Ugly Is The New Black
In our relentless pursuit of ‘likes,’ are we changing things for better or for worse?
During a trip to California this past February, I woke up early one Saturday morning to meet a group of friends for an early morning hike — a West Coast tradition.
At about 6:30 in the morning, we started our ascent, water bottles and cell phones in tow, to the top of the canyon.
As we walked and chatted, they remarked on just how “green” everything was — a welcome change, they said, from the typical arid appearance of the trail.
I, like many others, got to the summit and marveled at the landscape below, in awe that I’d actually made it to the top. I immediately grabbed my phone to snap a picture and almost instantaneously thought to myself, “Think of how many likes I will get!” and “No one has ever seen a photo like this!”
I searched the hashtag I planned to use — #RunyonCanyon — and found it had been used more than 300,000 times during the prior year. I had mixed feelings about the fact that every other picture under this hashtag was just about exactly the same as the one I planned to upload. How original of me.
Thanks to an unusually warm and wet winter, much of California has had more rain than in previous decades, and subsequently experienced a rare “superbloom,” a beautiful overgrowth of wildflowers and poppies in vibrant orange and red hues.
And — as would be expected in 2019, thousands of tourists and hundreds of influencers flocked to the bloom and subsequently, got what they came for — but the flowers paid the price.
Blooms were trampled, plucked and destroyed due to those on a mission to get their own ‘Insta-perfect’ picture.
Which ironically enough, have all been largely homogenous and wholly unoriginal. A quick search of the hashtag #SuperBloom yields a bevy of images of of beautiful people sat amongst the poppies, gazing dreamily into the distance with their heads tilted ever-so (know your angles!). If you look closely, you might even see a well positioned sponsored product in there, too!
Such clever marketing!
But the phenomena begs a question; just how ‘beautiful’ can something be when
- It’s been done thousands of times over and,
- If it causes such damage in its pursuit?
People behaving horribly in natural spaces isn’t new, but it’s a problem that’s reached a fever pitch in media as of late.
Earlier this year, you might recall during the government shutdown, Joshua Tree National Park was hit particularly hard by vandalism. People climbed, sometimes even cut down, delicate and centuries-old trees that experts estimate could take as long as 300 years to self-repair.
The damage to the national park alone was bad enough to generate an Instagram account, Joshua Tree Hates You, which shows an eye-opening and cringeworthy amount of vandalism, and illustrates a general disregard for the ancient space, which seems to only get worse as the park gets more popular.
As the staged perfection of social media has become a norm, backlash has been building against carefully curated feeds, full of envy-inducing content, and photos and videos that have deleterious effects on the environment.
‘Does this angle make me look ugly? Perfect.’
For Gen-Z’ers ugly is so in right now.
You might have noticed it: the seemingly unlikely popularity of clunky, perplexing footwear, the intentionally ugly selfies that have been on the rise since 2017.
An ugly aesthetic squarely faces inauthenticity, challenging what is considered mainstream. And we know as marketers, that whatever is in the mainstream is passé and whatever is next is somehow already dated — but challenging the disreality of our digital selves — that’s everything.
As Gen-Z’ers grapple with record levels of anxiety and a pressure to appear perfect, they engage in conscious acts of transgression as a means to mitigate their own psyche, as The Paris Review explains.
Thankfully, however, social media platforms are taking note of the deleterious role that they have played in the overall mental health and wellness of the global public.
In April, Facebook sued a New Zealand firm for selling fake Instagram engagement — that same month, During Facebook’s annual developer conference, F8, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri confirmed the app was testing a trial version in Canada, that will hide ‘likes’ and view counts from the public.
The company launched the trial in an effort to see how user’s behavior changes without viewable metrics.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey teased the idea of a new version of Twitter that also hides ‘likes’ and retweets. The company is currently testing an altered version of the app, renamed twttr, that lacks public metrics and is only visible to the author of the post.
While some users may welcome this updated version with open arms, some Instagram members may resent the idea, especially social media influencers who rely on likes and views for their income.
Buying fake likes is real, and it’s already hurting brands and your program. As influencers get more sophisticated in how they manipulate their online personas (. In this era of fake engagements, it becomes vital to measure the success of campaigns that go beyond the likes, impressions and views.
Brands now this — and it’s the reason many agencies are feeling the pressure to demonstrate the role influencer programs have on consumer sentiment, sales and engagement.
So, as you put together your next influencer marketing program, I encourage you to join my little thought experiment.
When assessing an influencer and determine their “value” take a look at their content and feed and try your best to ignore the number of likes, comments, views and the influencer’s follower count. View the content in a vacuum, and then try to imagine the story behind it.
Then ask yourself, first
“Do I know who this person is?” and then,
“Does this profile move me?”
You might be surprised by your own answers.
