*sponsored content*
I came late to the Instagram game. I think I joined in 2012.
All my friends already had it. I remember my boy saying, “it’s all about what
you like, man.” Instragram triggered a weird pattern of behaviour in me. It became
all about the two m’s – models and memes. I started taking a lot of selfies, and
for some weird reason, I wouldn’t let my followers/following ratio go below 1.
Instagram was different from Twitter and Facebook in that it
didn’t reinvent the wheel. There were a million photo-sharing platforms Instagram
had to compete with, but some of them were kinda douchey. Instagram was successful
because 1) it was primarily a moble app 2) it focused on the “social” part of
social media and 3) it simplified the shit out of everything. They made it all
about easy metrics – follows, likes and comments.
From this combination of simplicity and visual appeal arose primordial
versions of what we now know as “the influencer”. People were thrust into the public
consciousness just by having popular Instagram accounts. We knew their faces,
fashions and lifestyles, and we also knew how powerful their reach was.
Companies took to Instagram for much of the same reason. Unlike
other social media platforms, you could straight up advertise on Instagram and
people would react with it in droves, as long as it looked appealing. This
really bode well for photographers, visual artists and the fashion industry. Inevitably,
strategic partnerships began developing between brands and influencers. This
crossover started with detox tea companies (as the old joke goes), but real
companies eventually got wise to Instagram’s marketing potential. Somewhere
along the way, Alexis Ren ended up in a Hyundai commercial.
Instagram used to be my favourite app until recently, but
things have changed. The explore function used to be my favourite. Now for some
reason I can’t make it single photo view without clicking on the pictures, and
when I click, it takes me to an “explore page” of just that account. Does
anyone know how to change this? It’s seriously ruining my procrastination steez/meme
dm’ing. I also don’t like the new algorithm-based timeline, I find it buries my
friend’s pictures behind all the Tinder bots I’ve been tricked into following.
No comments:
Post a Comment