.

history and evolution

Instagram launched in 2010 as an independent app created by Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom. In 2012, the founders sold Instagram to Facebook to expand their user base as well as to lower product development costs by sharing Facebook’s resources. Instagram benefits from Facebook’s ad sales rep and operates on the same ad platform.The decision to sell Instagram to Facebook resulted in the app sky-rocketing from a lifestyle platform that reached hundreds of thousands to a premiere social media app that reaches on average of 500 million people daily, which is double the number of active users on Twitter and Snapchat. Further, Instagram’s impact extends beyond posting photos. The app is a source for new jobs including Instagram models, photographers, and retailers, and it is the top platform that celebrities and influencers use to promote and deliver their content.

.

following snapchat trends

Despite its dominance in the social media world, the development of features on Facebook and Instagram is driven by the pressure to follow Snapchat’s trends. In 2013, Snapchat developed 24 hour “stories”. Then in August 2016, Instagram released their own version of “stories” to remain relevant among teens and millennials. Krieger and Systrom explained that the motive for adding the “stories” feature was to show the “moments between the moments” and to bring users closer to one another. In July 2019, Instagram added another story feature: “close friends”, a subset of Instagram stories that allows users to post to a smaller group of followers of their choosing. Other users can’t request to join the close friends group, and only the person who created the group has access to who’s on the list, which removes the pressure to add or remove people.

.

creating a positive space to escape

One of the main reasons for Instagram’s success is the feeling of escaping reality when scrolling through a curated feed. Instagram’s content rises above other dominating social media platforms as producing content that is visually and emotionally appealing to users. The app’s photo-focused platform doesn’t bombard users with politics and reality which are topics typically found in Twitter and Facebook. The development of smaller circles within “posting” behaviors aims to provide opportunities for users to feature realistic content, but the trend to present curated content to wider audiences still dominates. In 2016, Instagram developed a feature that facilitates the process of switching accounts to address the growing number of users who manage multiple accounts. The feature is particularly useful for users with a “rinsta” and a “finsta”, a non-curated personal account typically with a smaller following. While Instagram promotes a friendly and aesthetic experience, its features have evolved in a way that allows its users the option to exist in reality while still defaulting to the artificial and pleasing realm of Instagram.

.

influence on identity

defining "identity"

Identity, also referred to as self-identity or self-concept, can be defined as a “collection of beliefs about oneself". The elements that construct one’s identity can be considered to be 1) self-image, or the view one has of themselves 2) self-esteem, or the value one has for themselves or 3) the ideal self, or how you wish you were really like. In addition, identity can be perceived as a social construction or performance, in which “who” we are is the result of repeated, patterned human actions. In this sense, our identity is always in flux and “becoming”. Our identity also changes depending on social and cultural contexts.

"online" identities

Our identities are comprised of several different elements, including our academic performance, gender identity, sexual identity, and racial identity. In our world today, communication on the Internet is an overwhelmingly large part of our everyday lives. As a result, an important element of our identity is now our online identity.

on instagram?

In terms of the effect of Instagram on the identity creation and development, we can approach it from different perspectives:

.

unprecedented degree of self-determination

With the resources offered by features on Instagram, we can very easily create, control, and modify our identities. We can also address new, diverse and potentially global audiences. And these effects are just as permanent as our offline selves. There is great fluidity in creating an online Instagram profile; we have control over our username, our profile photo, the types of photos we post. Individuals can explore their identity by either cultivating a specific part of it online or experimenting with traits that are inhibited offline. We can also construct multiple identities by creating multiple accounts targeted to different audiences. Instagram’s account switch feature allows users to switch to a different account (one can have up to five Instagram accounts) with the push of a button. Individuals often have both a “rinsta” (real instagram) and finsta (fake instagram).

rinstas and finstas

The rinsta is their default account, the account where they carefully curate and manage their online public persona. These are often where individuals present their socially desirable self online. The photos are often captured in the best lighting and wittiest captions. It is associated more strongly with performing and curating an identity. In contrast, the finsta stands in as someone’s secondary account. It is treated and perceived as more private than a rinsta, with posts intended to only be seen by one’s closest friends. They have a much smaller and selective group of followers. Posts often include inside jokes, unflattering selfies, or highly specific memes for a friend group.

controlling our narratives

These multiple accounts can be understood as opportunities for individuals to engage in this form of identity exploration and impression management. For example, on one’s finsta, individuals often feel like they are able to express themselves without worrying about the unwritten social rules that one considers when expressing yourself to a larger, public or semi-public audience. In this sense, Instagram allows us to produce a narrative of our lives, choose what to remember and what to contribute to our own mythos. While the phenomenon of creating our own narrative is not new, Instagram acts as an extension of it. This type of experimentation can be valuable in the development of a sense of who one is, who one can be or our “possible selves”, and how one fits into different contexts.

.

limitations to recreating our identities

outside influences

On Instagram, like other social networking sites, friends serve as accountability and feedback. Real life friends and acquaintances can pick up on differences between our online and offline selves. Comments and likes also give others the capabilities to publicly give feedback, and thus potentially call out the inaccuracy of one's online identity compared to their offline counterpart.

There are also clear social norms that are established which influence your freedom to present one’s ‘ideal self’ which are embedded in the rinsta and finsta; there’s still a perceived pressure to act in a certain way. For example, people expect to see raw, unpolished photos on the finsta. Seeing a carefully edited selfie would be off-putting and strange.

a 'permanent' past

It is also harder to bury past versions of ourselves. We’re not the only ones posting; our friends and family also chronicle our lives, usually without our consent. Images are also more persistent. Photos on Instagram, like other content on the internet, are more permanent and pervasive. This could have a potentially negative influence on the development of our identity.

Society allows adolescents to go through a period of trial and error during their development, in which they are permitted to take risks without fear of consequence, in order to clarify a “core self". With applications such as Instagram, this stage is no longer as private. Mistakes are often scaled to monumental proportions and put forever on our permanent records.

Living under such pressures can feel limiting rather than liberating; this may greatly hinder an individual’s ability to experiment freely or remake themselves. The right to detach from one’s self, or stay the same if we want to, is under threat.

.

blurring the lines of reality

With the amount of content posted on Instagram everyday, it is becoming harder and harder to recognize what is true and what is false. Celebrities and influencers can very easily promote a product or lifestyle to naive consumers. Whether this be through photoshopping images and videos, promoting unhealthy and unsafe products, it's effects are seen in how "normal users" choose to portray themselves as well.

.

false friendships

The use of close friend’s stories and finsta’s goes beyond just the regular person’s unfiltered photo album. Exploitation of close friends features in regards to Instagram influencers in particular, has been used as a new form of a subscription, to falsify the idea of being close to an online personality. For example, Gabi Abrao has “close to 94,000 followers, about 400 of whom are her “Close Friends,” a privilege won by paying $3.33 a month on Patreon.

Audiences have become willing to trade a couple dollars for tiers of friendships curated by their favorite influencers. Live streamer Jovan Hill offers access to a private Instagram for 10$ a month, iMessage texts and Facetime for $50 a month, and maybe even lunch if he happens to be in a subscriber’s city. The concept of being a “close friend” through viewership of one’s private Instagram creates a fantasythat friendship can easily be bought through monetary transaction.

.

body image

In 2015, Essa O'Neill , an 18 year old Instagram influencer with 612,000 followers, deleted over 2,000 posts and drastically changed the captions of the remaining 96. O'Neill was being paid around $1,300 for each promotional post, but keeping up with trying to make herself look "hot" and "sellable" became an obsession. In Jubilee's Youtube video :"Instagram vs Runway Model: Can Anyone Be a Model?" Instagram model Victoria Nguyen admits that she is fine with reshaping her body with photoshop as long as the results aren't too drastic. There is an aspect of changing one's body just enough. To the point where it is flattering but unnoticeable.

In conjunction with the growth of Instagram, there has been a huge increase in the number of photoshopping apps on the market. It is gotten to the point where some influencers take pride in their photoshopping abilities. Beauty Youtuber James Charles even makes Facetune tutorials and videos where he Facetune's his fans images. The normalization of image manipulation is getting to the point where people look completely different in person and online.