Instagram was first launched as a social media app in 2010. Since then, it has transformed from a place to casually share photos into a highly curated system that is influenced around the modern culture of public image online. What first was a platform for sharing images of one’s life has now evolved into a space where users consciously design profile pages that are the digital versions of themselves, carefully edited and placed for it to be publicly consumable.
Instagram profiles were built simplistically to get to know a person. There is a classic slot for a profile picture, a short biography, a grid view for posts and other functions such as Stories and Highlights. Within this simplistic design lies a framework where a culture of self-presentation can and has slowly grown into. Over the years, many user’s pages have turned into less of a scrapbook and more into a portfolio or public marketing of themselves.
Starting from the biography, the limit of characters turns this section into a shortened statement of identity, whether that is sharing school and graduation years, accomplishments, quotes or messages that are meaningful to oneself. The style of the text written can also show sides of personalities, as some use stylistic fonts as well.
The grid layout of posts serve as one of the most defining features of Instagram. Unlike other social media apps that have relatively more skippable or scrolling feeds, Instagram’s grid view of a person’s posts emphasizes the need for more cohesion between the account, making the users more prone to curate their posts to fit a certain aesthetic. Preview, Planoly, Plann and other apps have been built around this purpose, to let you see how photos work together before posting and how the post covers look in grid view compared to their previous posts. Some users even adopt filters or color pallets in their posts to create a theme or aesthetic. These patterns are rarely accidental and the pressure to maintain a visual consistency that reflects the person onto us shows the unspoken understanding that instagram accounts have turned into more of a market place of first impressions and identities.
“I think with an Instagram you can make it public and then have it formatted to a certain sort of way so people, when they first see your page they’re like ‘oh this is the kind of person they are’ and they match your aesthetic,” FHS sophomore Arshpreet Ruprah said.
The clearest proof of Instagram’s performative culture could be the common and widespread creation of both “main” and “spam” accounts. Many users like to use their main accounts for the public eye, which are usually followed by classmates or peers. On these accounts, posts tend to be more calculated and edited for the purpose of cohesion whereas spam accounts are typically private and restricted to close friends. Many users use these types of accounts to show the other sides of them, from unfiltered photos, inside jokes, candid moments and more.
“I feel like I need a spam [account] just so that I can really post things to my friends and stuff like that without feeling embarrassed in any way,” FHS sophomore Livia Isaksson said.
The existence of this consistent dual management of accounts by many users shows a constant story, that authenticity on Instagram is often reserved for smaller and closer audiences due to the evolution of the culture of Instagram. Stories and Highlights add in even more complexity as to how users manage visibility. Stories are a functionality of Instagram where a user can post something on Instagram and it disappears after 24 hours. This allows users to post something without the fear of disliking it later or being permanent and changing the accounts aesthetic. Highlights, however, are a tool that allows users to select certain stories into curated categories on their page. Many of these are labeled and categorized with respect to different parts of one’s life with some potential categories being pictures of themselves to photos with friends at different locations. With the addition of Highlights, users are not only allowed to document smaller moments from their life but are also allowed to hand pick specific stories, deciding which moments are worthy of permanence on their page that fit their curated aesthetics.
Instagram has been a strong illustrator of the evolution of purpose behind some social media accounts compared to others. Through curated grids, intentional bios, categorized Highlights and the distinction between main and spam accounts, users manage how they are perceived by their different audiences.
