Look, how much energy do I need to put into Instagram, really? Who is it even for? The joke smart alecs like to make about Facebook to show how uninvested they are — “How else would I know what my friends had for breakfast?” — actually applies to Instagram. The photo-sharing app has a reputation as being a bit “basic”, a one-stop superficial shop for pictures of other people’s meals, outfits and holidays — an undeniably gendered perception derived from its popularity with women. Those “influencers” who were quick to embrace the platform and #monetise their followings turned out to be pioneers. Between launching in 2010 and hitting 700 million monthly users last month, Instagram has broadened its horizons to appeal to advertisers of all kinds, not just swimwear brands.
These days, it’s more than endless pictures of smoothie bowls and pretty sunsets. Make no mistake, there are still plenty of both (900k and 130.7 million posts respectively, at the time of writing), but the platform has noticeably fleshed out in the last year, introducing a “more immersive” shopping experience, direct messaging, live video, albums (multiple images per post) and “stories” (public-facing temporary feeds). Its increased capacity was reiterated to me by a reliable teenaged source, who said among his peers, Instagram was second only to Tinder as a “dating tool” — either by indicating romantic interest through a “liking spree” or verbalising it in the DMs (direct messages).
My own engagement with Instagram has remained fairly consistent in the last five years. I post every two or three days, scroll my feed for 10-15 minutes every day, and like every single photo of a particular Pekingese dog I have never met in person. The only difference is I don’t use filters anymore: They’re so 2012. The platform’s proliferation of new features suggests it’s gunning to be a destination in your daily journey through social media, not just a pit stop along the way. Recently, Instagram launched #HereForYou, a campaign to raise awareness on mental health issues, with a promotional clip in which attractive young “members of the Instagram community” talked about the support and connection they had found on the platform.
Of course that’s a valuable goal whichever way it comes about, and as someone who’s met many friends through social media, I’m not inclined to look on connections facilitated by the internet as lesser. But let’s not pretend that Instagram is not a site of commerce used by one million advertisers, which itself derives value from content created by its users for free. In that way, it’s the same as any social network, and the rapid changes it has undergone in the last year reflect the competitiveness of the space. Instagram is owned by Facebook, which uses it, WhatsApp and the tens of other companies it owns as secondary arms in its quest for domination.
And would you please explain it to me? Instagram appears to have been given over to Facebook’s ongoing mission to quash Snapchat (which it unsuccessfully tried to acquire) by baldly replicating Snapchat’s exact features. The tactic appears to be working: Last month, it announced that 200 million users were posting “stories” every day, surpassing Snapchat’s last public count of 161 million. Snapchat, for its part, has introduced new features, complicating the simple and ephemeral communication that was its original appeal.
Just to make quite sure the threat was neutralised, Facebook also added stories to its news feed, Messenger and WhatsApp, presenting (with Snapchat) up to five different destinations for your daily “stories” broadcast — too many even for teens, who made fun of it in a meme. Teens’ approval matters when children are these platforms’ future. Snapchat and Instagram are locked in a battle for the hearts and minds (and content) of Generation Z — today’s 18-year-olds and younger. And Snapchat’s first public earnings report last Wednesday, showing slower user growth and lower revenue than anticipated, suggests Instagram is winning.
Recent Pew internet research found Instagram use was particularly high among millennials, with roughly 60 per cent of United States online adults aged 18-29 (the youngest group surveyed) on the platform — but stats about younger teenagers are harder to come by. Instagram featured prominently in a 2016 Wired report about younger teenagers’ social media habits, with ‘likes’ — especially of selfies — a metric for approval. A friend who works with school-aged children says if you post a picture to Instagram, “everyone in your grade is meant to like it — and if they don’t like it, it’s seen as a massive diss and everyone notices”.
Some teenagers even have two accounts: A “finstagram” — as in, a “fake Instagram” — on top of their “rinstagram”. The concept was developed by image-conscious teens who found they could only be themselves on the platform before an audience of “low double figures”. Earlier this month Instagram itself followed suit, sending automated prompts to some users to create a second, more targeted “private account” through which to find relief from the picture-perfect presentation of your life necessitated — nay, demanded — by a following of hundreds. For Instagram, planting the seed of an alternative account among its users potentially pushes its user figures closer to one billion. To me, the addition of yet another presence on which to seem “more natural, less effortful” sounds exhausting.
How will I ever recover? With Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Messenger and WhatsApp all clamouring like open-beaked baby birds for our content, we are rapidly approaching the point where it will be possible to spend more time documenting our daily lives than living them. The last straw will be if Twitter confirms it will now have stories in 2017. (Please, no.) It’s the influencers I feel most sorry for, obligated by commercial demands to cross-post across platforms and explore every new network in case it just so proves to be one that takes off. (Speaking of, follow me on Mastodon!) The rest of us can pick and choose where we’re active, and how often.
For as long as @leothepeke continues to bring me joy, I will remain on Instagram. But it’s clear the platform’s own ambitions run far beyond dog breed-specific communities. Whether or not it achieves them is up to us.
— Guardian News & Media Ltd
Elle Hunt is a reporter for Guardian Australia.
