TheGuardian posted an interesting analysis of the Instagram influence on travel:
– The Instagrammability of a destination is apparently now the number one motivation for booking a holiday for millennials.
– These Instagrammers are collectively sucking the joy and spontaneity out of travel photography
– The centering of the self to such an extent is new too, and at the expense of knowledge, exploration and adventure.
– When most travel photographs on Instagram begin to look like fashion editorials you have to wonder whether anyone is learning anything.
At the end this is the worrisome effect of being an Instagrammer:
You might think social media would diversify the range of images we see, yet the most popular users operate according to a strict schema that takes full advantage of the relevant algorithms (creative, fascinating accounts are still there, but said algorithms make them harder to find). And it’s not just travel – it’s interiors, fashion, weddings, food, children. Social media encourages the memeification of human experience. Instead of diversity we see homogeneity. It’s extremely boring.
I couldn’t agree more.
My friend and professional swedish Fashion Photographer Jockum Klenell commented on this:
It has so many negative sides for photography as a communicative medium and its killing our curiosity as travellers. I have no need of going to Bali because it feels, digitally, as if half of the world population with a smartphone and insta account has been there. This is a massive dark philosophical void which is very depressing to think about.
Luckily, and this is what I hang on to, all those people that the article is about, will never see or photograph what we will or what we look for in our images. That keeps us different from those masses who all do the same thing.
It only encourages me to step further away from the mass production of selfies at well known sites.