How many people do you see taking pictures on
their phones of their food? How often to you see people instead of absorbing
the real life images of rainbows, sunsets, sunrises etc. whip out their phone
and say, “This is going to look great on my Instagram!”
Created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger in 2010, Instagram was originally a photo
sharing sight, however recently uses are now able to upload videos. When
uploading a photo/video you are able to alter the colours using a variety of
filters to enhance either facial features or dramatize a sunset. There are
hundreds of aps you can down load for free to enhance, draw on, and shape
differently your photos before the final upload on Instagram. In the photo below are the effects that uses can filter their photos with before uploading.
Instagram is like a visual genre, telling our
audience’s personal stories, triumphs and special moments, or even what we had
for lunch. The idea of Instagram relates to a passage in Twenty Five Great Essays
by Robert Di Yanni (unknown year) where he states that ‘An essay can be about
anything. And essayists have written about every topic under the sun, from
their own experience to what the have read and observed in the world, to their
imaginings.’ People can have their Instagram about anything and everything,
just like an essay. Some might have an account purely biased on their
dedication to a celebrity whereas some people upload photos of everyday of
their year abroad. No matter what people post, someone will look, just as
someone would read an essay about what they are interested in. If you don’t
like what someone posts about you’d ‘unfollow’ them, just as if you didn’t like
what an essayists was writing about you would pick a different essay to read.
For those who have accounts, you continue to write
your own story every time you upload a photo/video. Whether you change what you
upload or you begin a different profile, you continue to write your own ‘essay’.
Reference list
Di Yanni. R. (year unknown). Twenty-Five Great Essays, Second Edition.
New York, America: Penguin Academics
Photo retrieved from google images.
I agree, Instagram is like an essay as it also tells a story and I have many friends that use this social network more than Facebook. Just by following them on Instagram I can see what they have had for lunch or what they have purchased, or even where they are at a certain point of time and that is their own story for the day. I also like that I have the freedom to peruse through without making any comments or joining in with the photo conversations. The filters you can use to improve the appearance are also handy as I think it can make a dull picture look more inviting. Di Yanni has stated, “Most essays, even the most personal ones, are composites and blends” (Di Yanni 2005). Therefore, Instagram is a personal essay only letting your selected friends see your photos.
ReplyDeleteReference
Di Yanni, R. (2005). Introduction: Reading and writing essays, in Twenty-five great essays
(pp. 1-30). New York. NY: Penguin Academics.