
Influencers Are Abandoning the Instagram Look - cageface
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/04/influencers-are-abandoning-instagram-look/587803/
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md224
> In fact, many teens are going out of their way to make their photos look
> worse. Huji Cam, which make your images look as if they were taken with an
> old-school throwaway camera, has been downloaded more than 16 million times.
> “Adding grain to your photos is a big thing now,” says Sonia Uppal, a
> 20-year-old college student. “People are trying to seem candid. People post
> a lot of mirror selfies and photos of them lounging around.”

What I find interesting is that "making your photos look worse" isn't new at
all: it's the foundation of the "vintage" vibe that filters have been
emulating since the beginning. So what's actually new here is the _kind_ of
imperfections being introduced.

It makes sense: as media capture reaches maximum fidelity, creative expression
increasingly involves the purposeful choice of infidelities. Imperfection has
always had a place in art, but usually it involves failing to avoid a natural
mistake; for modern digital media, on the other hand, it's about subtracting
from perfection rather than failing to reach it.

EDIT: Thinking about this further, it's possible that I'm focusing on the
wrong thing... perhaps the dominating factor is nostalgia, which just happens
to involve "imperfections" in this case because the target of the nostalgia is
a medium (photography) which has been undergoing an improvement in fidelity.
For all I know, perhaps one day the dominating aesthetic will be driven by
nostalgia for "boring" filter-free high-fidelity images!

~~~
divbzero
> It makes sense: as media capture reaches maximum fidelity, creative
> expression increasingly involves the purposeful choice of infidelities.

This reflects what occurred in European art from the 1850s through the turn of
the century: paintings becoming less “pixel perfect” as Realism [1] gave way
first to Impressionism [2] and then to Expressionism [3].

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism_(arts)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism_\(arts\))

[2]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressionism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressionism)

[3]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expressionism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expressionism)

~~~
tnolet
I take a slight issue with initial description of Realism in the wiki article.
Realism was much more grounded in depicting real life, real people, instead of
kings and wars and Jesus etc. It was much more of a socio political statement
than just "painting things as life like as possible".

The paintings were still very staged and stylized. (I have an MA in Art
History which really helps centering Div's with CSS)

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igthrowaway
So the over-edited atheistic is over, but the fake candid atheistic is in? But
the true content stays the same - more beautiful people trying to convince
others they need to buy products to become that beautiful. I've used ig since
the beginning and it's only getting younger, thinner and more on the nose. A
lot of my friends have serious body images because of who they follow (even
their own friend circles have a weird competitiveness about it).

~~~
SiempreViernes
Yeah, two out of five "authentic" pictures showcased have almost the same
weird leg-up pose that _definitely_ didn't happen by accident.

But I guess authentic is always appreciated, but not something you have free
access to if posing for pictures is your job.

~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
Not that I want to encourage the sort of behavior described in the article,
but the leg-up bit may just be a case of convergent evolution. The ladies
pictures are trying to show off their shoes, which doesn't work well without a
leg up if you're taking a selfie.

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dvtrn
I’m a bona fide by birth member of this generation and I feel lightyears out
of touch with it. Or maybe the way it’s described in so much reporting so
often just results in an eye roll of complete jaded disinterest and mild
cynicism.

Makes me ponder sometimes if the phenomenon happens across other generations
or if the ever present nature of having everyone’s “stuff” so accessible
online merely amplifies this sense of generational malaise.

~~~
misterdoubt
That's pretty typical, because the "generational" stereotypes are nearly
entirely nonsense. What percentage of "Generation X" actually went around
wearing flannel and rolling their eyes all day? How many Boomers actually wore
tie dye every day, smoked pot, and lived in free love communes?

Generational characterizations exist solely to sell books, write silly
columns, and make older people feel justified when they dismiss and disrespect
the younger people.

~~~
bonoboTP
It's an American thing. Many countries don't have such named generations and
corresponding stereotypes. I'm Hungarian and we do have "old people"
stereotypes but no named list of generations.

When I hear this Gen X etc stuff from the US, it feels a bit like
horoscopes...

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Izkata
For the recent generations, with some limited exceptions, it pretty much is.

The early named ones were based around major social/economic issues that
influenced them as they grew up - WWI, Great Depression, WWII - and then Baby
Boomers created a sort of wave pattern in the population that made for easy
groupings into the future.

That wave pattern has since become much flatter, if not disappeared
completely, but the idea is pretty appealing so it persists. You will
occasionally see it start to break down though, for example with "Millennial"
being split into young and old.

~~~
adrianratnapala
But then it would be surprising if the emergence of a new medium for everyday
social interaction doesn't count as "major social/economic issue" that creates
just such a wave.

So yes, I'd expect the "millenials" to be different. I agree with you though
that "Gen X" etc. are just a smooth and unremarkable cultural evolution from
what began with "Boomer" parents.

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JDiculous
This article feels like an advertisement for Emma Chamberlain.

This whole "influencer" IG culture is like fast food - no content or
substance. It does seem like we may be hitting some kind of peak as people
realize that devoting one's time to following random strangers' vain photos on
the internet doesn't actually increase one's well-being.

~~~
basetop
It's not just the "influencers". It's the entire media system. 99.99% of
traditional media and social media are just fillers with no substance or
value.

And we are nowhere close to peak. Look at the hysteria developing on
traditional media and social media for the pending "royal" birth.

But then again, who am I to judge. I'm on a social media complaining about
social media.

~~~
kabacha
> 99.99% of traditional media and social media are just fillers with no
> substance or value.

I absolutely and completely disagree with you here. 99.99% media is filler?
Just look over the things you read through out the day and tell me it doesn't
have more substance than a picture of a girl in an obscure outfit captioned
"it's cold outside today".

Today I read about game of thrones theories about newest episode, read news
about a terrorist being stopped in France, upcoming events in my town,
checking what people selling on facebook market and what's the current
employment state in crypto world etc. etc. I can actually explain substance
and value in all of these posts. Can you explain value in the instagram post?
Other than some questionable social-well-being-acceptance pseudo-science?

To claim that 99.99% of all media and social media is like the absolutely
absurd instagram influencer posts is just completely and utterly silly.

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willbw
This article has cherry picked these photos, if you look at Emma Chamberlain's
instagram for instance you will see many 'typical' instagram photos that you
would see on a girl with millions of followers - it's just that they are
occasionally interspersed by a silly photo of two.

[https://www.instagram.com/_emmachamberlain](https://www.instagram.com/_emmachamberlain)

There's nothing wrong with that this of course, I have no problem with people
posting whatever they want. I just think the article is overstating the shift
in content.

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mattlondon
Yep - just took a look and there is a lot of stuff there that is clearly
staged and not at all "candid". Like she is sitting on a basket ball net 10ft
in the air in perfect lighting from 3 separate angles, followed by another
post of her and someone else wearing matching outfits and doing that vapid
mouth-slightly-open distant-stare pose (again from multiple angles).

So candid. #nofilter.

It's fine - I've not got a problem with someone wanting to have their photo
taken. But trying to pass that off as anything different than what has gone
before seems disengenius. Sure, perhaps the _style_ of photos have changed,
but then styles and fashions have always changed in everything from clothes
and houses through to pets and holidays.

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gaoshan
So the same cycles of fashion and pop culture continue as they always have.
What used to be shiny, colorful and crisp should now be dull, muted and soft.
What used to be big should now be small, what used to be soft should now be
hard, what used to be refined should now be raw, etc., etc. ad nauseam.

One thing we can be sure of, it will be back (before going away again only to
return)

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mromanuk
Better would be to say: “the Instagram aesthetics is changing”

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switchstance
Are _

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FabHK
aesthetics | iːsˈθɛtɪks, ɛsˈθɛtɪks | (US also esthetics)

plural noun [usually treated as singular]

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skilled
Spending your days to appeal for likes on an imagination-based platform seems
a little excessive. A great example of how a platform could be used for
something great, but isn't.

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908087
The best use I've found for it is figuring out which of the people I know are
fake, shallow and attention starved... and then avoiding those people.

~~~
berbec
Cat memes

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Jhsto
> She says wall photos had become boring to her audience anyway, who are more
> interested in entertaining Instagram Stories than flat photos.

So it seems like the goofy Snapchat posts have taken over Instagram walls
organically after Stories was introduced. Bad for Snap I guess.

To elaborate, Snapchat was all about My Stories, with no way to add still
pictures to a wall. Now, look at Balenciaga's Instagram profile, which could
as well be snapshots taken mid-Snaps.

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imjk
This is the most non-story story I’ve ever read. Instagram has nearly a
billion users. So there’s a segment of those users that seems to like a
certain aesthetic. Great. There are millions of other users who have other
aesthetic preferences.

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Theodores
Annoying how the article is illustrated with different Instagrammers than
those cited in the article.

This Instagram thing operates at different levels, I live near a popular
photography spot for selfies due to the awesome view. That isn't going to ever
become unpopular. However, 5 - 10 years ago you wouldn't have had people doing
selfies there with the posing that goes with it. People would have once taken
a picture of the view, not a picture of themselves that just so happens to
have the view in the back. This is what has changed with Instagram and social
media. What was people's outlet for this casual narcissism before?

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mikojan
If you're uploading more landscapes than selfies I'm going to unfollow you.
Few people on instagram understand themselves as photographers or visual
artists and so the most interesting subject naturally is themselves since they
have priority access to that.

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davidivadavid
That's just another iteration of the pendulum between candid/staged
photography. It's basically been going on since the beginning of photography,
but the author seems oblivious to that?

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davidivadavid
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictorialism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictorialism)

~~~
caprese
Interesting, I just realized that I am emulating 1860s pictorialism, instead
of 1860s limitations in technology for vintage photos.

That's hella meta. But I can also accept being a pictorialist, as much as an
impressionist isn't just emulating a vintage style but is subscribing to an
entire genre.

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TheOtherHobbes
There's definitely a niche waiting to be filled by AI-generated Instagram
influencers. #thisinfluencerdoesnotexist

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PebblesRox
It’s already happening:
[https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/automat...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/automated-
instagram-influencer-bot-free-meals)

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Gatsky
This article, its protagonists and the whole influencer-industrial complex is
the height of vacuity.

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Invictus0
In the right mindset, this article reads like excellent satire.

~~~
jasonm23
Nathan Barley.

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tmaly
I started on Instagram back in 2012 doing the daily photo competition with my
DSLR. I lost interest after a while. Reading this article, I cannot believe
the platform has turned into that.

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asdff
It really hasn't, it's just one corner of it. Binned away by hashtags. The
photography community is still absolutely massive. Memes are probably the
biggest sector by %. Personally I only follow people I know and nat geo, so I
only see these when I accidentally slip my thumb and tap one in the search
page.

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FrozenVoid
They are trying to be authenthic and natural, because the "Instagram
influencer" became a cultural trope thats too easily recognized(a polished
walking ad): they are pretending to be indie, quirky and non-mainstream -
capturing the DiY aesthethic to use as prop to establish their "common man"
persona.

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jayd16
Seems to me its mostly a case of kids being kids. How many 15 year olds are
going to have "hauled DSLR cameras to the beach and mastered photo editing to
get the perfect shot."

There's the usual counter culture vibe of trying to be different but if you
tried for a bad pose with a bad filter that's not any different than trying
for what was a "good" photo 5 years ago.

tl;dr 80s pop is out. Its all about 90s grunge.

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code_duck
It is expected to see changes in fashion over time. Pinterest isn’t going to
die because peoples’ tastes change, and neither is Instagram.

I also expect to see changes in social network. It’s unlikely that Instagram
will be on top in 10 years, although it could definitely be another
app/network/format owned by Facebook.

Anectodally, I’ve only used Instagram to promote my art and to network as a
hobby with other people who like photos of desolate abandoned-looking
buildings. The usage of people in my network is unlikely to change based on
popular tastes.

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gdubs
Trends are cyclical. Something is cool until everyone else does it. Then, kids
are rocking Steely Dan again and dressing like extras from Seinfeld. What’s
interesting here is how the physical world has been changed by the digital
world. You can’t just stick that instagramable bathroom in the back of the
closet like it’s a paisley tie.

But I have to agree with the comment that this feels like an ad for Emma
Chamberlain, who doesn’t exactly need it, because every other post in my feed
is from an Emma fan account.

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infinitezest
I'm confused... Huji Cam looks like a rehash of the filters that have been
available in IG for it's entire existence. And hasn't the "faux-fi" thing been
super hip for like... over a decade now? Granted, hyper-staged photos have
also been pretty popular over the last few years but I never thought the "new"
style outlined in the article really went out of style.

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coldcode
Maybe I am missing something, but what is an "influencer" really? Last I
remember these were called advertisers.

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p0nce
Marketing that pose as authentic is in fashion (I mean this in a Out of Topic
way, no relationship with Instagram). In my segment "technical" arguments that
present easy-to-believe falsehoods win customers.

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taternuts
To be honest, I can't really tell much of a difference between the examples
they list in the article vs. the usual influencer.

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m3kw9
Trends come and go, and here it is

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dpflan
I just noticed this when looking at my tabs:

The article title is "The Instagram Aesthetic Is Over".

The document's title is "Influencers Are Abandoning the Instagram Look"
(`document.title`).

The document title seems more informative.

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dang
Ok, changed.

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dpflan
Ah, thanks. I was mainly pondering why there is a difference.

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dang
HTML doc titles are often more accurate and neutral than the visible title on
a page, so this swap is something we do often. Why is that? I'm not sure.
Since it's mostly the big media properties that do this, it's possible the two
are written by different people with different goals.

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golergka
So, basically, whatever Balenciaga has been doing for quite a while now
started to catch on. Who would've thought

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keyle
What a load of crap. Someone had nothing better to write than a counter
argument to a non-argument.

Instagram is a good product and it's gotten to where it is now being a good
and clever design as is. Making changes for the sake of being hip is what
would send it to oblivion, like many competitors have done and fell.

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majos
Since you're just getting downvoted -- the article is arguing that the
aesthetic of Instagram photos is changing from manicured tableaux to candids
(albeit, it seems, pretty staged candids), not that the platform itself is
changing.

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keyle
ok, thank you for that, I admit I rolled eyes and skimmed that one.

