Why I love/hate instagram
by asi
Why I love instagram
Because I’m fond of anything that makes people happy and instagram has tons of this rare quality .
Because it makes creating beautiful photos so easy it’s actually ridiculous
Because it’s user experience, attention to detail and simplicity is just great
Why I hate instagram
Because it gives people the illusion of creativity. It can’t be that easy to make beautiful photos and to some extent it dilutes ‘real’ creativity
Because it gives people permission to dial up the noise on my stream (more here)
Asi,
Dude – we clearly need to have a drink or two and talk about this…
My heart genuinely sank when I read your blog post. I cannot understand what you mean by “the illusion of creativity”, or that it dlutes ‘real’ creativity…
What do you mean?
How do you define ‘real’ creativity?
Why is it ridiculous that a tool could do this? It seems to me that history is full of moments where technology has provided tools that open up ideas and creativity to people. How is this one different?
For my money, Instagram gives people a very powerful new tool, and a set of new tools, to share their thoughts with other people in an unknown way through images.
I can’t see why anyone could find this hateful and I’m genuinely surprised.
I also always find it weird when people complain that their opt-in streams are too noisy. You should just unfollow people until you reach the level you want, starting with the Instgrammers. It is of course possible for people creating content to abuse the opt-in nature of the way these things work. But they only work when people actively manage these graphs. It *is* currently harder work than it should be at this early stage, but that’s something that will get sorted out as the software gets better.
Hope you are bearing up with all the second child scariness! Look forward to seeing you soon.
T
Hey Tim what a great surprise!
Oh don’t take me too seriously mate… Of course it is genuinely awesome. I’m not a ‘real’ hater, it’s my alter-ego that occasionally rants about internet phenomenas and our fetishistic relationships with new darlings, platforms and gadgets…
But I think that the debate on the democratisation of creativity is valid and worth the brainshag. I don’t know what ‘real’ creativity is, to be honest.
And the fact that it is too easy to make beautiful objects is both a-may-zing and odd – it does banalises creativity (whatever creativity is) or does something else to it. Putting a lomo filter on something doesn’t make it good and instagram gives you the illusion that it is….
Let’s talk more over a pint soon – please.
A.