Originally used as a photo editing platform, VSCO blew up around 2019 as a form of social media used by teenagers to post photos with their own unique style and editing process, typically different from what would be posted on a mainstream media platform such as Instagram.
After discovering my love for Pinterest, I was reminded of an app that I used to use, and that I consider to be very similar to Pinterest: VSCO. During my freshman and sophomore years of high school, this app became really popular among my peers and me. I remember enjoying VSCO so much at the time because of the feeling that I had a certain handle of freedom on it compared to what I held on Instagram. Since VSCO wasn’t so mainstream and I only followed my real-life friends on it, I was able to express a new style of posting and editing on VSCO, and I assume this feeling of freedom applied to many other users.
After three years, I decided to redownload VSCO and I have rediscovered that freedom – almost a judgment free zone – that I used to experience when I originally used the app. I use it frequently to view other creators and I take inspiration from them to use on my own photos. For me, this new era of VSCO has changed the way I style or pose my photos. For instance, I find myself taking pictures of things that I used to only dream of knowing how to document and edit in a way that I would like to post to social media.
I am admitting to the fact that I went to my old account and looked at many of my friends’ accounts, and was shocked to see that a handful of their accounts were still active. I may be late to this re-discovery of VSCO, but I believe this shows that people enjoy posting privately, especially because of the fact that a lot of posts that were on their VSCO accounts were not on their Instagram pages. And on a few of the accounts, I noticed some were trying to create a certain aesthetic, which I believe ties into the creative outlook that comes with using VSCO. This outlook provides a way for people to discover how they want to represent themselves on the internet without the eyes of their mass following on other media platforms. The reason VSCO is pretty private is because it can be hard to find users, as you would have to know their exact username to find the account or have direct-link access.
I encourage those who want to discover their own certain style of photography, while having some privacy and other creators to inspire them, to redownload their old VSCO accounts or go ahead and download it for the first time.