Instagram: Promoting Self-Absorption
By Eric Bates
Facebook recently acquired Instagram for one billion dollars, because that's exactly what the world is in need of: more sepia toned garbage from people I don't care about. I really don't understand how this hipster-artsy-picture-taking fad started, why it is so popular or why so many Facebook users insist on sharing photos of the dumbest things.
If anyone is unfamiliar with Instagram let me summarize. It is a program you can download to your smart phone to take a picture, choose a filter to manipulate its look and feel and then share it with all of your herbal tea drinking, hipster friends on Facebook and Twitter.
Instagrammers: are you so self-absorbed as to think that anyone actually cares about pictures you've taken? Do you really think that because you take a picture that resembles a Polaroid you are recreating some iconic, revolutionary image? Do you really think that color toned pictures of dash pans and balls of yarn impress me or anyone else? Well, they don't. Just because you have downloaded an application on your iPhone doesn't all of a sudden mean you are a skilled photographer, and making the picture tint darker doesn't exactly scream Time's photo of the year. No, you have not turned into Ansel Adams, and yes, you are still as lame as you were yesterday.
What do you think these pictures of yourselves say about you? I'll take a guess, "Hi, when cameras are pointed at me I intentionally look away to create the impression that I am in deep thought about the meaning of life and what I was put on this earth to do. I reject the established social constructs of our society and created my own, which I so brilliantly display in my photos. I take pictures of myself at angles because I think it's cute and reflects the mood I was in today. I also like to take pictures of places that I frequent, such as a youth group or tree restoration ceremonies. I also enjoy frolicking in meadows and through daisy fields."
And on a side note: Men - I don't need to see filtered, shirtless pictures, or for that matter, any shirtless pictures you've taken of yourself in your bathroom mirror, or anywhere else besides the beach. If I were living at the Jersey Shore with Pauly D and the Situation, I would expect things like this, but not from my friends or anyone else in the state of California, sans at Gold's Gym.
Back to ranting: Thank you for flooding my Facebook newsfeed with pictures that have looked like they were left out to bake in the sun. Thank you so much for sharing that sepia toned portrait of your lasagna; it was riveting. And thank you so much for giving me one more thing to be annoyed about.
Instagram will not make you hip, jive, smooth or cool, and it most certainly does not make you a better photographer. You know what Instagram makes you? A person who was just deleted from Facebook as my friend.
Eric Bates is a senior political science major.