Check back soon
Once posts are published, you’ll see them here.
top of page
Let's Play!
Instagram isn't the social media you thought it was.
How To Play
A few weeks ago, a couple friends and I took a weekend trip to Washington, D.C. After spending all day walking through museums and monuments, we made it back to the house where we were staying and finally sat down to rest our legs. Immediately, one of us said, “We forgot to take a picture for Instagram!” You see, we were in an interesting place and a good picture in an interesting place leads to many likes. Despite our exhaustion, we dressed up, redid our make up, and took pictures until we were satisfied that we all looked good in one. We sat down again and laughed at how ridiculous we were. How could “likes” motivate us to push past our exhaustion?
My experience with Instagram is one shared with many users. Instagram creates an ambition in it’s users to fight for likes and followers. Many people simply view Instagram as a social medium with an emphasis on pictures. However, if you look at the definition of social media, there are some alarming discrepancies between it and Instagram. Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines social media as “forms of electronic communication through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content.” While, yes, Instagram is a form of electronic communication and it gives the ability to share personal messages and content, it does not match up with the rest of the definition. The lack of meaningful interactions prevents community, the confining Instagram aesthetic prevents the sharing of any ideas or information, and the users perpetuate these detrimental means.
Viewing Instagram simply as a social medium disregards the fact that the competitive components of Instagram hinder the exchange of ideas and relationships that are necessary. If everyone keeps viewing Instagram as innocent, nobody will know until it’s too late that we’re losing this platform with a lot of potential while simultaneously crushing the users’s self esteem. Therefore, “social media” is not an accurate description for Instagram. Instead, the rules, the goals, the winners, the losers, all seem to be pieces of a game. The same elements that make up Monopoly are parts of Instagram, and in fact describe it better than those of “social media”. Thus, Instagram’s competitive nature prohibits it from being a social medium and in turn creates a game.
The Objective
A notification showing new likes, new followers and new comments (Graziano).
How do you win? The first component of any game is the objective. In Instagram, the objective is painfully obvious; get the most likes and followers. These numbers are on every picture and every account, branding the status of “Winner” or “Loser”. It is very easy to keep track of how well you are doing in the game when you have statistical evidence to support your Instagram standing. Caroline Moss, a journalist for Business Insider, investigated what it was like to play the game. Her research lead her to conclude, “It's a pure numbers game. The point is to get as many followers as you can and follow as few as possible. More followers = more popular” (Moss). Popularity is clearly on the minds of the teenage to young adult population using Instagram. The numerical validation is in the number of followers and likes per picture. However, if the likes and followers were only representations of popularity, I wouldn’t be convinced of Instagram’s game like tendencies. It is more than that; users strategically plan photographs that will get more likes and fight for more followers. Moss explains further all the tricks she played in order to get more followers such as her extensive use of hashtags to get her photos more exposure. She also started a follow for follow campaign, a technique in which an account will promise to follow another account back, which usually generates more followers (Moss). These processes are contrived with the specific end goal, to get the most followers. While not every user tries these extreme techniques, there is still this continuing strive for likes and followers. Maybe at one point Instagram was a place for self-expression, but as it has developed, so has the evaluation of popularity and it's rewards.
Promotional image from buylikes.net, a site that allows you to buy likes on your Instagram pictures.
Not only does this culture of goal oriented posting transform Instagram into a game, but it also destroys the aspects of the platform that are inherent to social media. As Merriam-Webster defined, social mediums are places to create communities. Yet, the calculating objective to get likes and followers despite the costs, ruins meaningful connections and relationships on Instagram. In Moss’s experiment, she admits that her technique “wasn't helping [her] make more friends on Instagram or keep the ones [she] already had.” Social media is about being able to keep contact with friends and family, but this fight for numbers only ends up with empty likes and anonymous followers. Buylikes.net is a service that gives automatic likes on your Instagram photos—for the right price, of course. Their packages go from $9.95 a month, for 50 likes per post, to $73.95 a month, for 1000 likes per post (Buylikes.net). These types of services reiterate the focus on numbers, but not the relationships that are supposed to go along with the likes. They’re just empty likes that put you ahead in the game instead of fostering conversation and support.
Of course, not everyone is crazily fighting for followers. Purchasing likes off the internet and adding a block of hashtags underneath each photo are time and finance consuming techniques. Some people are happy with followers that they know and they don’t like to invest their time and energy into trying to achieve thousands of adoring followers. However, this doesn’t exempt these players from the game. Just because they aren’t as ambitious as some of the other players, doesn’t mean they don’t have the same goal in mind; to get likes and followers. The difference is some Instagrammers aren’t concerned with winning, but more concerned with not losing, or getting embarrassingly low likes on a picture. Annie, a 14 year old girl from England says “if I get less than 75-80 likes, I delete it. That's embarrassing,” and she adds her own personal goal, “My record is 195 – it's my aim to get over 200” (Fisher). As you can see, her goal isn’t to achieve celebrity status, but she still strives to get enough likes and has set goals for herself to achieve. There is this continuing competitive aspect to reach a certain number. Dove says that girls want three times more likes than they are currently getting and that 1 out of 4 girls have deleted a photo if it doesn’t get enough likes (Fisher). These are not small statistics—many girls see the act of posting photos a game to get enough likes. Whether the user will go to the sneaky and strategic means depends on the person, however this objective is still on the minds of everyone playing the game. A lot more is on the line however than one of a simple board game; Instagrammers are gambling their self worth.
The Rules
Once there is an objective in mind, the next item on the instruction manual is the rules. Rules are a very clear distinction between a game and a social network. Of course, on every platform there are limitations and guidelines, however the rules of Instagram are as thorough and limiting as those of a game. There are restrictions of what kind of pictures you post, how often, and what time of the day. Not only do these rules make the comparison of Instagram to a game, but they also distance it from a social medium. Freedom is a requirement for social media so people are able to create their own content. Even though these limitations are unspoken, they still control who wins and loses in the game. Winners, modeling the rules, perpetuate these guidelines, and we all lose the originality of a social media.
The community guidelines for Instagram.
Following the rules leads to more likes and followers, but these rules are not sanctioned by the creators. The rules of Instagram go beyond just the politeness and policy that the Terms of Use states. Instagram lists their community guidelines as “Share only photos and videos that you’ve taken or have the right to share,” “Post photos and videos that are appropriate for a diverse audience,” “Foster meaningful and genuine interactions,” “Follow the law,” “Respect other members of the Instagram community,” “Maintain our supportive environment by not glorifying self-injury,” and “Be thoughtful when posting newsworthy events.” As you can see, Instagram’s policies are put in place to protect themselves and others while using this platform. They want to make sure that the site is used for good, clean fun instead of a place for people to break laws and display inappropriate pictures. This also saves Instagram from legal situations that I’m sure could rise up if they didn’t have evidence that they don’t condone illegal or inappropriate activities. It also is there to protect the users from seeing shocking, inappropriate, or grotesque images.
However, the user created guidelines take precedence in the game. In a Vogue article, Hayley Bloomingdale, the social media editor for Moda Operendi, breaks down the real rules that Instagrammers need to follow. She outlines what people should post on Instagram by nixing cliches (like food posts, coffee art, cheesy quotes, etc.)(Bloomingdale). Bloomingdale describes the restrictions on the frequency of posts and the exceptions, the use of filters and hashtags (which ones to avoid and those exceptions), selfies and selfie sticks, videos, collages, and more. While these guidelines might seem a little far fetched, Bloomingdale’s 20,000 followers on Instagram can vouch for her. In contrast to Instagram’s policies, these rules are not for safety, but for aesthetic. They were created to point towards one cohesive Instagram look. In turn, to play the game and get the likes and followers you have to follow the rules. If you think these rules are too extreme Bloomingdales says, “Instagram isn’t for everyone." This game for likes and potential fame is clearly a constant process that requires lots of thought and attention.
A real Instagram compared to a Finstagram (Eric).
On the other hand, it is ridiculous to think that every account follows the many rules that Instagram calls for. But, the accounts with a lot of followers and a lot of likes seem to follow at least a variation of the ones Bloomingdale spelled out in the Vogue article. If you lose a game by not following the rules, it makes sense that if you don’t follow these tacit rules of Instagram, you have less followers and likes. This is exemplified in Finstagrams, a reaction to Instagram’s inherent artificiality (Garber). Finstigrams, or “Fake Instagrams”, are accounts in which users throw out the rules and post low quality, unattractive, or embarrassing photos (Garber). They typically only have a few followers and are locked away from outsiders (Garber). While this shows that breaking the rules leads to lower followers and likes, or “losing the game”, it also speaks to user’s pushback to the game-like quality of Instagram. People are tired of competing for likes and followers. At some point, they just want a free space to post whatever they want.
Pictures from Socality Barbie’s Instagram.
Such limiting rules kill the user oriented power of social media. They are detrimental to Instagram’s community because they hinder self-expression and originality. Criticisms like Socality Barbie, an account that mimics the Instagram trends with a Barbie, call attention to this decrease in authentic Instagram accounts. When all the users follow the same guidelines and rules, all the accounts begin to look extremely similar. It may be funny to see these trends reenacted by a Barbie, but it does bring up serious truths about the game Instagrammers play. Certain types of pictures get more likes, and so we mimic these pictures to further our own pieces in the game. This defeats the very power social media provides its users—the power to post your own content and share yourself with the world. The rules in the game of Instagram prohibit the exchange of new ideas; just the exchange of the same pictures reenacted by different people. Therefore, Instagram is not actually a true social media.
It can be argued that the strict rules of Instagram don’t completely stop the information and communication. This is true; a user can post something that gives the viewer an insight on their life as an attempt to communicate with their audience. However, communication isn’t the goal with Instagrammers playing the game. They want to post pictures that will get them the most likes and followers, which is typically the same pictures other people are posting. Furthermore, when a user is talking to their followers, they are focused more on themselves than those that they are talking to. According to AsapSCIENCE, a normal conversation is about 30%-40% about one person. On social media, the conversation is 80% about the poster (AsapSCIENCE). So when an Instagrammer posts something, they aren’t really starting a conversation. And when that post is filtered through all the rules, aesthetics, and edits it is hard to see what the poster was originally saying, if anything, in the first place.
The Winners
Once you have played the game, counted all the likes, and tallied up the score, the next question to ask is “who won?” The winners of this game are those who have reached star status purely by rising up through Instagram. When an Instagrammer accumulates a large amount of followers, they become well known within the medium. This gives them the status of “Instagram Famous” or “Instagram Star”. There are celebrities that join the game and are instantly famous because they were famous beforehand, such as Beyonce (with 68.9 million followers), Selena Gomez (with 76.6 million followers), or Justin Timberlake (with 26.3 million followers). The excitement of the game, however, is that anyone can win. Anyone can become “Instagram Famous” just by posting photos that other people want to see. The numbers might not be as impressive as those of previously famous musicians and actors, but they are still impressive nonetheless. Some of these Instagram stars are Alexis Ren (with 5 million followers), Jay Alvarez (with 3.7 million followers), Marriana Hewitt (with 555,000 followers), and Margaret Zhang (with 734,000 followers). These people who would have otherwise had a much, much smaller following, now are adored by hundreds of thousands, to millions of people.
A picture from Lita Lewis’s Instagram
Instagram stardom is about more than just the Instagram followers. It can lead to fame and fortune in the real world. People are partaking in this competitive game at a chance at “the good life.” Elle Magazine highlighted several Instagrammers who reached stardom and are now making a living off of their new fame (“How These 6 Stars Turned Instagram Into A Full Time Job”). Lita Lewis, an Instagram star with 403,000 followers whose primary focus is fitness and wellness, says that “It’s very easy for people doing everything I’m doing to make seven figures no problem” (“How These 6 Stars Turned Instagram Into A Full Time Job”). Another Star, Katie Rogers,with 644,000 followers, says that she makes “enough that I could quit my job, move into a one bedroom on the Upper East Side, and travel. My salary has multiplied since my corporate days,” (“How These 6 Stars Turned Instagram Into A Full Time Job”). These people are furthering their careers by simply posting pictures like everyone else. But, Instagram stars are not only making money, they’re making solid salaries without the confines of a job. Not to mention the adoring fans. On one of Lewis’s photos, she received 4,536 likes and 75 comments, declaring her “the hottest women in the world” and praising her looks. These stars are making a fair salary by being lauded and idolized by a large following. It is understandable that this is a goal for the players of the game. The prize is what people inherently wish for: fame and fortune. Except now it seems more achievable.
A video, by Instagram Star Alexa Losey, making fun of tips on how to get “Instagram Famous”.
However, this hope and strive for Instagram fame is what fuels the detrimental practices that are ruining this platform. In turn, these stars perpetuate the game by fostering the hopes of Instagram fame. One Instagram star, Essena O’Neil, spoke out against the idea of Social Media celebrities and deleted all her accounts (Chan-Laddaran). Before she reached the pinnacle of her fame, being an Instagram star was only a dream (Chan-Laddaran). She wrote on her website that she followed other social media celebrities and said, "I dreamed of being one. I studied them, I envied them, I put in a lot of effort to be one of them” (Chan-Laddaran). O’Neil speaking out is brave because she tore down the wall between star status and followers. She honestly and genuinely admitted that she played the game to get where she is, and that it is not worth it. While on the other hand, most of the other stars play it nonchalant, acting as if Instagram fame is something you stumble upon if you just post the right pictures. This attitude actually supports the idea of Instagram fame because it reiterates the fact that everyone has a chance. In Alexa Lousey’s video “HOW TO BECOME INSTAGRAM FAMOUS” she makes fun of the tips and tricks on how to become Instagram famous. At the end she says “If your goal is to get Instagram famous reevaluate your whole life” (Losey). However, this is coming from someone who is the epitome of Instagram fame. With 823,000 followers, she too played the game to reach her success and followed all the rules and tips and tricks to get there. These nonchalant examples of fame and fortune support the belief that if you just follow all the rules and post the right things, you too can win the prize. While both these stars denounce the idea of Instagram fame, Losey’s seems less genuine and in turn promotes the idea of stardom. Perhaps, because she still has all of her own followers, and all of the tips she “made fun of” are concepts you can see throughout her Instagram feed. Whereas O’Neil completely cut herself off from the ties of social media fame and admitted her own flaws when she was playing the game. Regardless, stars have the power to shape if we want to continue to play the game to win the prize. As long as users continue to support that “winning the game” leads to a better life, they will continue to treat Instagram like a game instead of using it as a social medium.
The Losers
Where there are winners, there are also losers. The losers aren’t just the people with low follower counts, bad follower to following ratio, or poor number of likes per picture. When we play this game, everyone is a loser. Instagram as a game takes the place of Instagram as a social medium, which has a lot of potential; a platform to break your life into simple snap shots and communicate with followers is unlike any other social medium. Facebook and Twitter aren’t solely photo based and they clutter users with albums and texts. Snap chat is temporary that doesn’t allow for the thoughtfulness of an Instagram feed. However, Instagram isn’t treated as a social medium because of the rules, the ruthless goals and objectives, and the high reward of winning. And so we all lose the benefits that this one of a kind platform offers.
Furthermore, the stakes of treating Instagram like a game isn’t just the loss of Instagram as a medium. The losers also take a hit to their self-esteem. While other social media sites also have effects towards people’s self esteem, Instagram’s competitive nature heightens them. Researchers, Vogel, Rose, Roberts, and Eckles say that even though looking up to these winners can “inspire people to be more like their comparison targets, it often causes people to feel inadequate, have poor self evaluations, and experience negative affect” (206, 207). And Instagrammers have set very out of reach goals; the Instagram stars. The constant comparison to someone who has thousands of likes on their pictures destroys user’s self esteem. Not to mention, personal goals they set for themselves. Emily, a 14-year-old girl from England says, “If less than 40 like it, I feel deflated though. And it can be upsetting sometimes when a friend posts one and you think 'Why can't I be that pretty?’” (Fisher). When people play the game and see the numbers (of likes or followers), it gives them a numerical value of their self worth. For some, it is the comparison to the Instagram Stars who have high likes, for others it is just about the comparison with friends.
Essena O’Neil’s video explanation on why she quit Instagram. Reposted by iKayrn after Essena deleted all her social media accounts.
How can everyone be a loser when some people are benefitting immensely from the game-like set up of Instagram? You could say stars are cashing in on other users’s insecurities, but they are still winning the game. While Instagram celebrities are definitely benefitting, that doesn’t exclude them from the destruction of self-esteem. Essena O’Neil, the Instagram Star that spoke out against social media, said that the number of followers and the number of likes was never enough. She talks about her own struggles with Instagram and how even though she “won” she still lost. A common misconception is that fame and fortune will lead you to happiness, but this isn’t true. In fact, being wrapped up with people’s perceptions of you, makes you less happy and have lower self worth. Therefore, even though Instagram stars are winning, they are still losing their self worth like everyone else playing the game.
Game Over
As you can see, Instagram’s failure in the exchange of new ideas and meaningful connections, combined with it’s competitive nature, hinder it from being a social medium. It is instead better described as a game. When we view this platform as it truly is, we can see the flaws in it. Instagram pits users against each other and puts value in meaningless numbers, only to praise a select few on their image. This value, and the rewards that come with winning, leads to the poor self-esteem of all users. Perhaps if people realize that Instagram is a game, losing it’s credibility as a social medium, the competition and the worth of likes and followers will also lose their credibility. Users may fight and struggle for the game, but at the end of the day they’re all grasping at the equivalent of Monopoly money.
Works Cited
AsapSCIENCE. "5 Crazy Ways Social Media Is Changing Your Brain Right Now." Youtube. Youtube. 7 Sep. 2014. Web. 5 May. 2016.
Bloomingdale, Hayley. "The Instagram Rules: The Good, the Bad, and the Very Boring." Vogue. Vogue, 26 Aug. 2015. Web. 01 May 2016.
Buylikes.net. Buylikes.net. Buylikes.net., 2005. Web. 1 May 2016.
Chan-Laddaran, Kerry. "Instagram Star Essena O'Neill: Social Media Is Not Real." CNN. Cable News Network, 4 Nov. 2015. Web. 1 May 2016.
Eric. My Friend Caroline’s Real Instagram. 10 Feb. 2015. Medium. Web. 1 May 2016.
Eric. My Friend Caroline’s Finstagram. 10 Feb. 2015. Medium. Web. 1 May 2016.
Fisher, Lorraine. "'Could YOUR Daughter Be Damaging Her Self Esteem by Taking Selfies? The Sad Answer Is Yes...'" Daily Mail. Associated Newspapers, 10 Oct. 2015. Web. 27 Mar. 2016.
Garber, Megan. "Instagram, Unfiltered." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 18 Nov. 2015. Web. 20 Mar. 2016.
Graziano, Giada. Instagram Notification. 2 Sep. 2015. Web. 5 May. 2016.
"How These 6 All Stars Turned Instagram Into a Full-Time Job." ELLE. Hearst Digital Media, 17 May 2015. Web. 01 May 2016.
iKaryn. “Essena O'Neill - Why I REALLY am quitting social media - (Original Video).” Youtube. YouTube, 3 Nov. 2015. Web. 1 May 2016.
Instagram. Instagram Help Center. Instagram., N.d. Web. 1 May 2016.
Lewis, Lita. Followthelita’s Instagram. Instagram., N.d. Web. 1 May 2016.
Losey, Alexa. “HOW TO BE INSTAGRAM FAMOUS.” YouTube. YouTube, 9 Jan 2016. Web. 1 May 2016.
Moss, Caroline. "I Tried Using Instagram Like A Teenager - And It Completely Changed The Way I See The App." Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 11 June 2014. Web. 01 May 2016.
"Social Media." Def. 1. Merriam-Webster. Merriam- Webster, n.d. Web. 1 May 2016.
SocalityBarbie. SocalityBarbie’s Instagram. Instagram., N.d. Web. 1 May 2016.
Vogel, Erin A., Jason P. Rose, Lindsay R. Roberts, and Katheryn Eckles. "Social Comparison, Social Media, and Self-Esteem." Psychology of Popular Media Culture 3.4 (2014): 206-22. APA PsycNet. Web. 20 Mar. 2016.
Witten, Danielle. Instagram: The Game! 2016. Digital Art.
Witten, Danielle. Game Graphic. 2016. Digital Art.
bottom of page