Do you pine for the days when you could live your life free from unexpected assaults by large people holding small camera phones? Do you wistfully recall a time when you could go to a party in sweats without having to wake up to 35 photos of yourself on the internet the next morning? The online photo culture has taken hold of our society so much so that I’ve forgotten an age when I didn’t hear “Tag me in this!” before getting a photo snapped of me as I do my laundry.
The menace of Instagram represents the next step in the over-photo-ization of the world. Prior to Instagram—though I couldn’t go to a pre-game without being involved in the latest “Junior Fall!” Facebook album—I could still safely brush my teeth. Now, I have to duck for cover whenever anyone brandishes a phone near me. This is particularly horrifying for a person such as myself who tends to look like a sleeping, wounded monkey in all photos.
People use Instagram for two reasons:
1) To show the world they have friends. To this I say: Look, you don’t have friends. If you did you wouldn’t be posing with your TF outside the Kong.
2) To pretend every photo of them has just been recovered from a time capsule. To this I say: It’s not the 1960s, time to accept that.
For those who use Instagram to view others’ photos, the experience is completely disheartening. Want to go hang with your friends? They’re already having fun snapping pics at a bar. You weren’t invited. Depressed about your love life? Here are 10 pictures of happy couples. Being single never felt so…Sierra.
The Instagram photos themselves are the embodiment of amateurs gone wild. All of a sudden, everyone is the next Annie Leibowitz. Your Instagram of a 7-Eleven Big Gulp is not going to be the centerpiece of the next photography exhibit at the MOMA. Let’s leave artistic photography to people who know what they’re doing and are holding actual cameras. Use your iPhone to give your parents a call and stop posing for faded photos in front of the Owl.
