When I saw this colorful mural along 6th Ave a few months ago, two things came to mind: first, excitement about this vibrant and positive placemaking artwork; and second, immediately calling it an “Instagrammable wall.” Regardless, I got a photo in front of it, posted it to my Instagram Story, then didn’t think more about it.
I stumbled upon this photo in my archive and thought of some recent articles I read about Instagram. There was a great piece in Curbed this past February about the social acceptability/nuisance of Instagrammers, influencers, and their photographers inundating popular facades, buildings, and walls with all the pomp that goes behind getting their perfect shot. And then there was a recent piece in The Atlantic about the shifting “Instagram aesthetic.” Formulaic posts that this platform’s algorithm validates (i.e. bright walls, millennial pink, vibrant stylized lifestyles) have suffocated our feeds to the point of exhaustion, and are less likely to be the style of content purveyed by younger influencers.
Now, I am not, nor do I ever strive to become, an influencer, but I have noted how this app has influenced how I curate my feed (and how even that continues to change). To me, this photo falls into the very category of generic “Instagrammable” content that these articles dissect, and I’m sure it will still garnish far more likes than many of my other posts that I personally find more interesting. Moreover, this photo of me posing in front of this colorful mural says nothing about how I spend most of my time, which is seldom visually exciting.
So, probably for one last time, here is a photo of me in front of a colorful wall. I’m not here to sell you skin care products. I don’t have a promo code for new denim shorts. The “success” of this post will make no difference for my wallet. I’m just straight up cheesin like hundreds of thousands of other Instagrammers who thought to take their picture in front of yet another colorful wall.