Lately, Instagram has been giving me a major headache. I started using this app a while ago, put up a few pictures that seemed artistic enough, treated them with various filters, wrote a bunch of hashtags and last but not least, shamelessly stalked dozens of celebrities. But now I've lost interest. I find it such a hassle deciding which picture is ‘insta-worthy’, which filter makes it look most appealing, and I really don't have time to think of absurd hashtags for it. I have a 10 month old baby and I'd like to spend my glorious free time with a well-deserved cup of tea and a nice book whose bookmark has been longing to be moved.
Celebrities have put their shiny, perfect lives on display through Instagram for the world to see and well, good for them! It's merely self-promotion. I mean, isn't celebrity culture created out of a need for spectacle? My summer did not involve drifting on a yacht off the Amalfi Coast in Italy and neither did I buy 3 exquisite Chanel bags so why bother spending my time ogling at such celebrity pictures? Believe me, I know it's super hard to fight back the need to indulge unnecessarily in a little retail therapy!
"Great! More pictures of pretty stuff I don't have and don't really need but want to buy just for the heck of it!"
Social media marketing, with its often misleading advertising, is surely adding to the ever-expanding consumption of goods.
Many would say that Instagram is just a harmless little app; a perfect tool for passing idle time. My husband is one of these people! The dear has zero pictures up on his Instagram profile, hardly any followers and simply uses Instagram to peek into the lives of his favourite athletes now and then.
Isn't Pinterest a far more productive app, ideal in sparking ideas for creative projects to venture on? Nonetheless, there's plenty of amazing, inspirational stuff on Instagram too, particularly regarding promotion of positive body image and self-esteem. It's heartening to see the profiles of 'Harnaam Kaur-the bearded lady' and 'Em Ford'. It's also good to know what political figures on Instagram have got to show about themselves and their related projects. There's quite a bit of splendid artwork too and plenty of awe-inspiring pictures of exotic countries and world cuisines. And there are cute little puppies and kittens on Instagram too. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's ALL bad!
Yet sometimes I feel that this Instagram fad is just a phase, much like how a couple of years ago, everyone was obsessed with Orkut (which was named after its founder, Orkut Büyükkökten, a Google employee if you didn't know!). I still remember writing silly, lengthy and quite embarrassing testimonials to my Orkut friends and uploading pictures in my Orkut album, which disturbingly so, was very much public and for the entire world to see. (Stalker alert!)
So well, that was just a little perspective from my end. As promised, my next blog will be about that Classic Buttercream Icing recipe that I wanted to share and some more delightful stuff coming your way!
