We’re All Performers Now: The Instagramification of Everyday Life
We’re All Performers Now: The Instagramification of Everyday Life
We’re All Performers Now: The Instagramification of Everyday Life
Explore how social media reshapes our memories and the way we capture moments. Are we focusing more on aesthetics than real experiences? Join the discussion.
How Social Media Changed the Way We Remember
Something that’s very common and normal to us in today’s world is capturing moments through photos at an instant. Because of our phones, we can stop by wherever, whenever and voila: moment captured and uploaded to the Drive. A consequence of this tool plus social media has led to creating and capturing fake moments.
When I go to cafes or movie theatres or even just plain old college; I notice a lot of people who are there just to capture some sort of aesthetic photo which they can post on their Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, etc.. The growing pressure on the newer generation by social media has them believing that what they post on their story decides their happiness rather than the actual fun they had going to the café or movies with their friends.
The ability to capture our lives was a huge innovation that was used sparingly. When I see my parents’ photo albums, they’re all so carefully curated and genuine memories. There’s nothing fake, no forced “aesthetic”, just real moments. We have gone from keeping it simple and real, sharing these moments only with our family and friends to creating pleasing images to share with followers and strangers bending to the algorithm.
When Life Becomes a Performance
We transform mundane, daily acts into aesthetics. #wokeuplikethis #nofilter, proceeds to post a selfie with perfect hair and makeup. Don’t even get me started on the amount of sunset posts. Everyone has to find some dramatic way to make their sunset look special, adding something to the foreground, like a book or a girl or a bottle of alcohol. Something to show they’re living it up even if they’re not.
It's gotten to the point that people visit scenic locations, monuments, architecture that’s meant to be admired; all for the sake of… an image?
We spend so much time focusing on how our life is documented and perceived by a bunch of strangers that we forget to live. We don’t show interest in living in the moment rather we want to capture the moment in the most aesthetically pleasing manner.
Reclaiming Real Life
This creates feelings of envy, fomo, and burnout in a generation plagued by the online world. We feel incompetent and so far behind, all because we see some fake moment on a random person’s story. We watch a person’s story and posts and evaluate the type of person they are.
We feel like we have brand to maintain, posting about movies or sports or pop culture on news that everyone can access, just to show that we are a fan or to maintain some image that we have created regardless of even if we have watched that movie or that sport.
Even trends like photo dumps and blurry photos which act as though they encourage authenticity but even they are filtered and altered to fit an image of sorts.
It’s up to every individual to not fall into this trap and always ensure that we maintain a healthy distance from social media. We have grown into a world, especially in India, that the façade we create is the only thing that matters but it is important for all of us to make a conscious choice to embrace each moment and take the good with the bad and accept everything for what it is.
We must always prioritize how we feel rather than how we appear to others. We cannot let how others live their lives determine how we live ours. Everyone has their own path in the world and if we get hung up on some random influencer’s life, we may forget to live ours.
