Those Instagram photos are so original
While I consider myself a fairly open-minded, live-and-let-live type of guy, there are some things that still manage to irk me. As far as taking photographs is concerned, I cannot, for the life of me, fathom the following clichés:
1. Shoppers posing in front of designer boutiques
2. People jumping in unison
3. Teen girls doing duckface
4. Teen boys squinting their eyes to look sexy
Then again, maybe it’s your first time to own a phone that doubles as a nice enough camera. Or you’ve never seen a Balenciaga store before, so, like, carpe diem. Or perhaps you and your friends did spend your last beach holiday floating in mid-air. Who knows? Whatever your motives are, I suggest you rethink them before going nuts on Instagram. Please.
Beloved and Despised
What started as a somewhat novel idea has turned smartphone users into sort of amateur shutterbugs via a simple app. Snapped up by Facebook for $730 million just a few months ago, Instagram is a proven hit, beloved and despised in equal measure. But it’s not the photo-sharing service per se that has earned my ire. I’m more annoyed at the Instagram addicts who take pictures of mundane things and pass them off as something special.
I’m neither on Facebook nor Twitter so I haven’t been subjected to the digital drudgery of a so-called friend sitting you down and forcing you to gawk at every single photo he or she has taken. In fact, I even tried to have a good attitude about the whole Instagram thing at first. You work in an office building with windows? Hey, me, too! You ate breakfast today? You’re a star!
Things, however, got pretty old pretty fast once my Tumblr dashboard was overtaken by a succession of changing room selfies and pics of feet clad in Toms, all with distorted coloring or a faux sepia effect. An unfollowing spree was in order. Cross Process has turned into the Comic Sans of photo filters.
Cue that nickelback Song
College Humor had something to say about these characters and their sad attempts at making their lives appear quirky and intriguing. “Look At This Instagram,†the comedy site’s hilarious Instagram-bashing video, takes off from Nickelback’s 2005 song Photograph, which they deemed ripe for a parody. The lyrics poke fun at overused picture subjects, from plane wings and fireworks to cats in every possible position. “Started out as a lemon tart, then my phone went and made it art,†a guy croons à la Chad Kroeger while using his iPhone. “I’m the first one to think of that†is the sweeping line that sums up these Instagrammers’ lack of originality.
Of course, it’s a free world. But those who remain evangelical about Instagram should exercise a little more restraint and flex a little more creativity. After all, when you think about it, does the Internet really need another photo of a sunset?
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