback Thursday. #TBT is your chance to post that cute and innocent baby picture, but it also the chance to post a second picture of an event you couldn’t post earlier (see Rule #1).
Friday is a stretch but it a thing nonetheless. If you somehow missed Thursday this week and don’t feel like waiting another seven days, you can use Flashback Friday (#FBF) to share that important TBT.
Saturday, as far as I can see in my extensive field research, is hashtag-less. I am sure you are all wondering why, so I have taken one for the team and come to the conclusion that it is because people are simply too hung over to post. This sounds like a stretch, probably because it is, but I am going with it.
Sunday is, for lack of any creativity, Selfie Sunday. #SS is apparently the only day of the week when posting an Instagram selfie is acceptable, but I would like to argue that it is in fact never acceptable. (**My research shows that this hashtag is almost entirely limited to High School Aged young adults—but relevant nonetheless.)

So, these are the rules. Because our culture has adopted them and taken them to heart, certain implications have followed. For example, if we have a one-photograph-a-day limit, our story changes. With one picture standing in place of a whole-day excursion, parts and moments are inevitably left out. This selectivity starts to tell a story, highlighting the moments we want seen and remembered. Unlike Facebook, which encourages posting anything and everything and leaving little room for the imagination, the singular Instagram does just the opposite. This stand-alone picture allows the audience to fill in the gaps with what they imagine is happening. This empty space provides the curator with the platform to communicate an illusory, imaginary, and ideal self. In other words, instead of people experiencing multiple joys in one day (like a nature hike followed by a 7-course meal,) and taking to Instagram to share these moments with the people that care ‘the most’, Instagram forces its users to pick and choose the most important moment, or the prettiest moment, to share on their feeds. As Instagram users, we are no longer mindlessly posting photographs of meaningless things, but instead, paying very close attention to the rules of the game and the details of our lives that we are choosing to share.

This wave of conformity to rules that we ourselves created is having a direct impact on our self-presentation. This 180˚ flip from the Facebook mentality means that we no longer feel like “over-share” is the best strategy for our personal brands—these brands being the way we interact with friends, the photographs we post, and the appropriateness of the content we share with the people following us. Social media has created an open space for people to watch and observe the decisions we make. By exposing ourselves on such a wide platform, we are acknowledging that what we post is fair game, that anyone who wants to see it, can. And if you are at all concerned about this public image (say, with respect to potential employers), then this trend has made you more selective and particular about the content you are broadcasting into cyberspace. I would argue that this is a positive development, considering the decade we spent on Facebook over-sharing, over-liking and overly paying attention to everyone else’s ‘exciting’ lives when we should have been spending more time focusing on what was right in front of us. Instagram has redefined self-broadcasting and self-branding. You are the pictures you choose to share with your following, however truthful (or not) they may be.

We are branding ourselves based on societal expectations and provisions, and this is a dangerous prospect. And I know, I am a hypocrite because I, myself, love Instagram more than I love eating brunch lethargically at 2:30pm on a Saturday afternoon after a night out. But, unlike most of my fellow Generation-Y consumers, I am not mindlessly posting on Instagram, unaware that I am conforming to an invisible list of rules that have overrun our innate decision-making skills. I know that when I post a picture, I am giving in to a social construct that the app has created. I have been posting pictures based on what people will like to look at and what people will ‘double-tap’, instead of sharing the quiet moments that mean more to me but are less staged and less “attractive”. This is troubling because we are losing sight of the beauty in raw and unedited moments of daily life. That beauty and those photographs are the ones worth sharing. But, (big but), those pictures don’t get likes.

In the world of Instagram, likes are a number, a currency, a measure of worth. As a result, Instagram users follow the aforementioned list of rules to share photographs that make themselves look more ideal and impressive. This makes it clear that we don’t share photographs of half-truths for ourselves and for the sake of remembering a moment. As we flip between the Hudson filter and the X-Pro II filter, we aren’t changing our memory of a moment, but we are reframing how we and others view it, hoping that it is worthy of a “double-tap.” So, when we sit on our phones waiting for the likes to trickle in, we are waiting for approval and reassurance of the personal brands we have created for ourselves. And frankly, it feels good to get likes on a photo. This virtual ego-boost means that people are paying attention, which is a rare feat among the Generation-Y population—a generation that has revolutionized narcissism and self-obsession.

Instagram is about liking and being liked, but it is also a strong commentary on how technology has so profoundly changed us emotionally. Technology has made us dependent on other people’s opinions and has forced us to reevaluate our self-worth. For starters, Facebook had us all convinced that friends of friends of friends twice removed wanted to know every detail of an ex-lover’s life. As hard as this is to believe, that is overshare! But on the flipside of the giant that is Facebook, Instagram has snuck up on us and has programmed us to believe and act on the idea that only perfectly edited and enviable moments are worth sharing. This is a sharp doubled-edged sword because technology has made us both self-conscious and narcissistic. We are confident enough to post solo photographs of ourselves on European adventures (colloquially known as the selfie), but only when we know it has been noticed, approved, and liked by others. Confusing? Completely.

So we want likes but we don’t want to risk not getting them. Solution? A few minor white lies here and there through editing and filtering. Looking through this narrow lens gives people a certain view on a story, projecting how we want to be seen and evaluated through the moments, people, and places we present. This selectivity and editing means we are changing the story in our minds by holding on to the ‘pretty’ stuff. And as entertaining as this fake reality is, it does not come without its losses. If everything is idealized, we as a society are unconsciously creating an unattainable standard of perfection and completely disregarding the power of authenticity. We have redefined what it means to present oneself publicly, based on a series of standards that are not only unrealistic, but that aren’t real! So, through these little Instagram “lies,” we may gain likes and followers, but what do

we lose? We lose focus on the moments that matter, the quiet, intimate, and important moments of our lives. The moments we don’t broadcast, the moments we preserve for ourselves and for memory’s sake. Our truths are then lost in exchange for fitting into a mold of unrealistic bounds.

That is no small price to pay. By focusing on what our audience wants to see, we have changed our relationship with ourselves. We have changed what matters to us and our self-esteem (or lack thereof) has become a pressing issue. We present ourselves for the world to judge and that has an impact on our psyche. We don’t post things that we want to post, we post things that we have to post. Two days ago, I went to get frozen yogurt with my best friend. As she weighed and paid at the counter, I had my back turned away from her, trying to capture the colors and textures of the strawberries, almonds, and chocolate syrup in the hazy lighting of the local TCBY. Knowing full well what I was doing, (and somehow still loving me), my friend said, “Anna, don’t be that girl.” And she was right. But “fro-yo” pictures are a thing, and I wanted one! But I was embarrassed in front of my friend, who pointed out that I wasn’t even eating a frozen yogurt. When we got home and I went quietly to my room, I went through all the filters, found the best one, wrote my caption and then… abandoned my masterpiece before anyone could see. It may have been a missed opportunity, but my friend was right: even a savvy user like me couldn’t argue with the fact that this particular exaggerated untruth would be one step too far.

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In its purest form, Instagram is photography. Through its powerful social cache, Instagram has reminded people of how important photography is. But still, we are worrying about that one picture and who is going to like it—forgetting the power that these photographs have. Photography preserves moments, allowing them the chance to be seen and talked about later on, when the moment has passed, when the people are gone, when the event is over. There are millions of photographs and each one captures such a unique and brief moment of time. Photographs tell stories and narrate lives, without saying anything at all. Though Instagram could be looked at as a negative spin on such a fundamental art form, it is art nonetheless. Two years ago, National Geographic came out with a special edition magazine honoring the 125th anniversary of photography. Amidst praise and an account of all of the advancements made over the last century, the magazine came out with a statement that resonated to my core. “The power of photography [is] to witness, to prove, to relate, to reveal, to celebrate, to protect” (National Geographic, Oct 2013). This quote does exactly what photographs do—it speaks for itself. So yes, I may not agree with all of the social constructs that Instagram has created, but I won’t stop using it to share photographs.

Instagram, I love you, but we have allowed you to convince us that tailoring our lives to create a more attractive and ideal image is more important than just capturing the moment. With no extrinsic drive other than doing what everyone else is doing, Instagram has become the platform for people to lose important minutes obsessing over how to make a dinner look best with the ‘Mayfair’ filter. Instead of sitting across from friends, family, boyfriends, girlfriends, or that co-worker you have had a crush on for six months, you are instead staring down at your phone thinking, “Which filter is going to get me the most likes?”

So when does losing presence in the moment become a problem we need to start worrying about? I don’t have an answer. All I know is that we need to stop obsessing over our online presence and start concerning ourselves with our real-life one. We need to pick our heads up and realize what is happening right in front of us. These moments are flying by and we are allowing them to do so. Instead of stopping to enjoy moments for ourselves, we are more concerned with what other people think about what we are experiencing, where we are traveling and who we are choosing to spend our time with. We are focused on self-presentation instead of self-preservation. We have given up on holding on to moments that will linger and affect us years later in exchange for moments of instant gratification that are affirmed by a social construct that we ourselves created. So, now that I am keenly aware of what is going on around me, and now that I can so clearly see the absurdity of the rules to which we are all mindlessly conforming, I am committed to going forward with eyes-wide open, capturing it all.

With all of that said, please go follow me on Instagram.

-@annajber