Casual Instagram is Still a Performance
May 11, 2022 at 06:45PM I was an early adopter of Instagram. Over a decade ago, I downloaded the then-brand-new app onto my iPod Touch and began haphazardly documenting moments in my young adolescence: my colourful socks, the movie playing on my TV, a duck-face mirror selfie. My clumsy collection of spontaneous, often blurry photos had no motive other than being a photo diary of sorts to be shared among friends. In 2022, the idea of treating a social media account in such a blasĂ© way is almost laughable. Over the past decade, what started as an online album has quickly snowballed into a meticulously managed visual identity. As Instagram grew, so did its curated concoction of reality, and soon, influencers and celebrities (thank you, Kardashians) were ruling the app. Photos that were planned, posed and flawlessly filtered became a prerequisite to posting,…
