Instagram: Immersing us in a "temporary reality of populated meme-crap!"
I want to celebrate this cultural essay by Zach Webb, writing for thebaffler.com. Webb is incensed that a bunch of entrepreneurs are charging more than the Louvre so that millennials and others can photograph themselves with ice cream, or in one of eight pre-editted dreamscapes.
To make matters more commercial, most of these "look at my picture now" rooms are sponsored by web brands. The noose of selfie celebrity tightens beneath our chins.
The good news is Webb sees what's happening clearly, and he can write. Starting with the quote in the headline above. Yes, we are, in fact living in "populated meme-crap." Over 150,000 repostings from The Museum of Ice Cream, late of Miami and elsewhere, sponsored by Dove, Tinder, and American Express (swipe right on that shit!). What does Webb have to say about this? He quotes Jonathan Crary, author of 24/7, to build up steam:
To make matters more commercial, most of these "look at my picture now" rooms are sponsored by web brands. The noose of selfie celebrity tightens beneath our chins.
The good news is Webb sees what's happening clearly, and he can write. Starting with the quote in the headline above. Yes, we are, in fact living in "populated meme-crap." Over 150,000 repostings from The Museum of Ice Cream, late of Miami and elsewhere, sponsored by Dove, Tinder, and American Express (swipe right on that shit!). What does Webb have to say about this? He quotes Jonathan Crary, author of 24/7, to build up steam:
“[W]hatever remaining pockets of everyday life are not directed toward quantitative or acquisitive ends, or cannot be adapted to telematic participation,” argues Crary, “tend to deteriorate in esteem and desirability.” Into this melt of non-enthusiasm for a less mediated life—and no doubt mesmerized by the Museum of Ice Cream’s reported six million dollars in revenue..."...Webb leads us into The Dream Machine. Get your iPhones out! And read these gems from Webb's analysis.
- "Implicit in the terms and conditions of the Dream Machine’s user experience is (contra the ad copy) imaginative acquiescence.
- "...in the cool glow of [The Machine lobby's] neon sign, the crowd shifts—waiting, scrolling, anticipating how they will contort themselves photogenically in the tableaux to come."
"This idiot pageant designed specifically for Instagram, in other words, this plasticized dreamworld, is more and more the very stuff of our lives, or at least the stories we tell ourselves."Instagram and the tangible businesses that have sprung up to offer physical manifestations of posing stations create vapid illusions of escaping vapidity. Webb has a field day pointing this out, and the discrepancy between marketing language and reality at The Dream Machine provides ample grist. I can't possibly top Webb on this analysis...amazing job...so I'll borrow a final beautiful short excerpt, as a warning to all of us who hand over our lives to social media:
"...the Machine both assaults and abets this idea of the apparatus as a relief from life and labor. It is, for one, just as overcrowded and saturated with sweat-air as the city outside—perhaps more so. Further, the user is not absolved from labor by any means—its evidence merely eludes the frame. They work diligently and without shame in the staging of themselves and their companions for photographs. (Almost no one travels to the Dream Machine alone). On the other hand, a frolic through these vistas requires not an ounce of critical engagement from the user, which is all to say that the Machine is exactly like the “real world”—only worse. "
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