The Rise of the Not-So-Casual Instagram
Image Courtesy: Strike FSU
Photo dumps, mirror selfies, and unexpected landscape photos are all essential to the up-and-coming art of the casual Instagram. It stems from a nostalgia for the good old days of Instagram, when we weren’t so caught up in having the most impressive online persona. Instagram used to be for posting whatever blurry picture you took in the app just ten seconds ago to let people know what you were up to. In recent years, Instagram has been transformed into an omnipresent gauge for social relevance, cast against a backdrop of performative conformity to ritualistic and methodical posting. The casual Instagram trend has the best of intentions to reverse this culture of social media, but is it just as curated?
Popular Gen Z influencer Emma Chamberlain is the undisputed pioneer of casual Instagram. Her page is filled with glamorous photoshoots, her hair perfectly coiffed with makeup beautifully set. Right alongside these editorials is more authentic photos: the soup she ate for dinner last night, the view outside her kitchen window, and a book she just read. Even more famous users like Kendall Jenner have followed suit with casual posts of their own. The casual Instagram trend is rather wholesome. Meant to take the pressure off of posting, it turns social media into more of an online diary rather than a contest of who has the most perfect life. It brings us closer to the people viewing our pages, and it seems to create an authentic image of what our lives are really like.
Image Courtesy: Instagram
But it isn’t necessarily true.
Casual Instagram places pressure on posters to always have their life be perfect. When someone posts nine pictures of their recent trip to Hawaii, we think that they were living in the moment; the truth is, those nine pictures may have been handpicked out of hundreds. When you see a blurry mirror picture on your timeline and feel jealous of the poster’s natural beauty, what you don’t see is the thirty minutes it may have taken to snap that one shot.
I am guilty of this pretense, too. As embarrassing as it is to admit, I have my older sister double-check my drafts before I post. She makes sure the edits look perfect, the caption is fitting, and the overall effect isn’t too overdone. Part of this is just me being anxious about my online persona, but I know other social media users face the same struggles. We want to look fun and pretty, but not like we’re trying too hard.
Image Courtesy: Shutter Junkies
While casual Instagram is a valiant effort to take the pressure off posting, it tends to do the opposite. To make Instagram casual again, we’ve created an even more harmful environment. I believe that Instagram is an art; it’s a place to post the accomplishments you are most proud of, the edits you spent hours on, and the pictures you feel the most beautiful in. It’s fun to show people what you’re up to. We just have to remember that we all share the same pressure to curate the most impressive online persona—even in the age of the casual Instagram.
Strike Out,
Writer: Lydia Coddington
Editor: Noelle Knowlton
Graphic Designer: Madison Sloan
Tallahassee