The Perils of the “Photo Dump” - by Madison Huizinga
I first downloaded Instagram the summer before sixth grade. Charmingly awkward and socially aloof, I probably posted close to ten photos a day for the first few years I had it. I would open up the camera on the Instagram app and snap pictures of the world around me. Even though I was a child then, still learning social cues, this usage seemed in tandem with how adults in my life were using Instagram as well. Maybe they weren’t posting ten times a day, but the pictures they shared were utterly raw. Grainy, blurry, and sometimes slapped with an aggressive filter. It was a place to more easily share life with family, friends, and acquaintances. A digital version of a family photo album sitting on your grandma’s coffee table. Virtual postcards stuck with magnets on a fingerprint-smudged refrigerator. Thanks for reading Madison’s Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Upgrade to paid Fast forward to roughly 2012 through 2018, rather than a laid-back flipboo
Photo by Alicia Steels from Unsplash I first downloaded Instagram the summer before sixth grade. Charmingly awkward and socially aloof, I probably posted close to ten photos a day for the first few years I had it. I would open up the camera on the Instagram app and snap pictures of the world around me. Even though I was a child then, still learning social cues, this usage seemed in tandem with how adults in my life were using Instagram as well. Maybe they weren’t posting ten times a day, but the pictures they shared were utterly raw. Grainy, blurry, and sometimes slapped with an aggressive…
related reading
- #146: The problem with “being present”haleynahman.substack.com
- a gen z guide to fixing your doom-pilled brainstephstiner.substack.com
- your phone is the reason you have no identitytheweeklyscrapbook.substack.com
- Instagram’s Evolution – Stratechery by Ben Thompsonstratechery.com
- Manufactured Recollection — Real Lifereallifemag.com
- The Social Media Trap - David Perellperell.com
- Less TikTok, More Screamingpersinette.substack.com
- Look at Me - by Adam Tanous - View from the Westadamtanous.substack.com
- Poparazzi photo app blows up by banning selfiesconstine.substack.com
- MY PHONE IS FOR ME, BUT IT IS ALSO FOR YOUchiasm.substack.com
- Faded Pictures — Real Lifereallifemag.com
- failing upcrystalxduan.substack.com