On Being a Part of the Instagram Generation
Coming to terms with the dichotomy of wanting/not wanting to be seen
It feels like blasphemy to say I’m not a fan of Instagram, having been born on the older end of Gen Z. I am part of a generation which has been touted as the internet generation, the first to grow up and come of age online. It’s a generation comprised of natural born social media butterflies. Initially, that swift uptake by Gen Z’ers of each of the newest apps when they came through— Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and now TikTok — could likely be explained by a more ready adoption of new technologies by the youngest generation (anyone who has tried to explain to their parents how to use an app knows what I’m talking about). Yet, as time has passed, it has become clear how indelible social media has become to our senses of self, how we connect and market ourselves to the outside world.
All the world’s a stage, all men and women its players.
As Shakespeare himself noted, life is but a performance between the self and the world it inhabits. In his time, the audience was far more constrained than anything we can envisage in this day and age. The Globe Theatre had a capacity of 1500. A long shot from the millions that the most famous influencers have who view their every move. Even taking fame out of the equation, the world of social media provides us with networks and connections that serve as a constant reminder of the audience which we have or could have. The sense that you are an identity which can be shaped and represented, filtering out the bad from the good, provides a strong reminder of the ways you should be curating your life.
It reminds me of Big Brother in George Orwell’s 1984 — this pervasion of your consciousness which simultaneously pushes you to want to broadcast all the amazing aspects of your life, signalling your conformity in permissible ways, whilst the curation process reminds you of everything you need to repress in order to feel like you fit in. Obviously less life-or-death, but with the same sense of being watched, which has flow-on effects on our behaviour.
We are simultaneously striving to be seen as new, exciting, unique and special, whilst tip-toeing carefully around the boundaries of social norms to make sure we don’t come across bland or weird or in poor taste.
It’s a dichotomy I have grappled with frequently. I do not put much of my life on Instagram, because frankly I don’t think my day-to-day life is interesting enough for voyeuristic purposes. I fear being judged for how I represent my life. I don’t want to show you what my coffee or breakfast or morning commute looked like (bland), my internal monologue about random philosophical ideas (weird), or rants about my work dramas (absolute comedic gold if you ask me, but regrettably, generally considered in poor taste). I don’t feel like posting political opinions about climate change (basic), social and economic inequality, or whatever the latest news headline is that reminds us of how ignorant we are because we can’t stop thinking of ourselves instead of the malnourished kids in Malawi who have it far worse than we do (annoying social justice warrior). I’m overly conscious of the fact people do judge, and entered my adult years internalising the most liberally dished out piece of career advice — “be careful of your personal brand”.
This self-filtering occurs on a daily basis, and as a result the only photos which have made it onto my Instagram grid are vacation snaps and photos of me and my girlfriends, wines in hand and dolled up at parties (the Goldilocks of an online identity — fun, carefree, well-travelled and inoffensive).
That sounds incredibly shallow, but that’s partly my point — for those of us who grew up with celebrity cancel/call-out culture and in the echo chambers of bubbles such as university and sites such as Twitter and Tumblr where the demographic skews toward the young, we know all too well that social media is a landmine because it provides an audience. A hypercritical, observant and retributive audience which will judge how you present yourself and everything that you say.
If that’s the case and our audience is a harsh and responsive market, what is the allure of these apps that keeps us coming back for more?
It’s clear that there are strong feedback loops between creating content and the validation producers receive have their own reinforcing effects. In this new attention economy, households and firms have been replaced by social media users and money replaced by likes (although there’s certainly money to be made there too). Certainly at the time of posting photos of myself, tanned and happy in Italy after several gelatos a day and just as much pasta, I feel the heady rush of the likes and comments when they roll in. Coupled with a “Just casually roaming in Rome” caption, there is nothing in this set up which offends — it is intended to optimise likes and validation, make a few ex boyfriends jealous and convince myself that I am winning at life. It can also be incredibly powerful, and a highly monetizable tool, Bri Lee notes in her 2019 essay Beauty.
“The more followers I gained as a freelancer, the more likely I was to get writing assignments and speaking gigs. The more pictures I posted of myself in make-up and cool clothes on Instagram, the more followers I got.”
Yet, she argues the cost is ultimately “the gamification of [her] self” — a dangerous game which feeds off our intrinsic perfectionism and rewards the relentless pursuit of its presentation.
“I must not only practise perfection but also present it. Then, when I present an image of perfection, I am trapping myself in a feedback loop of having a new goal I need to live up to.”
The outcome is lose-lose. Lee observes:
“Among my generation of feminists we scoff at the prospect of women ‘competing’ with one another, but anything gamified necessarily has winners and losers.”
This deflated inability to win at social media — the desire to share your authentic life with an audience whilst also not feeling like a boring loser /a sellout/ upsetting someone— resonates strongly with me. Instagram is perhaps the biggest echo chamber of all, whereas you see generations colliding on Facebook. With that greater diversity comes a plethora of norms which seem to co-exist on the one platform — from our parents, who like to post photos of incredibly mundane events and comment angrily on news posts, to people my age, who all made embarrassing status updates on Facebook throughout their high school years and are now addicted to memes, to people my kid sister’s age, who grew up on memes so edgy they make no sense — and that diversity is not found on Instagram. Every influencer looks, sounds and feels eerily similar. One grid is interchangeable with another. The same products are promoted over and over again. As Cher Tan notes in her essay ‘So Much This’ , the same-ness is an effective marketing tool, sidestepping the obvious fake-ness of an airbrushed ad concocted by a whole team. Informed by the algorithm, which reinforces positive feedback by encouraging more similar content, the accessibility of tools like Instagram have become a marketer’s dream as we ordinary folk take on the role of marketer:
“Within the algorithm, an uncanny valley presents itself: like the android which looks too much — but still not quite — like a human being, a restaurant ad looks almost identical to my friend’s documentation of their dinner.”
We consume the same content, which then shapes our similar aspirations and preferences. We are led to the same restaurants, art exhibitions, books, movies and holidays, and reproduce them on our own feed. In turn, this boosts its virality by making its way onto the radar of those in our network, thus informing their choices as well. Perhaps they take on board your suggestion, and end up replicating their own version of the same event.
The result is what I like to call the Vivid effect. For those of you who don’t live in Sydney, allow me to explain. Vivid is an annual festival where light installations feature across the city. For anyone in Sydney, it is impossible to not know when Vivid is on — because when it happens, it’s all you see on Instagram for three weeks straight. It’s on your best friend’s story, your aunt’s, your nan’s, your weird thrice-removed cousin Henry’s page. That girl you go to uni with who is an aspiring influencer — certainly on her page. Your friend who is always too busy to hang out — yep, he went to Vivid too. And guess what? So did I, because even though I vow each year never to go again, it’s impossible not to have the thought floating around the back of your head: If that many people went and enjoyed it, surely it can’t be that bad?
We want to be seen doing cool things, which we think we can gage from what’s visible and hyped. Yet, when tastes are so heavily informed by the same echo chamber we all exist in, it’s hard to feel like anything is new or exciting.
Fundamentally, I think this explains my exhausting relationship with Instagram. Sometimes you feel like reminding the world that you exist, and have an interesting life and great taste in things. Certainly, the likes and comments make you think you do. But as soon as the sweet, sweet high of validation wears off, you’re reminded of ‘what next?’. And so you turn to the Instagram explore page for suggestions and note the popular events and places which pop up. You look through other people’s stories and think that you too could have fun doing what they’re doing. You think of what interesting opinions you can post. But what you’re really looking for is the most likeable opinion you can post. One misstep and you’ve certainly upset someone somewhere. Yet perfectly curated, universally liked content still leaves you feeling a little flat — because the only way to achieve that is to follow the tried and tested and completely unoriginal and bland path. Somewhere along the line you learned how to play the game with all its exhausting rules.
