Tuesday, February 19, 2013

My brother hates Instagram.

That's right. He hates Instagram.

And with good reason too; not just because that's the opinion of the Internet Hivemind, or just to piss me off (I use the Instagram app on my phone like it's nobody's business, taking pictures of ridiculous things.)
And maybe, just maybe, I'm starting to agree with him.
According to him, the only way people can enjoy a good meal at a restaurant anymore is through the cellphone camera. If you haven't taken a picture and Instagrammed it then suddenly your meal isn't worth it anymore. And what is the deal with taking a perfectly clear picture of anything, and then applying a gritty yellow filter to it in order for it to be artsy? It's ridiculous.
And the hashtag rape on all the photos. Ugh.

Sometimes I think he is the only sensible person in this entire household. Heck, I know it.

And the same goes with any of the existing forms of social networking that people use today. Everyone has turned into an all-out, unabashed social media junkie.
Not long ago, a friend of mine admonished me (via text) for not peppering my text messages with enough emoticons. Another time, I got yelled at by another friend (in person) for not 'liking' any of her deep, insightful facebook posts.
These are the things we complain about now.
I suppose every generation has it's 'thing'. The 70s had disco, we have Instagram.

Obligatory Louis CK:


Clearly, times have changed. Not long ago, taking photos was a somewhat meaningful activity. As far as my family goes, we only took the camera out only for birthdays, or when we went on picnics and long trips. And I wasn't allowed anywhere near it, of course. Rolls and rolls of film would be submitted for developing into photos, and out of all of them, only a few would make it into an album.
Now, well, we don't have to lug the chunky Yashica around anymore when we travel, but suddenly the whole sacred ritual of taking photos has become pointless. "Oh, look! A wonderful sunset! I'll take a picture of it with my cellphone, add a fake edit to it so it looks grainy and vintage, and upload it to Instagram." Thing is, millions of people around the world are doing the very same thing, so your meaningful sunset is gone, lost in an endless sea of meaningful sunsets. Not so meaningful now, is it?

To quote from an article I was reading while I wrote this:
"We're drowning in a sea of photos and I think our ability to filter the good from the bad almost disappears. Why else do I see people sharing photos of their dinner every day? There are only so many ways you can to take a photo of sandwich you and a billion other people had for lunch. Would anyone care?
The urge to share things comes from human nature, but the uncurated photos we send out every day make us all less interested in them. Sadly, this applies even to the ones which are worth the time to look at. We feel the need to 'contribute' constantly, so we end up taking hundreds of photos and sharing them on Instagram to fill the void and feel, just for a moment, that we’ve made an impression."
Instagram may be a pointless activity to a lot of people. But 'being pointless' never stopped anyone from doing anything, ever. I will continue to take pictures of ridiculous things. My brother hates Instagram, not me.
But I do recognize that I have a problem, and I'll do my best not to get overwhelmingly obsessed with the whole thing. There are tv shows meant specifically for that purpose.

Hi. I am Snickerdoodle. I am a social media junkie. It has been 4 days since my last tweet and 2 days since my last post on Instagram.

2 comments:

Walten Tiern said...

Instagram is essentially a hateful thing IMO. If used inappropriately, of course. I mean, have you taken a look at the 'popular' page? Most of it is filled with rubbish that has got a load of likes because a looooot of people are obsessed with 'getting followers' and 'getting likes'.
It's only meaningful as long as you keep it meaningful, I think. That being said, there are just too many photographs in the world today, and it's getting kind of tiring.
Amish FTW.

Snickerdoodle said...

Exactly. There's so much trash being flung around under the pretext of art on there. It's really difficult to sort out the few meaningful ones from the hundreds of trashy photos.
On a whim, I searched '#meaningful' on there. Appalling is too mild an adjective to describe it.
Rumspringa!