The Fantasy of Instagram

Generation Z has grown up on Instagram. At its inception, the app was known for grainy filters and pictures of pets, but it is now home to micro-influencers, brand ambassadors and burgeoning internet celebrities. Instagram hosts a whole slew of unspoken rules: how to post, finding the golden ratio of likes-to-followers and followers-to-following and how often to post.

In the age of social media, how you present yourself on Instagram, whether we like to admit it or not, is meaningful. People use social media profiles to scope out red flags after a first date; we follow each other on Instagram just as often as we ask for numbers. Many Northwestern roommate origin stories started on the NU Class Instagram and through direct messages. 

Akili Moree, a fourth-year studying Communications, is an ardent critic of social media and the cultures it creates online. He dissects this modern cultural phenomenon in his “internet analysis” TikTok series, which has amassed over 100,000 followers and millions of views (and no, the irony isn’t lost on him).

“Instagram just does not allow people to share their thoughts in a meaningful way,” Moree says. “By nature, it’s just, like, all about the performance.”

Moree explains how the fantasy of Instagram plays out in our daily lives. The desire to seek out beauty is innate to human nature. Yet Moree says Instagram has deepened this desire for many young people.

“I just think we kind of morph our lives into making it look pretty,” Moree says. “The lines kinda get blurred sometimes between what you’re doing because you actually like it and what you’re doing because you think it looks good.”

Moree finds that Instagram feeds into the hyperawareness of the self: how we look, who we associate with and how we aestheticize our lives. In the past, Moree has even found himself using this as a driving factor in some friendships. 

The shallow nature of Instagram seems to produce a vain, self-indulgent and self-important culture — both inside and outside of the screen.

Moree expressed the notion that there will always be influencers –– Instagram simply took the idea of influencing and expanded it. However, social media-specific influencers further feed into the fantasy, allure and escapism of Instagram and TikTok.

“We all wanna have this image of beauty and perfection and all of these things, and we can all project on one person,” Moree says. “It shields us from having to look in the mirror and be like, ‘But that doesn’t actually make you happy.’ No matter what, people are gonna find some way to glorify other people.”

In this fantasy we portray online, Moree explains everything in your life, even people, can become an accessory with which you can promote self-image.

“It’s so ingrained in your brains that you forget it sometimes,” he says.

Although this may seem obsessive at face value, it’s a reality that many young people, navigating and developing their sense of self both online and away from their screens, are reckoning with. These are questions that we all ask ourselves, whether explicitly or implicitly: how do I want to be perceived? How do I want to express who I am? How can I express myself with my profile?

With the unnecessary pressure we self-impose on social media apps, there seems to be a counterinsurgency aiming to combat this –– the push to #makeinstagramcasualagain. Now, there is a rise in the photo dump, unfiltered photos and chaotic candid shots that signal one is being authentic, which can be equally insidious according to Moree. This signaling is, in and of itself, another twisted way to perform online.

Yet, in the era of TikTok and BeReal, people seem to be drifting further from Instagram’s facade. Moree finds the shift to casual platforms and less filtered content to be expected, as aesthetics in social media naturally shift every few years.

Instagram is not going anywhere for the time being. Instead of jumping ship and deleting the app, many are defying the arbitrary, self-imposed rules in the world of social media — and just having fun with it.

“I feel like Instagram is more fun when you can post pictures of other things,” Moree says. “Who wants to be on social media and be stressed out when you’re stressed throughout your day?”