At the beginning of 2021, I started a “casual” Instagram – along with many others – where we posted monthly photo dumps and recaps of our lives, capturing the little moments as well as the big ones. I honestly love it, it feels like Pinterest exploded everywhere and makes me less worried about comparing myself on social media. Everything is no longer incredibly posed.
I love my photo dumps by the way — I never edit photos anymore unless I want the photos to more closely resemble the reality. The majority of my feed is composed of photos recollecting the weeks/months/days that have gone by.
I don’t think I’ll ever turn back.
On the other hand, photo dumps are exhausting and I have no clue how to take the perfect artsy but not too try-hard photos most of the time. I wanted to start taking photos of what my life actually looked like, so I could look back on the memories of pretty vases of flowers and how nice the light looks through the stairwells that I’m forced to climb to reach my apartment. I wanted to share a nuanced version of my human experience, especially since my life is not as glamorous as the overly posed and perfectly edited shots made widely available by photo-friendly cities. But it still feels like I’m trying way too hard to be casual. Influencers indulge in the casual Instagram and are posting incredibly posed and glamorous lifestyles that are edited and unattainable…making our own feeds look like chumps.
I’m upset about it and it reminds me of the worst time on the internet, regardless of how pretty it is.
Let’s think about 2017 summer, where walking downtown you’d see photo walls at every yogurt shop so you can take a photo and post it on your story resulting in free advertising. I hated them after the first month and they are even more common now! It no longer made me feel like getting frozen yogurt was a special experience after there was a two hour line to just get a prettier version. It no longer allowed me to enjoy the photos I saw online, nor experience getting nice things that just happen to be pretty.
Instagram is an unrealistic place, but with the popularity of mundane pictures filling my feed, how realistic is it? Are photo dumps a realistic and casual experience of social media? Or are we performing for our peers by curating the perfect idealized version? Are we just looking at different aesthetics of 2017 frozen yogurt that didn’t taste that great but looked amazing – yes I’m talking about Sweet Jesus in Toronto right across from the Cactus Club.
Casual Instagram can’t continue to be posed and perfect, but that doesn’t mean we should stop all together. I think there’s a way to do it, that doesn’t just “seem effortless” but actually is! You can still enjoy taking photos and sharing them with people who matter. To decrease the pressure of having monthly dumps, I try to take photos of things I simply like even though it’s not a part of my day — such as the reflection on the bus that I can’t stop staring at. I edit my photos to have lower exposure so they all fit within my feed. These things make me feel good about documenting my life and more confident in having to post for myself (and my besties) instead of strangers. I keep my Instagram public but only follow people I know and influencers I genuinely love seeing. I gain inspiration from other platforms like Pinterest and try to participate in trends that I enjoy because I know there’s no pressure to be perfect.
Casual posts are a good thing and allow us to express ourselves rather than just reproducing content that’s the same on everyone’s feed. But the way we participate is key in maintaining authenticity. Photo dumps can be great if you actually care about what you post, rather than just a carefully curated collection of what you’d want your life to be.
Have fun with it and screw the aesthetic.