I acquired Instagram
at a time when only very few people had it. I almost had no use for it when I
first got because of the small number of people apart of the Instagram circle. What use was a photo
in a public sphere when there was no second party to appreciate it? This is
really what the Instagram media
outlet is used for; an unbelievably popular tool for showcasing one’s photos,
in order to have others see them, and ultimately attach some form of identity
to its owner.
The endless scanning of Instagram photos has become an intrinsic part of my everyday
routine; the billowing pictures, from countless followers, excite me enough to
make me want to do it everyday - but why? I almost feel that having an IPhone
allows me the privilege of joining this exclusive connected system that is only
available to smartphone owners; having an iPhone makes access to Instagram instant, and as a consequence,
any free time I have is usually filled with visits to the social media outlet. My
Instagram is nothing special. Although
I spend every morning and evening in the haze of the endless ‘everyday image
forum’ my own activity is sparse. Picture uploads vary in regularity and my
comments and #hashtags are lousy and
infrequent. I am however a constant
(verging on ‘spam’-worthy) ‘like’er, but apart from this I am very nonchalant
in my effort to maintain my own image/identity.
The instantaneousness and selectiveness of Instagram allows people to get their
‘personal brand’ across to a social mass in a more direct and recognizable
fashion. With photos being the primary focus of Instagram, a clearer image of one’s brand can be formed. This is
why I love it. I am able to distinctly characterize a person simply by judging
their personality based upon the information I gather from their Instagram activity. The aesthetic a user
creates on their own profile is an invitation to others to credit them for
their ‘artistic’, ‘humorous’ and ‘fashionable’ taste and capture.
The semantics behind one’s profile on Instagram surround the idea of
nonchalance. The perceived notion of not caring, or naturalism, is the
grounding ethos from which Instagram
was started. The vintage filters, rendering an everyday picture into a
memorable token plucked straight from the seventies, add to that easy-livin’
and young-at-heart aesthetic. This media is targeted to young people, the
people with enough time up their sleeves to deliver the product (the images)
and to maintain a positive consumer response (i.e. followers).
So how important is the profile you set-up, and your
involvement with other users? The better one’s profile (by this I mean the
number of images, the quality of images, and the attitude of the images) the
better the response by other Instagram users.
This positive response of others leads to an influx of followers. The more
followers you get, the greater your confidence, which then leads to more image
posts and other involving activities (comments, hash-tagging etc.). This cycle
is constant, and with the more followers and images and likes etc., the more
powerful one’s Instagram profile
becomes.
“It is no accident that the discourses of
branding borrow heavily from the language of radical individualism; the ‘face’
or ‘identity’ of a brand works to establish a ‘relationship’ with the
consumer.”[2]
What you will have inevitably created in this cycle
of power is a ‘personal brand’ of yourself, which establishes an identity
within the social media and cyber network community.
The tools of Instagram
are excitingly simple; there is a ‘like’ button, a place for commenting, an
interesting stage for #hashtagging,
and the freedom to ‘follow’. Because of Instagram’s
simple and user-friendly design the usability became the feature attraction of
the elegant IPhone app; “With a few simple thumb taps you can snap, edit
(with awesome filters) and share an Instagram
photo with the world.”[3]
This connected social network, now owned by Facebook ($1 billion later), is intertwined
with the largest social network stages (Facebook and Twitter), allowing it to
not only reach a wider audience, but to also invite a celebrity market, which
in itself promotes the Instagram
brand as well as those who connect with it (i.e. being cool for having Instagram because Justin Beiber does
too).
There
are no rules as what one can do when playing on the Instagram stage. What you post is at your prerogative, and the
responsibility you have with your profile is heightened with risk that one bad
picture may break a winning cycle of positive reception. The ‘everyday’ is possibly
the number one best selling image now billowing from the Instagram feed. Whether it’s a meal just made/purchased, a holiday
snap or a simple ‘selfie’, the everyday is the fundamental facet of this
particular social network. The attraction to this normality, or ordinariness,
of the everyday is due to the beauty or hilarity sourced from our lives that
can be so simply shared with others. “Within current branding practices, consumer
behaviour and lived experience become ‘both the object and the medium of brand
activity.’[4] In
capturing a piece of the everyday and uploading it for all to see, the margins
that dictate your identity within this social network must be respected; the
brand that you yourself have developed (through specific signs) is born from
this everyday that you have created, and to alter that is to contradict your
identity.
The signs that you portray within your sphere of Instagram activity advertise personality
traits and characteristics that are used to attract a certain target market of
users. From these users we gain positive and negative reinforcements (‘likes’
and comments) on each of the pictures that are added; the information gathered
from these pictures (i.e. the number of ‘likes’) support the preservation of
one’s identity by keeping one’s profile within the aesthetic of the brand that
has been created. For example, I upload a picture and within the first 2 hours
I receive a total of four ‘likes’, as opposed to my usual number of between
eleven and sixteen. This information (negative reception) that I have gathered
from this one picture, eludes me to the conclusion that the image I have
uploaded does not fit my Instagram
identity, and therefore mustn’t be used again. The personal brand that has been
created within the Instagram sphere
“is built on the [user’s] true character, values, strengths and flaws”[5];
by breaching this code of individualism, the illusion of your invented persona
is shattered.
“Image invention is designed to garner fame”[6];
I use Instagram because I want people
to know what I am doing and credit me for doing so. My identity, as I have
built in my Instagram castle,
illustrates me as an ironic, sometimes funny, creative, food-loving, young, and
relatively nonchalant character. When uploading a picture I do my best to steer
clear of personal between a selected few, because in doing so restricts the
number of people who may potentially ‘like’ my image.
I
may be speaking for myself when I argue that Instagram is a space for people to create the ‘coolest’ version of
themselves by through a brand of ‘fashionable’ or ‘trendy’ signs. Each image is
carefully chosen to highlight our greatest characteristics and traits so that
others will associate an appropriately trendy individualism to that profile.
This idea is nothing new, the same devices of individualism and identity are
used though many social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.
My identity is produced though my everyday
practices. The identity I have created is one that invites users of a similar
characteristic to appreciate and credit my activity, in order for me to
continue the Instagram cycle.
Although I am able to see the truth in each user’s image, I am still willing to
appreciate it, giving back to the social network system and remaining within
the social cycle.
[1] Alison Hearn, “Meat, Mask, Burden”, 214
[2] Alison Hearn, “Meat, Mask, Burden”, 214.
[3] Stephen Bertoni, “How Stanford made Instagram”, 58.
[4] Elizabeth Moor, “Branded Spaces”, 42
[5] Peter Montoya, “The Personal Branding Phenomenon”, 16.
[6] Alison Hearn, “Meat, Mask, Burden”, 214.
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