

Instagram for non-believers - c1sc0
http://fr.anc.is/2012/04/13/instagram-for-non-believers/

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jgrahamc
This is slightly off topic, but the reason I never started using Instagram is
related to the reason I quit Facebook: the continuous stream of ego-stroking,
look-at-me status updates and photographs was just tedious. The narcissism in
all these updates, check ins, and shares is unbelievable.

I can fully understand why Instagram was worth $1B. It enabled enhanced ego-
stroking because it took tedious photographs and made them look like they were
cool without any effort.

~~~
yock
Frankly, this says more about the people you follow than the platforms
themselves. If you aren't following ego-maniacs (and, admittedly, stay out of
the "popular posts" type sections) then there should be no problem.

Don't blame the platform for enabling people to be who they really are.

~~~
jgrahamc
_Don't blame the platform for enabling people to be who they really are._

I think the issue here is that McLuhan was absolutely right when describing
how the medium actually transforms and filters the messages that are sent
through it. It's worth reading "Understanding Media" (or "The Medium is the
Massage") because one of his key points is that the apparent content of the
messages being sent across a medium is a distraction for what's really going
on (the societal change brought about by the medium itself).

In the case of social networking the medium is broadcasting a message that
it's normal to continuously stream updates, pictures etc. about your daily
life as if the people following you cared about that. The fact that they do
care about it is simply a sign that the medium is shaping society to the
social network's particular medium.

Also, it's worth considering the difference between a one-to-one sharing of
something (let's say a picture of your child shared with your mother) and the
broadcasting of information to a chosen social group.

The former is a personal interaction which has many subtexts (proud parent
showing off their child, wanting to connect with your own parent), whereas the
broadcast does not have the same depth. It's just "look at me".

~~~
GavinB
Let me start by saying that I have the same gut reaction that you do.

On the other hand, isn't this position essentially saying that because the
things in your life are similar to others and not surprising, they aren't
valuable and worthy of documentation?

What's wrong with "look at me?" Am I not worthy of being looked at by my
friends because I haven't done something remarkable? Just because my kid isn't
really all that different from every other kid, or thousands of other people
were also at that concert (and my photos are mediocre at best). . .

And if I share something actually remarkable that I've done, it's just
"bragging," right?

I don't log in to facebook very often. But when I do, what else should I
expect to see but what's going on in their lives?

My instinct is the same as yours--to hold back and be private. To not share my
life with others, because they might be bored. To not document my everyday
triumphs and failures, because they're not really that different from anyone
else's.

But I have a sneaking feeling we might be wrong about this one. Maybe our
boring human lives _are_ worth documenting and sharing.

~~~
bjcy
I agree with you in some regards and I think this is a great point (not
because I agree with you, of course ;) .)

However, I think jgrahamc and you are speaking to different things. There is
documentation, much like our parents did when we went to the beach as a
toddler and we took that picture with mom and the sandcastle, and then there
is personal curation that lives in narcissism and strikes me as dishonest (or
too honest, perhaps).

There is sharing triumphs and failures, and then there is bounding triumph and
failure with one's personal accounts as to make the world about the documenter
instead of about the documenter as part of, well, the world.

I'm not sure I have this idea completely worked out as this seems subjective
and who can really judge another's motives with absolute certainty. All I know
is there is a fine line and we would be careful to hold ourselves to a
standard that encourages sharing life without making life about ourselves.

After all, you can't be open source (which we LOVE) when you're all closed-
sourcey yourself.

Anyway, just a little food for thought that came into my head with your
observations.

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tatsuke95
> _For non-believers: Instagram removed features to make sharing pics simple
> again_.

Nope, I still don't get it.

I've never used Instagram, so bear with me: when I take a picture with my
phone, I click on the share button, pick where I want to share (Facebook,
Twitter, email, text) and I'm done. Pretty simple. What is Instagram removing
from that process to make sharing more simple?

Now maybe I can explain why people are astonished with what Instagram was
bought for: they built an apparently amazing product, but it wasn't something
that couldn't have been built by Facebook (or any other number of companies)
rapidly and cheaply. It was the user base. Essentially, Instagram sold your
"attention" to Facebook for $1BB.

~~~
barredo
> What is Instagram removing from that process to make sharing more simple?

You mentioned three steps.

1) > I take a picture with my phone

2) > I click on the share button

3) > pick where I want to share (Facebook, Twitter, email, text)

With Instagram

1) take the picture

Done, filters are optional, and the sharing is built in. Also, reducing the
size (to i think... 600*600 pixels or so) makes it incredibly fast to upload
even in crappy edge/gprs networks.

~~~
glanch
Uh, what? I don't even get to decide whether or not the photo is worth sharing
after I take it? That's actually worse.

~~~
mladenkovacevic
Didn't you read the article? Damn the worth! We're all unique snowflake
rockstars and all our meals and coffee mugs are blessed by our specialness.
Share all the pictures!! (insert crazy meme guy with a paintbrush) Join the
photo revolution man.

~~~
Lockyy
It's a girl. It's a brush. It's from Hyperbole and a Half.[1]

It's the overly used image that bothers me most because that person needs the
traffic and their image is pretty popular yet they never get accreditation for
it.

[1] [http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/this-is-
why-...](http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/this-is-why-ill-
never-be-adult.html)

~~~
mladenkovacevic
Omg that is hilarious. Like a billion times more hilarious than a funny but
mindless "it's hilarious because everyone is in on it" meme. Thanks for
pointing me in that direction.

Ironically this is relevant to the discussion. Memes are kind of like
Instagram (I imagine there are other similar phenomenons). They share the
instant gratification of a trigger-like social connection between a huge mass
of people, but lack all the fulfillment and self-discovery that REAL content
can bring. But it's really not surprising that things like Instagram and memes
thrive in the digial-social space. Most people will generally get a much
higher response to a "MY CAT HAZ GLASSES!" fake polaroid, then to share
something like "Hi all my friends, I read this insightful 5 page article on
adulthood and I think you all might get something out of it too."

It sort of reflects a broader-scale problem with people just not having time
(or not wanting to bother) with discussing things like sex, politics, art,
religion, relationships... They'd rather just share some Ha-Has, small talk
and get drunk. I think this is especially pronounced in North America and in
large urban centers.

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JCB_K
What I think many Instagram critics misunderstand, is that Instagram is not
about the filters. Sure, they're added value for many people, but at some
point they'll go out of fashion, and I'm sure the people at Instagram know
that damn well.

The real value of Instagram is the social network behind it. Photos are the
easiest way of sharing what you're doing. You don't need to write a word, you
just hold out your phone, snap a picture and upload it. And from the other
side it's exactly the same, you don't even need to read to know what your
friends are doing, you just glance over the picture stream.

Obviously you can do exactly the same on Facebook and Twitter, but by
focussing on just photos Instagram has cut away all the clutter. And if you
want to share what you're doing (or should I say seeing?) with friends who are
not on Instagram, you can still flick the sharing switch.

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devinfoley
I disagree.

Instagram is not about making the photo production process easier. It's about
making the photo consumption process easier, so that the photos you take get
more attention from others (and you have more fun).

You could share your photos to Facebook or Twitter instead, but when users
view their streams from those other sites, they're confronted with either a
sea of text (Twitter) or a sea of mixed content in non-standard formats
(Facebook). Catching up on your Facebook feed is impossible, so nobody does
it. Twitter is a bit better because the posts are in a standard format, but
still, reading tweets takes a bit of time.

Contrast this with Instagram. I'm following over 200 people and I can catch up
on an entire day's worth of photos in about 5 minutes. Because it's faster to
view an image than read a tweet, and because of the standard post format,
Instagram is literally the fastest way possible for me to see what my friends
and family have been up to.

To me, that's the real value of Instagram.

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ryandvm
I'm not a heavy Instagram user, but I like the author's assertion. Instagram
is so popular because of what it isn't - it's not another photo manager. It's
just a totally frictionless way to share photos.

~~~
c1sc0
I didn't put it in the blog post for fear of making it too long, but one
example of where "no choice" is a better option is in the image format:
Instagram eliminates the question of "Should I shoot this in portrait or in
landscape?".

~~~
marginalboy
That's a "feature"? It's probably the most aggravating characteristic of
Instagram for me, and it's the reason I don't take all my pics with the app...

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eliben
ISTM that Instragram appealed to FB simply because Google+ has a very
convenient automatic upload of all pictures taken by the phone. You can then
easily choose which circle or person(s) to share these pics with, or not share
them at all and just know they're safely tucked in the cloud. AFAIK FB didn't
have this feature. I'd say that at $1bln they overpaid, though.

